Blackface

[PoetryAndPhysics]

After my skin ran dark,
I'd sleuth invisible at sunset
to the roof of a derelict warehouse.
The silhouette of my finger against the moon,
and the mute fathoms between stars,
were black tones nucleated by sparklers.

Eating chocolate in heat under a palm tree,
I tried beguiling lost ants into a watery pit.
We were charcoal specs
on an infinite, sandy grid.

Her Ivory Coast soles shuffled silently,
then tackled my unsuspecting, zouglou jiving feet.
We became black mambas, coiled like DNA.

My new flat screen is my new skin's color.
So is my school binder, and laptop cable.
That tarmac might just be a darker shade of blue,
but driving on top is one black Honda.

I don't think this paint helped me very much. Ah well,
empathy...


*Zouglou (pronounced like zoo, to my knowledge) is modern dance music out of the Ivory Coast.

[Todd]

One minor comment before diving into more of a critique. I enjoyed a lot of this, but felt you ran out of steam and sort of tacked on the ending. I'd consider giving that your immediate attention.

[PoetryAndPhysics]

I think what happened might've been the reverse: my earliest draft had the ending (the Honda stanza, and empathy line) nearly as is. At which point I decided to focus on the imagery and wording of the preceding three (I felt I had bigger fish to fry, and the ending was "fair enough, it's plot, isn't it?"). You're right, it needs to be fleshed out. These days I feel like a very slow writer; I don't know how much time I'll have...

Also a small technical note: black mambas aren't normally found in West Africa. Similarly, a part of me feels ashamed at including zouglou for the simple reason that I liked Ivory Coast for the line above, though I did my youtube/wikipedia research. Anyway...

[makeshift]

After my skin ran dark, Interesting image I like it, nice first line ^^
I'd sleuth invisible at sunset sleuth is a cool word had to look it up, but yeah nice sounding line
to the roof of a derelict warehouse.
The silhouette of my finger against the moon, Silhouette, another nice S-word, I like this simple image.
and the mute fathoms between stars,
were black tones nucleated by sparklers.

Eating chocolate in heat under a palm tree, Could be interesting to break on "under" idk just an idea, otherwise maybe "the heat"
I tried beguiling lost ants into a watery pit.
We were charcoal specs
on an infinite, sandy grid.

Her Ivory Coast soles shuffled silently,
then tackled my unsuspecting, zouglou jiving feet.
We became black mambas, coiled like DNA.

My new flat screen is my new skin's color.
So is my school binder, and laptop cable. I think I may be over looking the significance of this line?
That tarmac might just be a darker shade of blue,
but driving on top is one black Honda.

I don't think this paint helped me very much. Ah well,
empathy... not sure I like this ending


*Zouglou (pronounced like zoo, to my knowledge) is modern dance music out of the Ivory Coast.

I like the images and sounds here, but the occasion of the poem is kind of lost on me. From my understanding from the last line you painted yourself black, im guessing for a performance from the "zouglou jiving feet./We became black mambas, coiled like DNA" Maybe i'm a bad reader idk, if that is the case then the second stanza wouldn't realy fit, though i do like how the images of ants and chocolate play off of the night sky/painted skin/tarmac etc. . . .at anyrate I feel like my interpretation may be off, reading your line about west africa maybe this is about trying to adjust to west African culture and the painting of the skin is a metaphor for doing that Jmho thnx for sharing ^^