Additional Imitation/Self-Analysis-"Not Waving but Drowning" by Stevie Smith

Not Hiding, Only Finding

He stayed far away north somewhere now, my old mentor,
But still I could hear him
"There ain't no use in wastin' a good heart on this cold world"
He is not hiding, only finding.

The old man, always trying to guide me
And now only in whispers
The horns and lights must have finally gotten the better of him
I think.

I read the news today, oh boy
(Still I hear the old man's voice)
I will desert the cold granite and steel
Not hiding, only finding.

I chose to write this extra imitation on a poem instead of a short story, mainly because I had not tried it before. I was interested to see how imitating the two forms might produce varied results. In Stevie Smith's "Not Waving but Drowning" there were several interesting elements to her writing that I chose to emulate. First off, the structure. Since poetry is a much shorter form than short fiction, and the structure is also often more intently crafted by the author, and therefore important to the piece, I chose to follow it here quite closely. Smith used repetition: both with important phrases and sentence structure. She does this to emphasize important parts, as well as to create a rhythm and flow. I did this as well. "Not hiding, only finding" is the phrase I repeat because I wanted to stress that the old one was escaping the city to find things he couldn't while still there. I include a lot of stuttered broken sentences like her too, with good examples being the first two lines of the first stanza, as well as the third and fourth lines of the second stanza. Next, I also attempted to emulate the mood, tone, and content of Smith's work, but in a very general way. Her poem is a consciously understated account of a tragic accident, done in a vague ambiguous way, and with implications of a deeper truth. I wrote mine in a similar vague manner, left it understated, and still wove it into a deeper meaning. The difference between writing imitations for poetry and fiction, is that with poetry, emulating the sonic elements and vague feel are most important.

Questions of Duality

How do we judge fire,
Raging and razing,
Cooking and warming?

How do we judge wind,
Roaring and stripping,
Cooling and lifting?

How do we judge time,
Tricking and weighing,
Unappreciated and precious?

How do we judge ourselves,
Fouling and destroying,
Loving and living?

How do we judge our judgment,
Biased and confused,
Convincing and confident?

And how do we judge
if our judgment
can ever be correct?

Morning Exhaustion

I woke up,
still tired,
saw in my morning reflection,
and the winter afternoon outside,
all the things I should have done and said,
but hadn't,
due to my crippling paralysis,
And promptly went back to sleep,
more tired than before.

Placebo

I am the human placebo
With the same Ralph Lauren, Nike, Levis
Outer shell as the rest
But lacking the drug inside:
The human condition.
One can not tell
That I am a fake
Designed to fool the unknowing
Unless they inhale me
And feel nothing.

I ate a little furry animal

I ate a little furry animal
By accident
Or at least not consciously.
It was an odd thing
Feeling him squirm desperately
Trying in vain to reverse the inevitable.
His fur got caught in my teeth and made me thirsty.
He continued to squirm
Once in my stomach
And it made me feel weak at the knees
With nervous excitement.
This unexpected meal had the unfortunate consequence of ruining my appetite.
I still can not tell
Whether the little furry animal
I ate by accident
Caused my illness or caused my cure.

Advice for All

Settle your debts with the old embittered vultures,
Ironclad, powerful but resentful,
And envious,
Locked away in their tower on the hill.
Do this,
And rise again reborn,
New life in a new world,
Primeval as when the earth was young,
Still wild and impressionable.
Go way back,
Before the vultures had sustenance,
Before the world had definite shape,
And then keep going.

Untitled

Turn the screw,
Flash the smile,
Paint the world,
With brushes of idealism.

Flip the switch,
March with pride,
Sing the song,
Of a moist, living summer night.

Ignore no,
Only yes,
Light the fire,
That keeps us sane.