The sad arc of a cockeyed shot and lights reflecting from one unbalanced lad loose upon this court are unnerving things for any man to watch.
There exist five unraveled ends out there twining around the brown locus of our bouncing eyes, lurching at ragged ends, stitching coo-coo quilts with warped crochet needles.
A machine is gremlin ridden, the bobbin wobbles and the stands are pincushions beneath both buttocks.
Not even crossed fingers help.
What if the world were to wind in such fashion?
And what if it does? What it that ball were a brown world whirling along propelled by a rheumatic Arm, aimed with rheumy Eyes, zagging in voids? I realize that the shot didn’t fall in as it left my bare hands.
This is truly an intriguing poem, with its lopsided format and surreal imagery; it seems concealed in every line is some deeper meaning, some truth about our own world in the odd, fantastical verbiage. Wonderful descriptions of myriad things awry, and that atmosphere is extended by the poem's format. I notice the similar endings in 'gremlin', 'ridden', and 'bobbin', and the double Bs shared by 'bobbin' and 'wobbles'; I like how this sounds.
ReplyDeleteAnd then, in the end, we return to the material world with which we are familiar, to the ball and the sport with which the poem was introduced. And we see this was all contained within a moment, all this describing the simple action of missing a shot... but perhaps, if it can inspire such surreal fantasies as related here, the ball is a world of its own after all...
Great work.
Your word choice is so powerful, and captures so much meaning in a single instant. For example, the image of "five unraveled ends out there" is so haunting, and such a unique way of describing something that the average person would dismiss as mundane. Similarly, I love the metaphor of the stands turning into pincushions as a way of describing the crowd's behavior.
ReplyDeleteBut my favorite line is "not even crossed fingers help" because it's so chilling. The fact that it's the only line that's perfectly centered makes it the first line that a reader's eye is drawn to, and the line around which the rest of the poem revolves. It packs a big punch.
This poem is so thought-provoking, it really pushed me to see things in a different way.
Yes, I see now that the "not even crossed fingers help" line is the only perfectly centered line. I did read it first. Cool observation.
DeleteInteresting, the set up of the lines and the use of words. You bring in a lot of sewing terms which I find very interesting and unusual.
ReplyDeleteAllen, like I said in class, this poem is great. I really like how you turn a moment that's so specific to you, to one game, to one moment, and somehow make it relatable. I think it's your ending that really ties it together for me, you pose a seemingly rhetoric question, comparing the spinning ball to the world, and then, answer it! Maybe the world and our efforts are all just like this one moment on a basketball court. I thought it was cool, well done.
ReplyDelete