Sky fall
 

rev 3

The Sky Was Falling

There was always, of course, the cold
-- its freezing pretty fingerprints on our side of the pane.
While we lay loved beneath the loaded blankets,
a new day shivered through the filigree
and mum stretched vests before the 2 bar Belling fire.

Her kitchen kept a thick volcano
blurting in the pan.
Golden Syrup lingered from our spoons.

In mitts and knitted balaclavas,
in Cherry Blossomed shoes,
we scuffed our way to school,
cracking open puddles: happy vandals,
dancing on their creak and splinter.
And on playtime's frosted tarmac
we smoothed the longest slide there ever was.

All afternoon, the brooding, building cloud
hung her hammock ever lower overhead,
until it split and spilled the proof
that Chicken Licken had not been misled

We watched and wondered what it meant.
Who brought about this accident?
What altar boy had tripped
and tipped communion wafers?
Which flower girl had thrown up
way too much confetti?
Was anyone in trouble over it?

We stared,
and were allowed to stare,
first pressed against the glass,
then rushing openhanded
through the door,
sticking out our tongues
to taste the sugar-fairy skirts
that curtsied as they slanted
to the floor.

It snowed and snowed and as we went to bed,
the street slept amber, soft between the lamps.
When morning woke us, light had never spread
so bright with empty promise,
so magnificently blank.





Rev 2


Skyfall

There was always, of course, the cold.
Its freezing pretty fingerprints on our side of the pane.
While we lay loved beneath the loaded blankets,
the new day sparkled through that filigree
and mum stretched vests before the 2 bar Belling fire.

Her kitchen kept a thick volcano
blurting in the pan.
Golden Syrup lingered on our spoons.

In mitts and knitted balaclavas,
in Cherry Blossomed shoes,
we scuffed our way to school,
cracking open puddles in our vandal glee
to make them creak and splinter.
And on playtime's frosted tarmac
smoothed the longest slide there ever was.

All afternoon, the brooding, building cloud
hung her hammock ever lower overhead,
until it split and spilled
Chicken Licken’s awful prophecy.

We watched and wondered
what it meant.
Who brought about this accident?
What altar boy had tripped
and tipped communion wafers?
Which flower girl had thrown up
way too much confetti?
Someone had to be in trouble.

We watched,
and were allowed to watch,
first pressed against the glass,
then rushing openhanded
through the door,
stretching out our tongues
to taste the gentle icy
brightnesses, dropping
as they wanted
to the floor.

It snowed and snowed until we went to bed.
The street was amber underneath the lamps.
When morning woke, the light had never been
so full of empty promise,
so magnificently blank.




revision 1

Skyfall

There was always, of course, the cold.
Its freezing pretty fingerprints on our side of the pane.
While we lay loved beneath the loaded blankets,
the new day sparkled through that filigree
and mum stretched vests before the 2 bar Belling fire.

The kitchen kept a thick volcano
blurting in the pan.
Golden Syrup lingered on our spoons.

In mitts and knitted balaclavas,
in Cherry Blossomed shoes,
we scuffed our way to school,
cracking open puddles in our vandal glee
to make them creak and splinter.
And on playtime's frosted tarmac,
smoothed the longest slide there ever was.

All afternoon, the brooding, building cloud
hung her hammock ever lower overhead,
until it split and spilled
Henny Penny’s fateful prophecy.

We watched and wondered
what it meant.
Who brought about this accident?
What altar boy had tripped
and tipped communion wafers?
Which flower girl had thrown up
way too much confetti?
Someone had to be in trouble.

We watched,
and were allowed to watch,
first pressed against the glass,
then rushing openhanded
through the door,
stretching out our tongues
to taste the gentle icy
brightnesses, dropping
as they wanted
on the floor.

It snowed at least until we went to bed.
We saw it amber under streetlamps.
But in the morning, light had never been
so full of empty promise,
so beautifully blank.


Nothing was the same.
Nothing was unsmudged.
All the scabby detail overlayed
with nothing’s whiteness,
nothing’s soft, appalling touch.




Skyfall

There was always, of course, the cold.
Its freezing pretty fingerprints on our side of the pane.
While we lay loved beneath the loaded blankets,
the new day sparkled through that filigree
and mum stretched vests before the 2 bar Belling fire.

The kitchen kept a thick volcano
blurting in the pan
Golden Syrup lingered on our spoons.

In mitts and knitted balaclavas,
in Cherry Blossomed shoes,
we scuffed our way to school
cracking open puddles in our vandal glee
to make them creak and splinter.
And on playtime's frosted tarmac
smoothed the longest slide there ever was.

All afternoon, the brooding, building cloud
hung her hammock ever lower overhead
Until it split and spilled
pillowed feathered milk
on everything.

We watched and wondered
what it meant.
Who brought about this accident?
What altar boy had tripped
and tipped communion wafers?
Which flower girl had thrown up
way too much confetti?
Someone had to be in trouble.

We watched,
and were allowed to watch,
first pressed against the glass,
then rushing through the doors
openhanded,
stretching out our tongues
to taste the gentle icy
brightnesses
dropping
anywhere they wanted.

It snowed at least until we went to bed.
We saw it amber under streetlamps.
And in the morning,
light was never seen so blank,
so breathtaking.

Nothing was the same.
Nothing was unsmudged.
All the scabby detail overlayed
with nothing’s whiteness,
nothing’s soft, appalling touch.

Not quite sure what this wants to be when it grows up. I suspect it heavily plagiarises many other better things like "A Child's Christmas in Wales" which I should re-read some day. But I am starting to feel a little Christmassy.

Hi, Joe—

I live in Alaska where we get seven months of snow, so I might be a bit jaded on the subject, but I grew up in California and remember my first experience with snow as a ten-year-old child. It was almost as magical as your vividly reconstructed memory. Very good job!

Glenn

This takes far too long to say what it is trying to say, and repeats itself in doing so.

I didn't find it too long, it has the leisurely, ambling pace of December, that mulls over the weather rather than rushing through it.

I found it did a pretty good job of treading the line between familiar and original. It felt fresh to me, despite the common imagery. With a quick read through nothing stood out to me as needing a change.

I think a great deal of this could be cut. Some of it seems irrelevant to the matter at hand - do we care how long the slide is, or what the N's shoes look like, or that there's syrup in the kitchen? Maybe, but I would take a look at each detail and decide if it really deserves to be there.

But I guess it comes down to whether you are going for a sort of prosy "when I was a child" type narrative or a lyric evocation of a first experience of snow. If the latter, I think it needs tightening and more ... unexpectedness? ... in the language.

This sentence didn't make grammatical sense to me:

"We watched and wondered
what it meant
to bring about this accident."

Is that really what you mean, or do you mean "we wondered what brought about this accident" or "we wondered what this accident meant"?

Hi Joe,

This gives us reminiscences of childhood and winter and a rare (first?) experience of heavy snowfall. I quite like the reminiscences of childhood, in particular, "cherry blossomed shoes" worked very well for me. I remember that shoe polish! The detail of the mother warming vests was a nice touch too, and the warming porridge breakfast implied by the syrup. The snow part has some nice details too, the vomiting flower girl simile was surprising (if that's what you intended), but in a good way. I really like the image of amber snow, lit by the yellow streetlights.

However, where the snow part of the poem ultimately seems to take us seemed rather well worn: waking to see that the snow blankets the old, tired, dirty everyday in clean white. I'd like to be taken somewhere fresher, less expected.

I guess the idea that the snow's touch is "appalling" is an unexpected one, though if that's intending to be providing some sort of last-minute turn or surprise -- and not just to indicate that the snow is very cold -- I don't see really see it, or how the poem has really done anything to set that up, so I don't really get a sense of how/why it's appalling (beyond the obvious) and what the greater ramifications of that are, if any are intended.

A couple of specific points:

S4&5 gives us three similes for the same thing, the falling snow: feathered milk, communion wafers, confetti. I'm thinking the idea is to show the children's unfamiliarity with snow, by likening it to something that's more familiar to them but also white. Still, I think doing this three times in a row is maybe overdoing it.

Form-wise, I'm not a fan of S5's single-word lines. The deviation from the rest of the poem draws more attention to them, and I don't really see how the heavy emphasis on these words is paying off.

S7's "breathtaking" seems a bit blah, a bit like calling something "beautiful", it's conveying very little due to its abstraction. And this seems intensified by the emphasis given to it by it's location at the end of the stanza. I did wonder if you're playing with the word's literal and metaphorically meaning, since literally, the cold air would impact their breath, maybe take it and display it, but if so maybe it needs a bit more to bring this out. Plus, they appear to be indoors at this point, so their literal breath would be unaffected.

The title has me humming a Bond theme, and the poem doesn't seem to directly reference the idea of the sky falling or Chicken Little et al. Maybe there's an alternative?

best,

Matt

Glenn, Cameron Nick. I wrote the poem hoping to recapture some part of my growing up and my first contact with snow. It doesn’t have anything profound to say about it, but just rehearses some memories, feelings and details that I remember and enjoyed revisiting. All a bit baggy I suppose. Not having any concise insight to convey may be why it rambles on. (But glad, for you Nick that it ambled.) I could happily ramble on a lot more. I guess it’s a case of whether the telling and the images hold the reader’s attention. And that, clearly, will differ between readers.

Hilary. Fair points. It is a piece of personal history, so the details and the brand names mean something to me -- the porridge and the syrup, the shoe polish. But they might not mean much to anyone else. Therefore the language and images need to go beyond brand names. I will see if I can tighten it up and add some more surprise.

I have revised the grammar in S5. Thanks.

Perhaps this could be tightened and I’d like it even more, but my initial reaction was closer to Nick’s. For me, it isn’t “trying to say” anything as much as it’s wandering over a winter landscape. One thing it is trying to do is use words and images freshly, which I like, though I had the vague sense it was trying a little too hard at times. The tripping altar boy and clumsy flower girl are delightful surprises. I’ll just question one word: the dirty “smudged” is very odd for fresh, white snow that overlays “all the scabby detail.” I enjoyed this very much, Joe.

Matt brought out a couple things that I felt too vaguely to articulate:

“Appalling” in the last line really sticks out and casts a retrospective pall over the poem along with “blank” and the repeated “nothing.” Maybe that’s what Cameron thought the poem was “trying to say.” Like Matt, I felt that the shadow falls either too starkly or too late.

I love the communion wafers and confetti (though I’m considerably less enthusiastic about vomited confetti!), but I did feel that “pillowed feathered milk” spilling from a hammock was a rather overstuffed metaphor.