Stark Contrast (was Stark) rev #4.

[aschueler]

[quote='aschueler' pid='200950' dateline='1449427092']
Version 4



In mid drought the dark parking lot
extends starkly from the boy and heats -- I think that 'extends starkly and heats the boy's face' would read better. I'm not sure that you need 'sun on his head' since you highlight the baking sun at the beginning of the third stanza.
his face, the sun on his head.

His neck bent, brow on forearm, he pokes
listlessly
at the dried stick
of a dead worm -- this image is so surprising. Very evocative.
cooked by sunrise. -- I like how "cooked" meshes with "toasted." Not sure that you need "sunrise" since we all know what's doing the cooking.

The direct sun yields no shadow, -- I think you could choose a different modifier that highlights aloneness, stagnation, loss.
and there is no wind to move the
toasted pine needles. -- more good imagery here
His sandy sweat sits on him with
no where to go. -- Not sure about sandy, but liking all the rest. I don't think that you need to modify the sweat because the image of it sitting with nowhere to go is enough to carry the metaphor in my opinion. I think that sandy is actually distracting.



Bree of cicadas at the edge of his hearing
draws him over, through a copse of trees.
Here a hidden spring boils up pure white sand
suspended in clear lens water.

The water streams past, 
as it defines the relief
of its shoulders well.

Cold water sheathes his skin as he reaches in.


A sudden wet wind turns leaves over, -- like this image of hands lifted to the sky
beckoning the rain.  And it rains
it rains, it rains.  
Puddles form then rivulet into the stream and it rains
harder, faster, so hard -- the action seems to pick up here.

He thinks he can swim through it. --I'd put a colon here. I like how this final stanza wraps things up using the momentum of swimming to give a sense that he's leaving the past behind.
Up he swims, through the rain
over the trees
past it all.

---

 I wish you'd bring back "nothing happens." It was so deliciously bleak and nihilistic.

Apart from that, I do like this version the best. For me, you're moving in the right direction.

Enjoyed the read!

lizziep

Very good suggestions, thanks lizzie!  didn't think about the parking lot extending from the boy, as it were, until you mentioned that line;  makes me think I subconsciously see the parking lot emanate from him.  Hmmm.

The sunrise part was trying, too hard I guess, to express how worms come out in pre dawn to but then get baked suddenly when the sun comes out.

Sandy sweat is annoying sweat, that's why I put that there...will re think.  

Considering since its inception adding -- somehow -- the noise that comes with still heating like the ticking of iron.  But so far I can't figure it out so I have left it.