These spiky shoes reminds me of my highlights.
Sticky skins, ratted wind blown hair
Packed on the bus with the windows down.
Coach turns his back nods off and
butts fly off to warmer spots.
We're uncut in our shapely spandex
Trying to impress our sex is funny.
It's the loudest energy after every meet.
Sleepy? You'll get lucky if you get slightly gone.
We're not tired so we kiss and grab
What we have left before the bumpy ride ends.
All that work put in when it was just racing.
This draft is about the days after a track meet when we would chill on the bus ride home.
This was very intresting to me because I can relate. I ran varsity track and field and cross country for 6 years. I even started college with a scholarship for running until I quit. But anyway enough of me. I think you have a foundation for a great poem. But first I am curious what poem you chose to improv off?
ReplyDeleteThe reason I say this is a great foundation for a great poem is because you have drawn some intresting language from a bus ride home from a track meet. Like "Sticky skin, ratted wind blown hair," it grabs your attention. I think the ratted wind blown hair could maybe be condesed a little more to ratted blown hair. It leaves a little more imagination as to how it was blown.
I am not sure I see the full picture taking place between lines 3 and 4. Maybe you could add a little more description? However "butts fly" is not something I hear everyday so that threw my senses off which I think is an effective mechanism if that is what you are going for.
I think this poem could expand a lot if you go into further description of what happens durning the ride home or you could even mix the actual race into the ride. Maybe play with senese of audio (guns, crowds, etc) visual (lines on the track, uniforms of competitors, etc) or even feel of throbbing legs or tired lungs. Track events have so much going on and you could keep this poem flowing. Also like Davidson said there could be more than one thing going on in a poem you could be writing about track and the bus ride home and a relationship with a dog (just a random topic thrown out there) all at once. This could help create a poem you wouldn't think possible.
You painted the picture very well of the dirty track students on a bus ride home. i enjoy the slight sexuality about it was well. The word "butts" doesnt seem to fit in for me when i read it thought at the same time it brings up that adolescent language or vernacular. There could be more visual moments in the piece to convey that concrete imagery that this poem seems to lack slightly in. The more images the better.
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