Spending Time in Macau
Posted: 11 September 2007
Word Count: 125
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The air sucks at my breath.
The buildings cuddle and stretch, drawing
my eyes towards a hazy sky.
The Sun could well be the Moon, exhausted,
smudged by the surrounding smog. Noise
clogs my ears and a sea of heat compounds my fears
of young cities condensing so much. Such little
space that even lizards scramble clumsily for shade.
Those lucky enough can chill out and stir their
expensive Manhattans, knowing that bills have been paid.
The sea is being filled – land for build
is populated by cranes, jabbering up empty buildings
for the rich to waste their money in. A girl
is bitten, and I become smitten with her shape
in the rising Sun. Something tells me that
this place has just begun.
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 joanie at 19:04 on 12 September 2007
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Hi Stephen. I really do love the fantastic images in this; it feels so real!
I particularly liked: 'the buildings cuddle, and stretch/my eyes towards a hazy sky', 'The/Sun might as well be the Moon' ,'jabbering up empty buildings'
As you probably know, I do like rhyme, but I wondered if it jarred a bit here: ears/fears, shade/aid, bitten/smitten, sun/begun..... at times I felt it was a bit contrived and therefore detracted from the brilliant descriptions and tangible feelings.
I like the title and I enjoyed the read very much.
joanie
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 V`yonne at 20:34 on 12 September 2007
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Maybe if you get the girl in one strand and the buildings in another? Joanie is right. Wonderful images.
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 Jordan789 at 21:37 on 13 September 2007
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interesting poem. confusing given some abstractions, but interesting.
The setting certainly has the most grounding precedence, and plays an important role of really hyping up tension.
"The sun may as well be the moon"
I don't really understand this here. Other than conveying a sort of abstract confusion, well, a full-blown confusion to the tone, I don't know.
"The air is sucking at my breath,
the buildings cuddle, and stretch
my eyes towards a hazy sky. "
A pretty nasty comma splice in there. Should probably read, "The air sucks at my breath. (period)
The buildings cuddle, and I (unless you want the buildings to stretch your gaze) stretch
my eyes towards a hazy sky."
Not sure what "air-con" is, and how it aids lizards. Is this a secret opts force or something?
"It's populated by cranes..." coming so soon after the lizards, this makes us think of the bird, crane, whose long beak loves to eat small reptiles, like lizards. Took me a few readings to see what you meant. Perhaps changing "it" to "the city" or something direct, would help. Also, after understanding it, I like the use of "jabbering" as building, it's rather creative. Use verbs like they're your play things. I love it.
The girl, being bitten.
So, what I want here is to have a story about a girl being bitten by a lizard, and then this bond forms. But if that's what this is about, the above about buildings, cranes, smogs and sun-moons, sort of needs to take a backseat, not be completely scrapped, but toned down a hell of a lot.
-Jordan
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 James Graham at 21:44 on 15 September 2007
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This is a pretty good example of something I always think modern poetry does so well - capturing a few moments' experience, in such a way that we feel something worth while has been held on to that would otherwise have been lost. In this case it's a crowded few moments or minutes, taking in the 'cuddling' buildings (much better than 'huddling' though we're reminded of that word too) foggy atmosphere, the heat, the lizards, the cranes, and the girl. And the last two lines suggest this is only a fraction of it. So there's quite a strong sense of this brief bundle of experiences being 'trapped' in the poem before time and forgetfulness wipe them out.
The internal rhymes have a curious effect of linking together various impressions that otherwise would'nt seem connected. They help to 'trap' the experiences. It's a good technique for a poem like this.
I think 'draw' sounds better than 'stretch' - but you may not agree. The line '...they've no air-con to come to their aid' seems a bit of a throwaway, too flip for this poem. This is quite a literary poem, in its choice of language generally and in the use of internal rhymes. So the air-con line seems out of place. I realise if you wanted to change it you would have to build in another rhyme to replace shade/aid. This wouldn't have to be another word that rhymed with 'shade'; with internal rhyme you have more freedom. It could be a word that rhymes forward into the next line or the next again - i.e. rhyming with 'cranes', the syllable 'jab-', 'rich' or 'waste'. It could be a near-rhyme if necessary, not a full rhyme. However you manage it, I do think the air-con line needs to be replaced with a different idea.
James.
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James Graham at 21:49 on 15 September 2007
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Re Jordan's comment. I agree about the comma splice. The cranes as birds were only very fleeting for me; as soon as the empty buildings came into the picture, they became machine-type cranes. But 'The city' instead of 'it' would help, I agree.
Air-con is air conditioning, surely?
James.
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hailfabio at 15:05 on 18 September 2007
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Thanks for all comments, interesting feedback as always. Sorry for my late reply - so busy these days. As James said, I just tried to catch a feel and ambience of Macau, where I've been recently - I feel I've done that pretty well but perhaps I've gone for a little too much by introducing the girl at the end. I do like internal rhyming and maybe I've overused it a bit here.
So first 3 lines seem to not read clearly, how about:
The air sucks at my breath.
The buildings cuddle and stretch, drawing
my eyes towards a hazy sky. |
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Jordan is right here, but I like the idea of buildings making you look skywards, which is why James' word 'draw' works well here I think.
This is sort of the second stanza, the Sun/Moon reference I used to create uncertainty as you can't see the Sun properly and you aren't easily aware of the time of day. So using the word 'could' may be better. I personally think the rhyme works well here but it might be better with more detail involved.
The Sun could well be the Moon, struggling,
suffocated by the surrounding smog. Noise
clogs my ears and a sea of heat compounds
my fears of young cities condensing so much.
Such little space that even lizards scramble clumsily for shade,
they’ve no air-con to come to their aid. Those
lucky enough can chill out and stir their
expensive Manhattans, knowing that bills have been paid. |
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This is the last stanza and seems to create some ambiguity, which is not unusual for my poems. The cranes can be cleared up because even I though of birds. I’m not sure what to do with the girl – pretty typical for me – More detail would bog it down I think. My impression is that despite the mechanical industrious feel to this place, the connection between two people ends the poem with a human touch to it and without that, all our man-made things would be useless.
The sea is being filled – land for build
is populated by cranes, jabbering up empty buildings
for the rich to waste their money in. A girl
is bitten, and I become smitten with her shape
in the rising Sun. Something tells me that
this place has just begun. |
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That leaves us with a second version of the original, I’ve posted above – love to know what you think.
Stephen
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Tina at 08:22 on 19 September 2007
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Hi Stephen
Have read all the blog above and am pondering on it.
Like Joanie I too think the rhyme in the original jarrs but in these newer stanzas the writing flows more regularly. In the first stanza I am not sure about the word 'cuddle' which feels too cosy a word to use to describe the overpopulation the builds have created.
In the second stanza I am not sure that you need both struggling and suffocating? But this is just my personal taste. I really like the start of the third stanza though. Some great images here.
Thanks
Tina
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James Graham at 11:22 on 19 September 2007
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Hi Stephen - You're clearly putting a lot of work into this poem so I just want to take a little time to think about your revision and comments, and get back to you.
James
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James Graham at 21:50 on 20 September 2007
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Hi Stephen - I like this poem, it comes across strongly for me, so I gave it a good going over.
'The air sucks at my breath' is better than 'is sucking'. You wouldn't think it made that much difference, but it's more abrupt, as if the effect of the air came as a shock. It makes the feeling of airlessness come across well too, right from the first line.
The simple shift of the adjective 'stretch', so that it's the buildings that stretch, works quite well. It's an adventurous metaphor, to describe the buildings as not only cuddling in to each other, but doing cat-stretches to relieve the wearying effects of the atmosphere; perhaps it would 'stretch' the imagination too far for some readers, but I would let it stand. It's bold.
I don't see how 'The Sun could well be the Moon' is any better. I'd leave that as in the original - but make the space as you do in the revision and put the 'The' in the same line as the sun and moon.
'Suffocated by the surrounding smog' - I'm not sure of this whole phrase. Even if the sun is nearly blotted out by the smog, can you say it's 'suffocated'? Its breath stopped? It's an idea that doesn't go with the sun at all. What's happening to the sun, what makes it indistinguishable from the moon, is that it seems weakened, enfeebled. (The place is still very hot, but that's a paradox.) My thesaurus gives, for 'weaken' - enfeeble, enervate, exhaust, wither, diminish, paralyze. I feel this is the sort of description needed here for the sun. Also, perhaps a more inventive adjective instead of 'surrounding', which is rather obvious?
Maybe 'compacting' instead of 'condensing'? It's closer to the idea of the city crowding and crushing into a smaller space, so that there's no room left.
Sorry, I still don't like the air-con line. Anyway, with the change you made just before it,
Such little
space that even lizards scramble clumsily for shade |
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you're now talking about space, not heat or airlessness. The lizards haven't enough room. This vivid picture of the lizards now relates to the condensing/compacting city, the fact that there's less and less space - so the air-con isn't really relevant now. You could perhaps fit it into the lines about the rich, something like
Such little
space that even lizards scramble clumsily for shade.
Those who have air-con can chill out and stir
their expensive Manhattans, their bills paid. |
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Bad habit...I couldn't resist messing about with other bits of this!
The last lines seem fine. The girl being in there is ok with me! - we learn to expected the unexpected in poetry. Just maybe a quibble about the filled/build rhyme - possibly there could be another way of saying 'The sea is being filled', e.g. 'They're pushing back the sea'. And 'occupied by cranes' would be better for the rhythm in this line.
I hope some of this helps. It's a very effective 'impressionistic' poem which I think just needs a little more sorting.
James.
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