CHILDREN IN A PARKING LOT (the major 2024 revision)

(The best & most current draft is CHILDREN IN A PARKING LOT (the major 2024 revision revised)

The laughter of children
we do well know:
such a symphony past my window –
cavorts but dispersed will run –
just sustaining imagination meant to grow,

especially for those who can’t see the show.
Still does it matter?
And yes I know that I don’t know
where theirs ever goes.
Mine little else than batters.

But what it knows,
at least when it sails the sky
(in waxed wings) yearns to rest then to fly,
an enticing castle below:
each to each separate challenge will tantalize.

There’s a land they say, that’s strung to the skies,
that finds a way
to make one a lithe human-kite;
lusts for edges of life.
For an exhilarating soul-save

they make their dive
dodging knights in the baileys of castle-prisons,
scooping littered treasures – after saving the maidens,
filled with artful pride,
then cast back jewels of sentiment – where they may lay then.

For dragon teeth and fire, give good pay then
to Trusty Scaffold Terence
who sways the ropes with no delay again,
an arrow dodging friend,
a friend of adherence.

He pulls us back and then,
we stampede back hearts racing.
The enemy lost, by backwoods still chasing.
Time once again
for feasting, bragging, and embracing.

And now perhaps – that parking lot – I say or sing –
is a field of rye with kites,
where Trusty Terence is cliff’s-edge pacing.
Their gleeful eyes him embracing
run to him from jewel-pelted knights.

Notes:

Words in bold are not necessarily that way to indicate that they are the pivotal stress point of a line or of particular significance, and so must be stressed. They are that way to help indicate one way among many to choose from to keep delivery from becoming too wooden and dorky. They pull things back from the grating over stressed rhyming focus that unfortunately the poem can have a way of suggesting even in this current revision, though less so than in earlier drafts. But bolding is also sometimes a way of indicating importance etc. along with greater stress that should be delivered. I think it’s only “sustaining” in the first stanza and “way” and “save” in the fourth stanza that demands this. For the latter two it helps hold the rhythm, and certainty of the rhyme scheme together. Edit: Now “children” in the first stanza is also bolded and giving it greater stress also helps hold the rhythm, and certainty of the rhyme scheme together; it sounds much better when done.

Trying to find a way to use the same font as I used for previous posts has been a labyrinthian nightmare; so goodbye to my favorite font of this site I guess. I’m stuck with the default font unless I’m prepared to successfully get through the nightmare. Update: Interestingly the first paragraph of this note, which was copied and pasted into it, could very well be the font of previous posts I’ve been talking about, so that might be a way to get it back. But doing so might mess with the layout of lines in ways that prove to be uncorrectable. Update: Somewhere along the way the font changed to one not as superlative as the one I’d been using but quite pleasing.

I hope that I have gotten across the circumstance of someone on scaffolding flying people as semi-independent kites over castle grounds that are behind a curtain wall that eventually presents itself in the poem. The word “baileys”, though not the most well known word lets one know that the kite-ified people are over yards rather than buildings for the most part, and it pretty much implies a curtain wall I’m pretty sure. Making these things any clearer in the poem would probably significantly damage its feel and or structure.

In this revision I aimed and succeeded at taking away the extra trans-stanza rhymes (scatters/matter and redemption/prison)(in contrast to the regular trans-stanza rhymes), the first rhyme being very grating to me, and both of them confusing recognition of the general rhyme schemes. This came with costs (“cavorts and scatters” is much more effective than “cavorts but dispersed will run” for example) but the full regularity helps the poem’s feel/cadence. Also I have made the poem clearer.

I am finally at peace that this poem has gotten to a revision that does it enough justice.