Below, find Paw's installment for "Fly" week. Don't forget to post your response to the prompt!
If I fell - by Kelly O'Keefe
If I fell
from the roof,
from the tree,
from the sky.
Would I drop
like a stone?
Would I sail?
Would I fly?
Would I float
through the clouds
into space
up above?
Would I miss
work I do,
things I own,
those I love?
Would the story
of my leaving
be too tragic
to retell?
Would the glory
of ascension
be remembered
if I fell?
And would I at last escape the bonds
of earthly pain and sorrow?
Would I lose all sense of yesterday,
the present and tomorrow?
Or would darkness be my only view,
devoid of time or place?
Would my lifeless form be empty
as it floated out to space?
Would I rise up
into heaven?
Would I lower
into hell?
Or would I just
crumple broken
on the concrete
if I fell?
If I fell - by Kelly O'Keefe
If I fell
from the roof,
from the tree,
from the sky.
Would I drop
like a stone?
Would I sail?
Would I fly?
Would I float
through the clouds
into space
up above?
Would I miss
work I do,
things I own,
those I love?
Would the story
of my leaving
be too tragic
to retell?
Would the glory
of ascension
be remembered
if I fell?
And would I at last escape the bonds
of earthly pain and sorrow?
Would I lose all sense of yesterday,
the present and tomorrow?
Or would darkness be my only view,
devoid of time or place?
Would my lifeless form be empty
as it floated out to space?
Would I rise up
into heaven?
Would I lower
into hell?
Or would I just
crumple broken
on the concrete
if I fell?
You are truly your father's son. Look at the two stanzas with the longer lines -- they sound like Brian O'Keefe Christmas poems. I guess the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree -- or the house!
ReplyDeleteUNK - you beat me to the punch. I was just marvelling myself at the echoes of Brian T. here. Nice rhythm in this, and in the last couple of Rhinoceros poems. You tend toward the mythic and broad and allegorical. I would be interested to see a poem of yours that tries to describe something incredibly small and specific (experience/ object/ place) as a challenge.
ReplyDeleteBarry, I'll take you up on that challenge. This poem was inspired by my fall and the split second when I wondered what would become of me and whether this would be the way it ends. In the poem, I wanted to express increasingly grand possibilities in question form. Then in the last stanza, the question is answered much more plainly. I've also been eager to try a poem where the line length grows before shrinking again.
ReplyDeletepreponderous
ReplyDelete