Exercises in scaffolding (1)

The following poems (exercises 1 and 2) were written as part of practice in scaffolding.  The imagery, rhythm and mood of the original are dissected line by line and reflected in a rewrite with a twist on subject and/or theme.

The first poem is my piece, the second is the original inspiration.

Fragmentsville (after Billy Collins: Schoolsville)

Glancing over my shoulder at the past,

I realize the number of projects I’ve left undone

could fill a thousand planner’s days.

I can see them lurking in dusty corners,

half-sung melodies thickening the air

for gesturing figures suspended in step.

The would-be works inch meekly toward the half-light

in the hopes of being noticed,

each one for its initial glory, 

earning a line and coveted check on the page.

Once in a while, the spotlight illuminates

a listless plot line,

promising to straighten its hunched hero,

to reanimate its tender theme.

But time is impatient, the weary scribe

moreso, and the story is cast back

to amend the shadows once more.

Schoolsville 

Billy Collins

Glancing over my shoulder at the past,
I realize the number of students I have taught
is enough to populate a small town.

I can see it nestled in a paper landscape,
chalk dust flurrying down in winter,
nights dark as a blackboard.

The population ages but never graduates.
On hot afternoons they sweat the final in the park
and when it's cold they shiver around stoves
reading disorganized essays out loud.
A bell rings on the hour and everybody zigzags
into the streets with their books.

I forgot all their last names first and their
first names last in alphabetical order.
But the boy who always had his hand up
is an alderman and owns the haberdashery.
The girl who signed her papers in lipstick
leans against the drugstore, smoking,
brushing her hair like a machine.

Their grades are sewn into their clothes
like references to Hawthorne.
The A's stroll along with other A's.
The D's honk whenever they pass another D.

All the creative-writing students recline
on the courthouse lawn and play the lute.
Wherever they go, they form a big circle.

Needless to say, I am the mayor.
I live in the white colonial at Maple and Main.
I rarely leave the house. The car deflates
in the driveway. Vines twirl around the porch swing.

Once in a while a student knocks on the door
with a term paper fifteen years late
or a question about Yeats or double-spacing.
And sometimes one will appear in a windowpane
to watch me lecturing the wallpaper,
quizzing the chandelier, reprimanding the air.