Going out tonight, and I hope I’ll be able to pull some pictures of cityscapes to balance out all this nature that’s been going on here in Radio Reality City.
I’ve been concerned for a long time that natural stuff influences me quite heavily, and lately I’ve been looking at why that is. Back in 2014 or so, I was much more influenced by cities and the tangle. I still am to the degree I was, but nature has picked up a lot of steam for its appearances in my work. Flicking through the pictures I took in Seattle back in June, I don’t have many more to post. But if you want a sunset or a lake, I have that overcovered.
Though, I’d have to see what’s interesting about Pierce County in terms of concrete and buildings. The tallest structure here in Puyallup is the damn fairground’s tower ride thingy (don’t know what the fuck it’s called). On the other hand, Seattle does offer as many skyscrapers as you can handle. Olympia is a little short in that regard; more of a clustered downtown area than widespread towers. Tacoma might be what I’m looking for, since it’s a lot closer and tonight might take me back there. Tacoma’s a place I don’t have a lot of photos of, outside of Ruston Way and Owen Beach (which are both, again, just nature).
Yet, I find when it comes to certain themes I overwrite them over and over again. Like how everyone knows Edgar Allen Poe had a hang up on death, I have a hang up on a couple of things. Mountains, water, grey skies, cities, autumn, winter, romance, knights, and abstract places like Somewhere Else. I keep trying to explore other devices within those themes. Sometimes it can yield great stuff, but other times it just feels like I’m taking a knife in the dark to another theme I don’t quite grasp yet.
Two excerpts this time, the first will be from something I wrote a while back, “All Hallow Tide Eve”:
“Waltzing under broken boughs
Scheming our orange things
Coats swapped for heat
To scorch a cooling world
Under falling branches,
And river run sidewalks,
I’d enjoy all the more
If I could with you”
This poem has incredible October overtones, as that’s what it’s about. It involves some of the season, seen here with the broken boughs and orange. Also, a touch of romance in the last two lines of the second stanza there. This next excerpt is from “31-Degree Pseudo Date”, about the same scene:
“The same clouds floated
Grey as war saws
Like Poland’s days
When they stay and hang
There as we walked out
Of the diner
It wasn’t day
But it was grey”
With a little less of a focus on the romantic and seasonal elements involved and more of a looking at the grey. This set of poems also revolves around the theme of Monochroma, which I explore more the more recently I’ve written them. The next excerpt is from a poem I wrote a little over a month later about the same scene, “Warsxzaw”:
“Through open sky,
Past trees and
Telephone poles,
The ticks land
On wet blacktop,
Crawling in cracks
Under car tires
Driving over roads.
Droplets of glass
Grey land, and
Run into gutters.”
Much less of a focus on the romantic element and more of a focus on the natural element of rain. There’s also that direct reference from 31-Degree used to center an entire poem around, from the line “war saw clouds”. Looking at the dictive evolutions of this scene and how they change as time goes on is interesting, yet I worry that I’ll overwrite it to death.
An idea can be interesting regardless of how many times it’s approached, but in my wake I leave many many poems that, at least in my eyes, fall flat.
I guess it’s all about the fight to get there. I hope I can get some more inspiration from cities soon because the dynamics in them is why I named this whole thing Radio Reality City as opposed to Radio Reality Canopy. Which I very well could at any moment, anyways.
Hope you’ve enjoyed this little spiel, and as always, thank you much for listening! I’m still trying to cook up ways for this site to have a little more utility for creators, as well. If you’re a writer or poet and need some devices, take a look at the Resources for Other Writers page. I update it every now and then with a bunch of tools I have open when I’m trying to push through on a poem.
Thank you for listening, and keep on reading on!
Consume Reality! 