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LIke-A-Gecko?
Posted: 12 May 2007
Word Count: 57
Summary: Hah. Was reading through my old files, and I found this so enchanting! Hope you enjoy
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I walked across a lake one day. No lies.
The water pushed against my feet, each
Ripple froze in place, but it wasn’t ice.
Clear as spring air, the fish swam below
My toes, as a gecko walks on the side
Of a fish bowl.
Like a gecko. I could lick my own ears,
And I did.
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 James Graham at 20:41 on 15 May 2007
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Hi Jordan - I like this. It reads like something really original. It's not the fantasy of walking on water by itself; it's that plus the gecko. First the comparison between walking on water and a gecko walking on the glass of a fish bowl, then the poem's speaker seeming almost to turn into a gecko, a creature with the enviable ability to lick its own ears. Odd, eccentric, but oddly convincing too.
If anyone told this in conversation, people would look at them as if they were crazy. If you started talking to a stranger in the subway and told him this, he'd move away. But this isn't conversation, this is a poem. A different mode. In the poetic mode you can tell an odd story and it's acceptable.
It reminds me a little of children's imaginative play. A little boy will tell you that he's an outlaw and yesterday he shot a man who tried to steal his horse. No lies. I like the way your 'No lies' in the poem makes us think about how something that can't be literally, humdrum true, can still seem to be true in imagination.
I like the description of the feeling of the semi-solid water, and the clear image of fish swimming just under the walker's feet. But most of all, I really like that gecko.
Maybe you don't need the very last line - 'And I did.' Could the poem's speaker say 'I could lick my own ears' if he hadn't already done it?
James.
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Jordan789 
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