Deep Breath (Revision)

[billy]

Inhaling Exhaling



This is inhalation.

Think of a red balloon expanding.
Clouds sopping up light like paper towels
You in the cornfields with a scythe, at dawn;
Boys going from bush to bush, picking blueberries
As your father watches, taking his first cigarette drag.

in this verse i'd use only the last line and tack it onto the end of the
1st verse in the last edit, i'd use todd's suggestion except use it by adding
'of the morning' to make the length work

Suspense thrives here.
The murderer is still hidden,
Knife in hand, behind the door
And our heroine is not at all aware.
The magician hasn’t pulled his rabbit,
I’m about to put out my birthday candles,
A boy has picked a dandelion, wanting his wish.
this works well

This is the stock market booming
The roller-coaster creeping up an incline
You in the woods, loading your hunting rifle
As mosquitoes buzz above, blood-straws brandished-
Your silence, and impatience with them and the noon sun.
[/b]i much prefer the verse in the last edit to this one
i prefer the imagery of the opposing mirrors, they give me a
feel of lungs [/b]

This is exhalation.

Here, you’re cooling off your scolding hot spaghetti.
Someone has just told a joke about two rabbis.
Waves on the shoreline. Seagulls quarreling two ll's in quarrelling. Dawn work better for me again it feel like dawn is the beginning of exhale, it has some connection.
As you let fog onto your sunglasses.
Now, your father puffs smoke rings [is now needed?]
On the patio, and your boys
Have long been in bed.

The dark cinema erupts in horrified shouts
As the murderer emerges with a burst
And our heroine is taken by surprise.
You can here choirs singing,
The incantations of monks,
Men blowing on hands
Against street-posts. this line need something, 'backs' maybe, i don't know but as it it feels stranded on it's own.

This is the gunshot: The deer gurgling blood
And dying, your bullet resting in its rib.[is and needed]
This is the last sailboat leaving port,
Dandelion-seeds afloat in the wind
And the tears of a cheated boy.
Here, you’re on your porch,
An old man, thinking back
To blueberry picking-
Memory floods out
In a sigh.
the last verse for me is spot on

the inhale looking at what is, the exhale are the later years in his life.

i really like this one lawrence, i think if you go too far you'll kill the essence of what the poem is. some good images. though what we're getting now is a mishmash of images from the last edit and this one.
i think in places (like the 1st verse) you went a tad to far if it were me i'd ease back and take a good hard look at how good it was and try not to change it too much. all jmo of course.
thanks for the read.