Bells

[expiring_touch]

This part of Hamburg looks and feels Siberian
retracing chubby childish fingers
along the footnote creased in exile.
Its air has intake and a bit of spring
that sends the leafy shadows quivering
against the patchy asphalt.
Its scent of apple trees in bloom
is hanging like a green halo and caught
between my highs-strung ankles –
For I am overturned this spring,
watching the dusk descend
down my hair – its very ends
I tied to ancient bells in bronze,
announcing summer’s
coming.

[Wjames]

This part of Hamburg looks and feels Siberian
retracing chubby childish fingers
along the footnote creased in exile. The first line seems disconnected from the following two. Perhaps you could put a semi-colon after the first line, or add something in-between the first and second lines to minimize this.
Its air has intake and a bit of spring
that sends the leafy shadows quivering
against the patchy asphalt. I don't know what having intake means, but this is a nice image.
Its scent of apple trees in bloom
is hanging like a green halo and caught
between my highs-strung ankles – should it just be high?
For I am overturned this spring,
watching the dusk descend
down my hair – its very ends
I tied to ancient bells in bronze,
announcing summer’s
coming. There's just too much going on in this last sentence for me to really take it all in. That might just be me though; once I read it a couple of times it all made sense, but I think if you simplify the closing image it would make much more of an impact the first read through (which is all most readers will give you if they don't like it the first time).

Just my thoughts as I read your poem. It does have some nice images, but I think it could use an edit to tidy it all up.

[Tiger the Lion]

This part of Hamburg looks and feels Siberian
retracing chubby childish fingers
along the footnote creased in exile.
Its air has intake and a bit of spring
that sends the leafy shadows quivering
against the patchy asphalt.
Its scent of apple trees in bloom
is hanging like a green halo and caught
between my highs-strung ankles –
For I am overturned this spring,
watching the dusk descend
down my hair – its very ends
I tied to ancient bells in bronze,
announcing summer’s
coming.

Somewhat echoing Wjames' comment I think L1 would be great as L3. I like "leafy shadows quivering" but feel I have to stop and wonder what the high strung ankles line means. I'm sure it means something to you but it is a hiccup to read. I actually really like the last sentence. But I think breaking it up might make it flow better and possibly gain momentum, For my taste it would read more powerfully as...
I am overturned this spring.
I watch the dusk descend down my hair to the very ends
I tied to ancient bells of bronze
to announce summer

Great read, Thx.

[Erthona]

This has nice description but some of the lines come off a bit awkward: Just some examples, not suggestions (some of these I am uncertain what you mean) I think this would read better in first person.

This part of Hamburg looks and feels Siberian.
I retrace my childish fingers went
across the footnotes that creased in exile. (don't really understand this)
The air has a bite/taste/feel of spring
that sends the leafy shadows quivering
against the patchy asphalt.
The scent of apple trees in bloom
hang like a green halo and caught
between my highs-strung ankles –????
I am overwhelmed as the dusk descend
down my hair to its very ends
where I tied ancient bronze bells that
announce the coming of summer.

Best,


Dale

[LorettaYoung]

This part of Hamburg looks and feels Siberian
retracing chubby childish fingers
along the footnote creased in exile.
Its air has intake and a bit of spring
that sends the leafy shadows quivering
against the patchy asphalt.
Its scent of apple trees in bloom
is hanging like a green halo and caught
between my highs-strung ankles –
For I am overturned this spring,
watching the dusk descend
down my hair – its very ends
I tied to ancient bells in bronze,
announcing summer’s
coming.

Somewhat echoing Wjames' comment I think L1 would be great as L3. I like "leafy shadows quivering" but feel I have to stop and wonder what the high strung ankles line means. I'm sure it means something to you but it is a hiccup to read. I actually really like the last sentence. But I think breaking it up might make it flow better and possibly gain momentum, For my taste it would read more powerfully as...
I am overturned this spring.
I watch the dusk descend down my hair to the very ends
I tied to ancient bells of bronze
to announce summer

Great read, Thx.

---

Hi, the first 3 lines ring for me; I think the chubby fingers as footnotes to the Russian and East Germany refugees during the cold war. Question: why are there leafy shadows before Spring? I don't understand high-strung-ankles, I had trouble understanding the last 3 lines, if you broke up line 5 I think it would be easier to understand? In general, liked the descriptive work and read. Loretta

[Wjames]

I got the image of a bell swaying almost upside down along its pendulum as it rings from the "high-strung ankles" bit, but that might just be me. This poem struck a chord with me, as at this camp me and my family go to every August there is a very old iron bell that is rung to notify people of meals, etc, and I have fond memories of playing with it as a youngster.

[QDeathstar]

This part of Hamburg looks and feels Siberian
retracing chubby childish fingers
along the footnote creased in exile.
Its air has intake and a bit of spring
that sends the leafy shadows quivering
against the patchy asphalt.
Its scent of apple trees in bloom
is hanging like a green halo and caught
between my highs-strung ankles –
For I am overturned this spring,
watching the dusk descend
down my hair – its very ends
I tied to ancient bells in bronze,
announcing summer’s
coming.

I think the ending is strange, when you are talking about moving from spring to summer, things coming to life, the open air in the country side, excitement, ect, that you decide to end it slowing down.

It feels

Like

Fall.

[sstang13]

This part of Hamburg looks and feels Siberian
retracing chubby childish fingers
along the footnote creased in exile.
Its air has intake and a bit of spring
that sends the leafy shadows quivering
against the patchy asphalt.
Its scent of apple trees in bloom
is hanging like a green halo and caught
between my highs-strung ankles –
For I am overturned this spring,
watching the dusk descend
down my hair – its very ends
I tied to ancient bells in bronze,
announcing summer’s
coming.

I specifically like the bolded part for it symbolizes the switching of character as we go through different seasons (eg. emotions) and watching the dusk descend like the hard times have come and are now on their way out.

[QDeathstar]

Night is more like winter than summer or spring though. You descend into winter and ascend into summer.

[Isis]

Overall I like the atmosphere of the poem. I get a sense of contrast between a fading winter (feels Siberian) and all the signs of spring and the coming summer that the speaker is celebrating. I also like that everything in the poem feels a little bit alive and a little bit strange. There are points where that strangeness works, and points where it loses me a bit.

I get a little lost in the first few lines:

This part of Hamburg looks and feels Siberian
retracing chubby childish fingers
along the footnote creased in exile.

Is it the part of Hamburg that's retracing fingers along the footnote? Or is it the speaker's fingers, or some other fingers? I think the idea of a city personified is cool, but because of what feels like an image/thematic disconnect between the line about the city and the fingers and footnote idea, I'm not sure if they're supposed to be one thought, or if those are separate thoughts held in the same sentence. Some clarification here would help the reader get into the poem, I think, and reach the solid images that carry the rest of it.

I wonder about about "the air has intake" but it's not enough to stop me in my reading - but it is enough to be worth revisiting in a revision, I think. Is that supposed to evoke an air intake on a building, or the air breathing itself in and out? I have to reach for an image here, and feel a little like I need to decode the line.

Here is a strange section that works, rather than loses me:

Its scent of apple trees in bloom
is hanging like a green halo and caught
between my highs-strung ankles –
For I am overturned this spring,

I feel like there are two possible meanings of "high strung ankles": saying the speaker is "high-strung", full of anxious energy; or saying that the speaker is upside down, which comes out in "overturned this spring". Gives me the impression of the speaker being bowled over by spring. I was a little confused by it the first time I read the poem, so I think the questions other people have about this aren't off base. Mostly I wonder: why ankles, in particular, that are high-strung? Why is that the body part standing in for the speaker as a whole?

There's a bit of grammatical ambiguity here, though both possible images I get from this worth with the overall gist of the poem:

watching the dusk descend
down my hair – its very ends
I tied to ancient bells in bronze,
announcing summer’s
coming.

"its very ends" could be the speakers hair or dusk, and I imagine it's dusk because that's a grander, weirder, more arresting image. But it's hard to know for sure.

[SKDink55]

This part of Hamburg looks and feels Siberian
retracing chubby childish fingers
along the footnote creased in exile.
Its air has intake and a bit of spring
that sends the leafy shadows quivering
against the patchy asphalt.
Its scent of apple trees in bloom
is hanging like a green halo and caught
between my highs-strung ankles –
For I am overturned this spring,
watching the dusk descend
down my hair – its very ends
I tied to ancient bells in bronze,
announcing summer’s
coming.

The strongest part of this poem is the first line. It is always jarring, in poetry, to be brought into the present day, rather than a reflection on the past. However, by linking the present (Hamburg) with another place (Siberia), there is a really delicate time-space dance that I really enjoyed.

What you've done well here, too, is double-take word pairings and phrases. On its face, this poem seems a breezy task, but re-reads only make it more incomprehensible. Which I actually prefer. But phrases like "its air has intake" and "the footnote" give you a sense of something, but of what? Notes like that always make me think of Ginsberg's "hydrogen jukebox," which is always a delight.

I'm having a hard time coming up with suggestions for improvement, beyond the spelling error of highs-strung that everyone has already suggested. I do find the word "very" to be superfluous here.

Thank you for sharing!!