Reading majic's journal

A while back lotus asked me to write a poem about what it is like to be a jump out of an airplane while in flight. So today I have written a little free verse poem to capture at least a little bit of what it's like. I've just started dabbling in free verse and I've not yet caught the hang of it. If it's hard to follow I'm sorry. I'm learning each time I venture into another writing.

Twelve hundred and fifty feet
into the air I go
I'm trapped inside
the belly of the beast
I wait for the commands
and I stand up and hook
myself to the umbilical cord
which holds my life today
moments pass but time seems
to stand forever still
I wait poised to walk
out into the reality which
is in front of me
as the command is said
and as this beast is hovered
over the area of my birth
I jump and throw myself
into the wind
and I pray oh GOD do I pray
that my parachute of life
will open and guide
me safely down
so that I can make a soft
landing on mother earth
below. GOD it's a rush
from a place I cannot
describe.

...
the belly of the beast
...
to the umbilical cord
...
and as this beast is hovered
over the area of my birth
...
into the wind
and I pray oh GOD do I pray
that my parachute of life
will open and guide
me safely down
so that I can make a soft
landing on mother earth
below. GOD it's a rush
from a place I cannot
describe.

I want to be honest, but kind and concise. You've been posting poems for a while, and I'm glad. I hope that you keep working your craft, and hit a stride, and then challenge yourself.

Here's some basic thoughts:
Avoid cliches like the Death o' Black. (i.e. "belly of the beast"; title of a book)

Work with images to give them a tenor of meaning, rather than simply SAYING; show not tell. (i.e. "umbillical cord" isn't bad because it matches belly of the beast, but if you rework the former expression, the latter is less salient.)

"Into the wind"...at 40 knots (or how fast do you drop?) seems less like wind than tornado!

I like the ending. I like the ending much. Zen likes this ending, buckets full. But I also have to say that it just seems to have a discordant feel between start and finish. Look at it from a subjective point; read it out loud. Read it to someone else out loud. You set it up in a fairly standard format, although not rhyming. It feels structured, albeit loosly so. It has a fairly distinguishable meter. Goes on in a farily predictable manner, for good or bad, but then the ending seems to divigate, unpredictable.

I'm not trying to come across harsh, because I really like this piece. I think it's one of the most interesting and unique works that you've done. I hope that you can hone it, and give the form a rework. I think the subject matter is worth it, and I think that by closing your eyes during a jump for a few seconds and telling us what it feels like, rather than trying to describe it with words....

That'll be a poem that will make me say:
By the Gods,
YES!
*yes*
THAT'S WHAT IT'S LIKE
TO JUMP
FROM A FUCKING PLANE~
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And smack
the noir
of
the pavement

still
breathing.

I'll bet that just took 5 years off my life--but GODDAMM if it wasn't worth every second

This post was edited by zen on Feb 09, 2004.

Okay no problem. I'm an easy going type of guy. I must say that when I wrote this I simply let the feelings come to me. I didn't spend alot of time on it. It's more or less a spontaneous piece and this seems to be the mood I'm in of late.

The belly of the beast symbolizes the steel fuselage of a C130 or C117 aircraft.

The umbilical cord is my static line which I hook up to an anchor line cable. This definitely sybolizes my life line. Hence umbilical cord. It's what makes my parachute open.

We jump at a speed of approximately 130 knots. The airplane is traveling that fast. We exit right over the dropzone.

The jump altitude ranges from 800 to 1500 feet AGL (Above Ground Level).

But this piece was simply a spontaneous gesture of a few of the moments in the aircraft from hook up until landing. I'm sure I could write a better piece.

Thank you for the compliments and critique.

I want to be honest, but kind and concise. You've been posting poems for a while, and I'm glad. I hope that you keep working your craft, and hit a stride, and then challenge yourself.

Well thank you. I am defintely going to keep refining my work. A person over at litkicks hinted to me about an exercise I can do to get thoughts to paper. I simply take a stop watch and let it go for 10 minutes. In that ten minutes I write and don't stop until the 10 minutes are up. I write whatever comes to my mind and try not to think to much about it. I was able to write about 10 pages of stuff yesterday and I've been flirting with posting some of it on litkicks and here. The post about how I want to sing was just that. A piece from a 10 minute exercise I did.

I'm trying to vary up my style and allow my mind to explore new areas. Some of the work will be dreadful but some may be good and this is what I'm exploring right now.