A Run-On Sentence
Lovely mornings in the kitchen
were always a source of smiles
to my surprise, as was the sun’s rise
with his first rays orange aflame
licking the tender laminate
wood of an impoverished home
maturing as the day went by
into the intense yellows I’ve come to
appreciate in fire, and such sunshine
contained also in the grapefruits
on the table, round, rolling
and redolent of childhood breakfasts
spent eating cornflakes and poring
over maps messily like milk poured
through the flakes and fibers constellating
in my mind, dreaming
for some stranger to take me away
to the place where the scent
of childhood breakfasts grows
naturally, all the places my parents
could not take me, and perhaps,
become that stranger myself
Posted Jul 3, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC
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I really like the concept of a poem entirely consisting of one long run-on sentence. Very creative. In my interpretation, I thought the poem was about a child growing up, maturing, and wanting to experience the things in life that their parents sheltered them from. I’m not sure exactly what “the stranger” is supposed to mean. I’m curious what you had in mind when writing the poem, as I really like it.
I think your interpretation is mostly correct! This poem was actually from a writing exercise in a creative writing class I took and the rules were that we could not have any periods or sentences and we had to somehow incorporate as many words as we could from a list they gave us. I believe grapefruit, maps, stranger, were some of the words and I wrote this in about 15 minutes before we had to set down our pencils. I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out, and to me, it sort of rambles in a circular stream of consciousness about the sorrows (but mostly joys) of a poor home that is comfortable and wholesome but not able to afford you the life experiences you want to have out there in the world as a young child. Later, I reflect on getting to become that stranger myself, which implies both a gained worldliness, but also a distance and alienation from my former self. I hope I was able to convey that.