Dispatched, a poem

[Acolyte]

Same request as always--please comment and critique, good and bad (especially bad, to help me improve). Upon review, this poem has much the same theme and some of the same imagery as the earlier posted "Beach Music," though arising from a completely different event.


Dispatched
By Ross Shingledecker
late August 2004

scrawled on a Wendy's receipt
by the light of the penknife you gave me
on the side of the road at three a.m.

I ceased to exist three mile-markers ago
when the moon- and headlamp-light
began to chase eternally at a blackness;
I accelerate past my exit.

The sharp air that I inhale
is carried by a rhythm in my veins
pumped by an even beat
into and throughout me
even as my solo self dissolves

Those chords have possessed not only me
but also the night itself:
the backlit moon and the dancing stars
move in harmony with the bass rumbling engine,
a chorus blanketed by the pitch of darkness.

I at the center, enveloped too,
briefly sit at the locus
touching and being and hearing them all:
for a moment, made Buddha.

 

[Acolyte]

Again, no comment means either you're shocked in wonder at its verbal potentcy or too polite to tell me it should be thrown out with the slop bucket. I would really appreciate some feedback.

 

[Sar]

I personally can't think of anything to improve... erm .... *tries to thing of anything that may help*

"even as my solo self dissolves" - this is almost a tongue twister of a line, though I appreciate the importance of the senitment. Sorry I can't suggest an alternative though (now you know why I keep refusing to offer feedback)

 

[Acolyte]

Heehee. I love the way that line feels in my mouth when I say it--the tongue wrapping around the teeth like that. Is it too unclear?

Thanks, though--I really appreciate you taking the time, especially since this hasn't been too active a thread *wry grin*.

I really do crave feedback of all sorts, O Book Forum gurus. Succor me!