Ants -- First post!

[olive_morphia]

Ants

She said she tried to move but the frost on the window wouldn't let her.
One by one they stormed through like nutcrackers made of silly ideas,
of
Are you sures and of
I don't know about thats
and of
That's the best I can do, sirs,
I swear I trieds.
click click click
They made rude noises on the floor
recently tiled
It's nice, isn't it?
I swore I wouldn't tell.
I felt the wind slap my face like I had just done something wrong
only it felt good,
like the warm fingertips of my middle-school crush --
he was so black that his fingernails glowed.
Those were the days when a deep breath counted for something:
for a bologna sandwich in the park
or a 20-calorie Fudgcicle on the back porch.
For sure,
those were the days.
I let it spill out like melted grape jelly:
sticky!
I can't even spread it so I just wait until the ants come,
first one but then hundreds starving so I ask myself,
what if we communicated like ants?
I yell and you come and you yell
and the rest follow,
one by one hundred by one thousand
until
the whole math formula covers the new tiled floor like a creepy conveyor belt
and I am alone here.

[billy]

for me there's goods and not so goods.
some good images at play. i love the image of ants formula being marched out. i got a little lost at the beginning but the poem has lots of potential

thanks for the read.

Ants

She said she tried to move but the frost on the window wouldn't let her.
One by one they stormed through like nutcrackers made of silly ideas,
of
Are you sures and of
I don't know about thats
and of the [of's] made me dally to long in order to make sure i was reading it right. i think some of the direct speech or thought could be italicised or placed in quote marks
That's the best I can do, sirs,
I swear I trieds. why the [s], if you were going for child-speak it works, though it does feel out of place.
click click click
They made rude noises on the floor
recently tiled
It's nice, isn't it?
I swore I wouldn't tell.
I felt the wind slap my face like I had just done something wrong
only it felt good,
like the warm fingertips of my middle-school crush --
he was so black that his fingernails glowed. this and the line above stand out in a good way. it makes it personal and the simile creates a strong image
Those were the days when a deep breath counted for something: those were the days when feels too cliche and a bit wordy, it could be said as [that's when]just a suggestion.
for a bologna sandwich in the park
or a 20-calorie Fudgcicle on the back porch.
For sure,
those were the days.
I let it spill out like melted grape jelly:
sticky!
I can't even spread it so I just wait until the ants come,
first one but then hundreds starving so I ask myself,
what if we communicated like ants?
I yell and you come and you yell
and the rest follow,
one by one hundred by one thousand
until
the whole math formula covers the new tiled floor like a creepy conveyor belt this is my fave line. it places a picture in my mind of a living formula of an ant calculator
and I am alone here.

[olive_morphia]

Thank you so much! I love your suggestions. The purpose of the [s] was to pluralize, but I can see how it is awkward to read and will try to figure out a way around that. Much appreciated :-)

[rowens]

I like the poem O.K. I think the bits that might be awkward were all right enough. They fit the poem.

[Erthona]

I like the double entendre(s), a nice slice of irony with that grape jelly, which can get you killed now days, grape jelly, not irony.

Excellent simile "I felt the wind slap my face like I had just done something wrong"

Best,

Dale

[Isis]

Like some of the other people commenting, I really like individual moments of this poem a lot. I think the poem does a good job of getting me to see particular moments or ideas in a fresh way. But at the same time I'm having difficulty putting it all together. I think the poem is pretty associative by nature, like maybe we're supposed to imagine for ourselves how all the different parts go together, how the glimmers of narrative and memory add up to the idea at the end of the poem, or how the parts of the poem add up to a feeling that's more than the sum of its parts. But at the same time I have lots of questions. Even though the poem seems like it's supposed to be associative on the whole, individual parts hint at a narrative. So I keep wondering what the story is even as the poem steers me in different directions or shows me a different, non-narrative idea.

The part that seems most like it could be narrative, but then isn't, is the beginning. I'm talking about these lines:

She said she tried to move but the frost on the window wouldn't let her.
One by one they stormed through like nutcrackers made of silly ideas,
of
Are you sures and of
I don't know about thats
and of
That's the best I can do, sirs,
I swear I trieds.
click click click
They made rude noises on the floor
recently tiled
It's nice, isn't it?
I swore I wouldn't tell.

The first few lines suggest that even though I don't know what's happening now, the poem might open up slowly, revealed through the silly ideas of "they", through the sort-of dialogue, or through some kind of description or metaphor to come. I don't know who "she" is at the beginning, or who the people storming through are. But I'd like to find out! My guess is that "she" is someone the speaker is responsible for or related to, like a mother or grandmother. And I'm also guessing that "they" are doctors, or other relatives, addressing the speaker, telling the speaker how they can't make the first figure move or see that there is no frost on the window. This seems to be the most narrative part of the poem because it's talking about other people. The rest of the poem is more about the memories and emotions of the speaker. But this is all "she", not me; it's got other people's points of view and dialogue. That suggests a story beyond the thoughts, impressions, and feelings of the speaker. Is this a story you want readers to be able to glean from the poem? or do you want us to try and imagine what's going on? Or is that tangential to the feelings shown at the end of the poem?

I'm also trying to figure out how that links up with the last 2/3 of the poem, which feel more lyric to me, the link between the hinted story at the beginning and "I felt the wind slap my face" - is that in the speaker telling us this story? Or in something else? I love that description though, of the wind, the warm fingertips, the crush. That feels real to me and is easy to imagine but surprising at the same time.

I also like the ants images at the end of the poem, but I have a hard time connecting previous ideas to it a little: are the days getting spilled and ant-attacked like grape jelly? I imagine that the end is referring to memories, but maybe I'm not interpreting this the way you intended it.

I hope this helps. If you want to discuss further, let me know … I hope my comments aren't too confusing!