Someone carrying up a

This is a description of my earliest memory. It is about my father carrying me up a flight of steps. We had come to Philadelphia to visit my grandparents... maybe for the first time in my life...

b’’h

6/27/12

SOMEONE CARRYING UP A

 

Someone carrying up a

Flight of stairs; The The all green.

This is-was Now a very

 

Young and. Now is-was very

Green -- not green-green -- more like a

Dark-dark-dark yellowy green

 

And still from-is not pretty

Color. Whiteness. Door. Between.

She-This some one yes pretty.

 

Now-was Philadelphia.

 

Reviews

[John]

Sounds like you're describing the experience of the newly born as it registers colour, discerns objects, and attempts to acquaint itself with linear time. Joyce did something similar in the opening passage of Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, which involved a story about a Moo Cow! The autobiographical note helps, I think, even if it doesn't 'explain' the compelling strangeness of this piece.

[Firestone Feinberg]

John, thank you for your perceptive review. You absolutely understand the essence of the poem. I would have thought no one at all would appreciate it. i did want to write more in the description, but the number of characters (don't go there) is limited... I thank you for the reference to JJ. I didn't know that. A pre-psychotropic-medicine-era psychiatrist, Harry Stack Sullivan, also wrote as if from the point of view of an infant. In that case, Sullivan was trying to link confused early experience with the formation of the schizophrenic process. I am shocked that anyone at all would understand my attempt to de-linearize time. This business is the hallmark of a type of poetry I write. I will look for a good example of that ilk and perhaps post it here: but beware! it's quite strange. --David

[John]

It takes a bit of courage to put out something that is a bit experimental. My attitude is Go for it. The worst that can happen is that no one responds!

[fireblossom]

I read this as a musician. Allowing old memories to come to mind we capture only glimpses, impressions. Like getting out of the way when jamming or riffing you captured the sense of allowing whatever to happen. I enjoy something new like this poem.

[Firestone Feinberg]

Thank you again for your generous review. I am fascinated that you read it as music. i can see that now. thanks to you. --david

[M Breen]

I like John's review. Just read the moocow part by JJ...your protagonist feels even younger :).

I see/feel the stream of consciousness of a very young child but with the abrupt punctuation of limited adult memory (I could be wrong).This heightens the honesty.

Thanks for this melting yellowy emerald.

[Firestone Feinberg]

Thank you, M, for your kind and interesting review. I am still surprised that this poem caught anyone's eye! You are right -- there is a distinct combination of baby and adult in this piece. I'm very happy that you liked reading it. --David