Empty Streets (Birds, IL)

Its main artery, Eagle Drive, has long dried up.
Bluebird, Dove, and Hummingbird lanes branch
off leading to nowhere.

A Bud Light sign is all that’s left
standing beside the empty shell of the local bar.

A couple of churches centered in vacant lots
outlined with rotted cement curbs sport signboards
with service times listed.

A roadside littered with white turkey feathers leads
to a nearby marsh better preserved than this sad town.

Copyright Cher Cunningham, 2006

Hey Cher, I hope you don't mind--I was in the mood for crit, and this is one worth working on, IMO. Here goes...



I X'ed what I consider wordiness. Your call, of course. In my opinion, it's puts the reader right there and eliminates the "telly" feel of the intro. I also changed the enjambment. I like emjambment, but found it distracting

I X'ed for wordiness and telliness here too. I think you can do better than this and that all you need is the image of the sign and the empty shell of a bar (though "empty shell" is one of those word pairings that Orwell would frown upon because they so often go together). I think you could find some other word or phrase linking them other than "beside."



This feels cramped and reads awkwardly, though I see the point and would not suggest cutting the image itself. I have no suggestions for improvement, however.



Awesome image, but again feels cramped and awkward. I wanna see those turkey feathers fly or wobble so close to the ground in the breeze. I wanna see how well that marsh is preserved. I sense a surreal kind of feeling from the writer when picturing the image, but it doesn't flow smoothly enough to do it without a lot of work.

I think you're going someplace with this and it's worth writing about. I'm looking forward to any re-write you might have to post.

Thanks, Annabelle. It was both odd and sad visiting this small town after so many years. There is literally little left. What few houses left are still well maintained, but as for the others, they're simply no longer there. The grid of the streets along with street signs still remain, but that's it. It looks like people simply packed up everything and moved.

I appreciate you taking the time to both read and crit as I will continue working on this one. It was a hurried write as I wanted to try to capture the feeling of the day and then to be able to come back and rework it later.

Your suggestions have duly been noted.

Now, a bit of a back story. When I say that it looks like people moved everything ... I mean just that. There are few houses left. The ones left are obviously still occupied, but there are no dead or decaying houses. Nada. That's why I started out the piece with a dried up artery ... trying to evoke the feeling that there's little to nothing there. I was really quiet eerie. Birds has always been a small, rural town. One that my rural grade school (8 grades/4 rooms) traveled to play basketball and softball. It was the 'city' kids versus the 'country' kids back then. How funny to think of that now. As for the turkey feathers, they really don't blow around all that much they just lie there sprinkling the grass roadways or lawns. Seems they 'stick' to the grass. I was totally taken by the irony of their presence, however, and that of the nature preserve down the road a ways. I'm definitely reworking it and look forward to sharing it with you as I do.

I understand about wordiness, but I wonder if leaving the reference somehow of the artery (lifeblood since it was the main street of the town) is that bad of a thing. Something I'll certainly experiment with. And about empty shell ... it is a cliche for sure, but until I can come up with something better at least it's a place marker!

Thanks again!

Cher

Did some work on it today and played with wordage and structure both. Of course it's not near where I want it, but crit away my friend.

Empty Streets (Birds, IL)
-- revision

Eagle Drive long ago dried up.
Bluebird, Dove, Hummingbird
branch off leading to nowhere.
A busted Bud Light sign marks the
remains of the local bar while a couple
of churches, centered on vacant lots, still
shout service times from their signboards.
Grids of rotted cement curbs outline blocks once
populated with businesses and homes bought out by the state.
A roadside littered with white turkey feathers leads to a nearby marsh home to
safely preserved brown-eyed Susans, marsh mallows, and electric blue dragonflies.

Copyright Cher Cunningham, 2006

Cher, I noticed the re-write and I think it's already better. To answer your question here (and I do understand--I get attached to stuff too), I think yes, you can keep artery, but maybe not in that first line. Don't forget "arterial" as an adjective. Might work better...

I'm off to wrk, so more later...

Thanks for taking a quick look. Hmmmm, arterial, that's why workshopping is such a good thing.

Cher

I like how the poem is progressing.

When I read this passage:

of churches, centered on vacant lots, still
shout service times from their signboards

I find myself wanting to see some of the words on the signboard.

And "roadside littered" sounds cliche, to me.

Overall, I like the approach you've taken to this. Kind of like a snapshot, with bits 'n' pieces of extra info included. I'm also wondering if it might be kinda cool to put together something with that "city school vs. country school" you mentioned in your back story. Nostalgia-like.

: )

Thanks for sharing. You are more of an inspiration than you know!

Thanks!



I really dislike cliches, however, if you've ever seen a roadside after a load of turkeys is moved from farm to processing plant, that's exactly what it looks like a roadside littered with white bits of paper. The feathers are everywhere. When I visit my dad, I can always tell when a load has been moved as there's a Perdue outfit just down the road from him. Fortunately for him, the wind goddess seems to blow in a westerly direction more often than not, so we seldom have to deal with the smell. Yuck!

Thanks again for taking the time to read and to comment. There's still a lot more work to be done. I'll keep in mind your other suggestions as well.

Cher

Always Welcome, Birds, IL

Annna -

I spent the afternoon photojournaling another visit to what's left of this sad little town. If you like, you can view the slideshow here by clicking on 'view as slideshow' in the upper right hand corner.

I tried almost desperately to capture the desolation of this almost defunct town, but somehow a beauty still shone through. As I was photographing the town, under the ever watchful eye of the teenage boy mowing one of the abandoned lots, I was reminded of Birdland (lyrics follow) by Patti Smith.

Birdland
[lyrics by patti smith; music by patti smith, richard sohl, lenny kaye, ivan kral]

His father died and left him a little farm in New England.
All the long black funeral cars left the scene
And the boy was just standing there alone
Looking at the shiny red tractor
Him and his daddy used to sit inside
And circle the blue fields and grease the night.
It was if someone had spread butter on all the fine points of the stars
'Cause when he looked up they started to slip.
Then he put his head in the crux of his arm
And he started to drift, drift to the belly of a ship,
Let the ship slide open, and he went inside of it
And saw his daddy 'hind the control board streamin' beads of light,
He saw his daddy 'hind the control board,
And he was very different tonight
'Cause he was not human, he was not human.

And then the little boy's face lit up with such naked joy
That the sun burned around his lids and his eyes were like two suns,
White lids, white opals, seeing everything just a little bit too clearly
And he looked around and there was no black ship in sight,
No black funeral cars, nothing except for him the raven
And fell on his knees and looked up and cried out,
“No, daddy, don't leave me here alone,
Take me up, daddy, to the belly of your ship,
Let the ship slide open and I'll go inside of it
Where you're not human, you are not human.”

But nobody heard the boy's cry of alarm.
Nobody there 'cept for the birds around the New England farm
And they gathered in all directions, like roses they scattered
And they were like compass grass coming together into the head of a shaman bouquet
Slit in his nose and all the others went shooting
And he saw the lights of traffic beckoning like the hands of Blake
Grabbing at his cheeks, taking out his neck,
All his limbs, everything was twisted and he said,
“I won't give up, won't give up, don't let me give up,
I won't give up, come here, let me go up fast,
Take me up quick, take me up, up to the belly of a ship
And the ship slides open and I go inside of it where I am not human.”

I am helium raven and this movie is mine,
So he cried out as he stretched the sky,
Pushing it all out like latex cartoon, am I all alone in this generation?
We'll just be dreaming of animation night and day
And won't let up, won't let up and I see them coming in,
Oh, I couldn't hear them before, but I hear 'em now,
It's a radar scope in all silver and all platinum lights
Moving in like black ships, they were moving in, streams of them,
And he put up his hands and he said, “It's me, it's me,
I'll give you my eyes, take me up, oh now please take me up,
I'm helium raven waitin' for you, please take me up,
Don't leave me here!”
The son, the sign, the cross,
Like the shape of a tortured woman, the true shape of a tortured woman,
The mother standing in the doorway letting her sons
No longer presidents but prophets
They're all dreaming they're gonna bear the prophet,
He's gonna run through the fields dreaming in animation
It's all gonna split his skull
It's gonna come out like a black bouquet shining
Like a fist that's gonna shoot them up
Like light, like Mohammed Boxer
Take them up up up up up up
Oh, let's go up, up, take me up, I'll go up,
I'm going up, I'm going up
Take me up, I'm going up, I'll go up there
Go up go up go up go up up up up up up up
Up, up to the belly of a ship.
Let the ship slide open and we'll go inside of it
Where we are not human, we're not human.

Well, there was sand, there were tiles,
The sun had melted the sand and it coagulated
Like a river of glass
When it hardened he looked at the surface
He saw his face
And where there were eyes were just two white opals, two white opals,
Where there were eyes there were just two white opals
And he looked up and the rays shot
And he saw raven comin' in
And he crawled on his back and he went up
Up up up up up up
Sha da do wop, da shaman do way, sha da do wop, da shaman do way,
Sha da do wop, da shaman do way, sha da do wop, da shaman do way,
Sha da do wop, da shaman do way,
We like birdland.
[Copyright © 1975 Linda Music Corp.]

I'll be writing much, much more.

Cher

good stuff, cher. it reminds me of arcadia, MI. I had to be there this morning for a parade..

Thank you very much for reading and commenting. I'm not sure why this has struck a chord in me the way it has.

Cher

np: Watching the Lightning - Tim Easton, Stormy Weather Mix

I really like your slide show, Cher -- and I think my favorite shot might be the church sign you posted here. (Love how the pastor's name has faded but is still visible!) I also especially liked the church photo with the street sign (Dove Ln) visible, and the "Painter" photo.

: )