Thursday, July 4, 2013

at night, unboxed



                                               I  wake  up,    fetal   position  in  bed
                                               Before  the  alarm  promptly rings 3x
                                               A  list  of  things  to  do  in  my  head  
                                               The  day looks neat as a   cereal  box,
                                               And   roads  dilute in the rain,     driv-
                                               ing, a man crosses the street:7:27 am
                                               & I will always make that traffic stop/
                                               deja  vu unfolds as I go the office, file
                                               & type, straight-jacket inside my cube.   
                                               Cars & trucks  zip  & zoom,  marching 
                                               outside my window, same beat, 100+
                                               kph down the freeway.  During lunch
                                               break,  I peer                                  outside.
                                               The trees & flowers are bright in their  
                                               plant boxes.   Plastic tables dot along  
                                               the mirror walls.   Time snails,   linear
                                               in my phone & laptop.   Some/ /times
                                               words press & simmer, then  fade  2x-
                                               driving straight home.           The night  
                                               sparks my thoughts,         out   of   the   shadows,   
              
                                               weightless as seeds on my eyelids,    f  r  a  g i  l  e,
                                               as silk
                                                          worms,  c r aw l i n g           
                                                                                                o u  t       o   f
                                                                                                                            t  h  e
                                                                                                                                        b o x.
            

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - This is my typical work day and writing is done in between & mostly at night.  I basically used numbers, city sounds, shapes & formatting my words on the page.   Let me know what else worked for you ?   Thanks ~
Picture credit:   Silvia Grav

30 comments:

  1. sounds so well and sometimes I sleep in fetal postion ! and sometimes I pray in this position and finally sleep:)
    Make smile the cereal box! OMy
    xo

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  2. Love how you manage to show the stress of a day at work the stress... and only a little outside peeping in, and an evening when the stressful order disintegrate...

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  3. ha. nice structure to this...rather a box...until it breaks out a bit there in the end...i can feel the constraint, the same old same a bit...the straight jacket...i wore that once, with a neck tie...smiles...oh to be a worm wiggling my way out that box...smiles....

    emailing you something...

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    1. Corrected my typo error ~ Ha, thanks ~ I like to be that worm too ~

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  4. I enjoyed the passage through your day, clipped and crisp and clean.>KB

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  5. nice...i like how you play with the form to underline what you say... ugh....life can be a tight box in a corporate full time job...def. feel you in this...and the crawling out...some fresh air...a bit of freedom...just to snap back in... so felt..

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  6. Oh, Grace, such a poem of contrasts -- really picturesque. Well painted.

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  7. The uniformity of the lines and the spacing add so much to your atmosphere of constraint and stress. By the end of the poem I am longing to break free and breathe deeply through your loosened lines. The mirroring of form reinforces the fragility and limited time of that liberty. The diction and your use of numbers does give the sense of rush and business and also that all this hurry doesn't move time forward quickly. Marvelously done.

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  8. Well i would sure like to be the worm squirming free of the 9 to 5 crap, but I would not want a worm in this chap haha

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  9. I feel fragmented,stilted, disjointed or conflicted is the better word? Great tension, a sense of confinement. And then the juxtaposition, silk, fragile, worm. Love the contrast. Enjoyed.

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  10. This is really good, love your visuals and the way your words and lines bring tension and movement.

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  11. Time can never go fast enough when you want it to. I, too, work in a cubicle and sometimes the end of the day can never come as fast as I would like. Smiles.

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  12. A vivid depiction of your day. I liked all of the detail, Grace. I understand how sometimes words can press, and simmer, and fade. I just had a thought here, Grace. Perhaps your days are spent inside the box, and at night your words take you out of the box.

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    1. Yes Mary, my whole day is inside the cubicle ~ Good thing I am in the corner with a big big window ~ Thanks for your visit ~

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  13. I like this poem a lot and the way you used all the poetic devices punctuation, word placement etc. The grinding servitude of work is very well expressed.

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  14. ... boxes on the hillside, little boxes, made of ticky tack ...
    Some words of a song you reminded me of. Your images and figures always work for me. "A day as neat as a cereal box" stopped me first--Neat? Gosh! And then it was--normal, prompt, neat, and as usual "time snails"! and diction! unfold, cube, straight jacket, marching, plant boxes, dots, etc. No lightness until dark. Only the worms confused me, seemed down-ish when the narrator is lifting up-ish.

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  15. Love, love this! The cubicle and the daily grind and then the space where something happens--view outside, night falls,crawling the only escape outside the box. Excellent job with the enjambment and diction, almost breathless, as the air leaks out and the box caves in.

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  16. you dropped us into a place a day as every other cereal boxes can be many things as can this Grace you dropped me into many thoughts as i read through and i liked a lot

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  17. This is so cleverly laid out. It gave me a sense of the mundane, which can be claustrophobic in its monotony, but then there were those breaks...searching for something else. Great stuff : )

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  18. Felt the squeeze, now i have to go worm my way out

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  19. I like this poem very much. Well written and felt.

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  20. I see this as a tender portrait of someone coping well with the rat race,

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  21. I like the metaphors at work here Grace. How we are constrained not only physically but also mentally as well.

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  22. elegant in tone and composition, creative in your use of tropes and physical space. I admire the sense of the skyscraper being pierced - outside - then the worms crawling (I also envisioned roots of a tree growing out.) ~ M

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  23. Love your work Grace but you lost me at alarm clock.

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  24. Grace, LOVE how this poem "unfolds" from the carefully modulated words and dry meanings to the slipping-out-of-work-clothes freedom of the glittering, freewheeling format. The wording rolls along perfectly wtih the format as well. One of your best, Grace, and thx for commenting at Sharp Lil. Amy

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  25. I echo above comment. I, too, enjoyed how your poem unfolded So vivid, I could see it so clearly.

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