To feel the blast of cold air
To stretch your hand across a blanket of wind
And know falling
Descend to earth
Cold blue streaks
Vertical
Swift, indigo, silent
Rapturous fall
Feel my heart catch up
Beat.
Stop.
Breathless.
Stop.
Wind caress.
Stop.
Beat.
Breath.
Take in the air, boy
You're a little battered
Take in the fresh smells
Of a morning after a rainfall
And the dewy green grass of your youth
Where you stretched beneath the sun
Gold on its throne
And passed the hot hours away
Flies buzz slow
And toy beneath arm
Go way, way back
To a summer day
When worries disappeared like a fish flopping
Into the murky depths of your secret pond.

Wonderful how you made us fall with you.

I like this so much better than the last one you posted.

It has more emotion. It feels more real. It's fresher.

I disagree.

Ben, I think you have an amazing ability to push across feelings and images with surgical precision using the most abstract instruments. Your talent makes me ruefully jealous to be perfectly honest. This piece is sprinkled with that talent, but it is the first to leave me without any feeling at all. It reads to me as something written for sake of it because you were generally uninspired. I hate your politics. I hate reading your politics. I have almost commented 11 times to apply your talents to something else, as my inclination is to debate you, so that I can genuinely appreciate what you write, but I would prefer them to this. Not to encourage you to do so... lol. I hope you understand that I hold you in high regard.

I am curious how YOU feel about this particular piece in contrast to the others you have posted.

I appreciate your opinion. What I was trying to do here was paint an abstract image of childhood memory leaving, without saying all that much. I could have failed. Ever read the speech by the stone in The Brothers Karamazov? This is a bad version of that.
From what I understand you do alot of travelling. Alot of what I write comes from the same experience, and perhaps a shared understanding of the wayfaring life is why most of my poems make you feel something. This one isn't about that, however. Still, its comforting to know that while our politics don't match, and our styles are different in a lot of respects, we share alot in the way of perspective. And don't feel jealous or anything like that... I've always appreciated your work from afar.
And how do I feel about this? I don;t know if I like it, but it really does mean something to me. I wouldn't create it out of boredom.
-B

Roger.