NaPoWriMo. Day 4 Poem 4 Tangent Practice 1 (after Kenneth Koch)

In poetry the skill to concentrate on themes/objects and tie them neatly together is beyond me at times. Ted Hughes says he took up fishing to help him master this. The way my mind works naturally (and I believe most people's) is it just goes off in tangents. Here's a poem I started writing attempting to stick to a theme but break into a tangent if  it comes naturally. Here's the result.

after Kenneth Koch

The Metro says  a young Asian girl has been shot

she is now spending her life as a cripple

                                                                        I wonder where she wants to go.

I wonder where I would want to go if I couldn’t go anywhere.

The Metro says she was dancing in the aisle of a corner shop

when she was shot down by three black guys.

The newspaper asks – is this the kind of place we live in?

They should have gone to a museum –                                       

                                                                      could you see that?

                                   The little brown Asian girl and these three black guys

at The National Portrait Gallery (for example)

                                                                     Happy and out of trouble

                                                         had they ever considered that?

 We’ve had weeks of sun       they could have even gone to Brighton beach

 I can see all four of them sitting in deckchairs

                                                                                     on the pebbles  wearing sunhats

 but apparently it’s not the kind of place we live in.          

                              

                           Me

  I’ve been pulled in so many directions –

Jamaica

                                      Germany

                              South Africa

       

The idea of staying in London does not have much voltage.

I want to go and land

                                      somewhere

I want to have something inside me electrocuted.

                                                                              new places                                                                                          

                                                                                      make sense and no sense at the same time.

As for my city 

                     I can deal with a bad cloud  but I’m brown

                                                                            It’s not my style.

what am I missing if I’m not where I want to be?

                                                                                       

  MY MIND HAS BEEN EVERYWHERE!                                 

                                                                   wait          

                                                                            is my head still above my neck?

OK, London

                            I have hoisted a sail

                                                                    How about some        wind?