Around Again

[rocky20]

Ok, here's my first shot in this forum. Enjoy - or not !

Around Again


Some say we’re back at the beginning,
but maybe it’s just the intermission,
and we’ve forgotten where we’ve left the popcorn.
The movie plays on,
but we’re still in the lobby
eternally wondering if the guy will get the girl
or vice verse.


We play a slick reversal, and soon
it is we who know how to call the shots
and do the chasing,
around the block corner
over the railroad tracks
where we find the old boxcar of our dreams
with the hairy mustached man sitting there,
waiting for us to jump aboard the moving steel
and leave the rocks under our shoes behind.


We enter a new world we may return from eventually -
now returning seems silly.
Trees fly by on the way to somewhere
and blue sky doesn’t look so real
when eyes dilate and lose focus
on the specifics of life.

[Achebe]

Ok, here's my first shot in this forum. Enjoy - or not !

Around Again


Some say we’re back at the beginning,
but maybe it’s just the intermission,
and we’ve forgotten where we’ve left the popcorn.
The movie plays on,
but we’re still in the lobby
eternally wondering if the guy will get the girl
or vice verse.


We play a slick reversal, and soon
it is we who know how to call the shots
and do the chasing,
around the block corner
over the railroad tracks
where we find the old boxcar of our dreams
with the hairy mustached man sitting there,
waiting for us to jump aboard the moving steel
and leave the rocks under our shoes behind.


We enter a new world we may return from eventually -
now returning seems silly.
Trees fly by on the way to somewhere
and blue sky doesn’t look so real
when eyes dilate and lose focus
on the specifics of life.

It may be because it's 2:40 AM here and I'm still browsing this forum to avoid working on an overdue presentation, but....I must say I quite enjoyed it. There's some original imagery in the 'boxcar of our dreams', 'rocks under our shoes', and 'where we left the popcorn'. Definitely a good start.
Not sure what you're talking about, though. So that's something to work on.

[aschueler]

Ok, here's my first shot in this forum. Enjoy - or not !

Around Again


Some say we’re back at the beginning,
but maybe it’s just the intermission,
and we’ve forgotten where we’ve left the popcorn.
The movie plays on,
but we’re still in the lobby
eternally wondering if the guy will get the girl
or vice verse.Would drop this line, it's weird and doesn't add per se, although I see your reversal


We play a slick reversal, and soon
it is we who know how to call the shots ...it is us...  No. It is we. Us call the shots?
and do the chasing,
around the block corner
over the railroad tracks
where we find the old boxcar of our dreams
with the hairy mustached man sitting there,
waiting for us to jump aboard the moving steel
and leave the rocks under our shoes behind.overall full scene, but leaving rocks under shoes was a little awkward


We enter a new world we may return from eventually -
now returning seems silly.
Trees fly by on the way to somewhere
and blue sky doesn’t look so real
when eyes dilate and lose focus
on the specifics of life.gets blurry here (hah!) and needs more clarity

Enjoyable to a little cryptic I agree.

[ellajam]

Hi, rocky, welcome to the Pen.

Around Again


Some say we’re back at the beginning,
but maybe it’s just the intermission,
and we’ve forgotten where we’ve left the popcorn.
The movie plays on,
but we’re still in the lobby
eternally wondering if the guy will get the girl
or vice verse.
I don't really get the first line, who would say we're back at the beginning and why? I'd like a less confusing opening. The rest is interesting and fun to think about. I don't think you need the comma on L2 or the vice verse, what would be the difference between boy/girl and girl/boy?

We play a slick reversal, and soon
it is we who know how to call the shots
and do the chasing,
around the block corner block or corner
over the railroad tracks
where we find the old boxcar of our dreams
with the hairy mustached man sitting there, I'd cut hairy.
waiting for us to jump aboard the moving steel
and leave the rocks under our shoes behind.
The punctuation through the middle lines is missing but on the whole a nice read.


We enter a new world we may return from eventually -
now returning seems silly. I haven't been able to reconcile these to lines, maybe I'll get it at some point.
Trees fly by on the way to somewhere
and blue sky doesn’t look so real
when eyes dilate and lose focus
on the specifics of life.
Nice sense of movement, I'm not sure you need the last line. The whole doesn't quite come together for me, I'm not sure how we got here.

Thanks for the read, good luck with it.

[rocky20]

Thanks all! I agree, I am much to cryptic for public forums, something I need to work on if I am to share my poetry with others.

[ellajam]

Thanks all! I agree, I am much to cryptic for public forums, something I need to work on if I am to share my poetry with others.

Well, if you're up to it this is just the place to work on it. if this poem is one you want to work on, get at it. Try to make it work and put the edit up. Get crit, rinse and repeat. It's a learning process.

[murren]

There are several elements I enjoyed about this poem. As others have noted, it's cryptic, but because of that, I find it appealing in that it gave me space to wander and ponder the subject. And what is that subject? For me, I thought about Time: the movement of time, the transience of things, the revolutionary aspect of happenings; how things seem to return to itself. I liked the title you gave the poem.

There are particular phrases I liked: "We play a slick reversal", "trees fly by on the way to somewhere", "the rocks under our shoes".

I feel like this is a poem worthy of continued revision, to an even better version of itself.

Thank you for sharing it with us.

Murren

Ok, here's my first shot in this forum. Enjoy - or not !

Around Again


Some say we’re back at the beginning,
but maybe it’s just the intermission,
and we’ve forgotten where we’ve left the popcorn.
The movie plays on,
but we’re still in the lobby
eternally wondering if the guy will get the girl
or vice verse.


We play a slick reversal, and soon
it is we who know how to call the shots
and do the chasing,
around the block corner
over the railroad tracks
where we find the old boxcar of our dreams
with the hairy mustached man sitting there,
waiting for us to jump aboard the moving steel
and leave the rocks under our shoes behind.


We enter a new world we may return from eventually -
now returning seems silly.
Trees fly by on the way to somewhere
and blue sky doesn’t look so real
when eyes dilate and lose focus
on the specifics of life.

[rocky20]

[quote='murren' pid='206903' dateline='1458385673']
There are several elements I enjoyed about this poem. As others have noted, it's cryptic, but because of that, I find it appealing in that it gave me space to wander and ponder the subject. And what is that subject? For me, I thought about Time: the movement of time, the transience of things, the revolutionary aspect of happenings; how things seem to return to itself. I liked the title you gave the poem. 

Thanks murran and ellajam! Yes, murran, you are correct on the subject. The title does help give a little hint to the overall meaning, but I was trying to capture the feeling of moving forward and changing but also finding more of the same and ultimately coming to terms with the fact that life itself is transient. I will work an edit and repost, hopefully with the message a little more clear!

[Matthew McKeown]

Ok, here's my first shot in this forum. Enjoy - or not :)!

Around Again


Some say we’re back at the beginning,
but maybe it’s just the intermission,
and we’ve forgotten where we’ve left the popcorn.
The movie plays on,
but we’re still in the lobby
eternally wondering if the guy will get the girl
or vice verse.


We play a slick reversal, and soon
it is we who know how to call the shots
and do the chasing,
around the block corner
over the railroad tracks
where we find the old boxcar of our dreams
with the hairy mustached man sitting there,
waiting for us to jump aboard the moving steel
and leave the rocks under our shoes behind.


We enter a new world we may return from eventually -
now returning seems silly.
Trees fly by on the way to somewhere
and blue sky doesn’t look so real
when eyes dilate and lose focus
on the specifics of life.

Hi Rocky,

Many have said your poem was too cryptic. I personally thought it was about the nostalgia of life gone by.  The movie theater and railway car you describe speaks to an age of innocence. A time that we can revisit in our minds and hearts but can not return to. Like when as an adult one can smell the inside of a child's crayon box and be for a moment transported to grade school. You depiction of looking out of the train window and the sky and trees a blur is like life passing by too quickly. It was a sad and bittersweet poem of an older wiser self longing for yester years. Just my thought. Thank you for your art.

[rocky20]

Thank you Matthew, you have gotten through the cryptic form and found a message I was trying to convey! I do like to conjure images on the page and try to let them speak for themselves, but I do need to find a more explicit or meaningful way to also portray the message a little clearer. One of the things I love about poetry so much is how differently we all approach a poem and find different things carry merit, which keeps me eternally reading and writing new stuff! Such a rewarding endeavor!

[RiverNotch]

Ok, here's my first shot in this forum. Enjoy - or not !

Around Again


Some say we’re back at the beginning,
but maybe it’s just the intermission,
and we’ve forgotten where we’ve left the popcorn.
The movie plays on,
but we’re still in the lobby
eternally wondering if the guy will get the girl
or vice verse. Do you leave the theater when it's intermission, especially for them unreasonably short intermezzos of movies? There's a certain lack of sense in the passage of time here -- and the opening line seems to speak of something else entirely, something that I feel is integral to the piece, but needs clarification.


We play a slick reversal, and soon
it is we who know how to call the shots The image here, to me, is obvious enough -- reversal of who's on what side of the screen. The thought, though, is a bit lost to me -- I can feel you're speaking of something beyond the movies, but what exactly? 
and do the chasing,
around the block corner
over the railroad tracks These last three lines sound overshort. 
where we find the old boxcar of our dreams
with the hairy mustached man sitting there,
waiting for us to jump aboard the moving steel
and leave the rocks under our shoes behind. "Leave the rocks under our shoes behind" sounds like an over-poeticized construction. Otherwise, these last four lines are beautiful.


We enter a new world we may return from eventually - Cadence this time runs overlong.
now returning seems silly. If the speaker considered returning silly, why even, in the poem, consider it a possibility? The construction of the speaker's journey into the film seems metaphorical enough, so I think the thought of this and the last line could easily be condensed.
Trees fly by on the way to somewhere
and blue sky doesn’t look so real
when eyes dilate and lose focus
on the specifics of life. What you want to convey here is palpable enough (that is, the scene, and perhaps the thought, though the thought itself I cannot yet put to words, since you haven't given me the tools yet), but I do think that the imagery here is a bit too abstract, compared to (in my mind) its counterpart, the vision of the boxcar. A bit more poeticizing, perhaps? Or perhaps not -- the more I think about this, the more this feels right. Your decision.

I don't think it's cryptic, just sometimes confused, or incomplete. But there is the sense that you're saying something here that hasn't been said before, which is good.

[Mr.Malicious]

This one really piques my interest, projecting a sorta movie from your keyboard. It really shows that you got a mind in that head of yours and you put it to good use, no real complaints which is something I'm proud to say.

[Jasper]

I really like your imagery and descriptive style. 

Should the last line of the first part be "vice versa" instead of "vice verse?" 

I'm not really sure what you're talking about in this poem; that could be established better. 

"We enter a new world we may return from eventually -
now returning seems silly."
This line seems a bit too abrupt and I don't get what you're trying to convey. 

Overall I enjoyed reading this poem, good luck!