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| (Image from Complete Electrical Solutions) |
Toasting Quietly
Toasting quietly under
midnight's citrus sun to
graceless bats singing
their hunter's song, while
I am trying to learn from
the chattering lights
the words to flood from
my eyes some night.
-Paul Whiting
(a.k.a., Small All White in the Forest)
"I am no barrier to its sun; the light and I are as one!"
My Poetic Notes:
The reason that I wrote this poem can be summed up with the following statement: I wrote this poem while I was really struggling with coming out of the proverbial closet as being gay to my dad! So, I would spend a lot of time driving in my car, trying to "process the feelings" that I was having.
In fact, I would often spend time in parking lots at night under those orange-colored sodium lights ("Toasting quietly under midnight's citrus sun..."), where I could hear bats flying overhead, while they were eating the insects that were circling around the parking lot lights ("...to graceless bats singing their hunter's song..."), while I was hearing Barbra Streisand's album "Yentl" play on my car stereo and, specifically, while I was listening to the song, "Papa Can You Hear Me?"
And while I was listening to the music, the sodium parking lot lights would buzz, like they were talking—or, "chattering," so to speak—as I was imagining how I was ever going to tell my dad that I was gay ("...trying to learn from the chattering lights..."), and as I was imagining that I would be crying profusely when I finally did tell him that I was gay ("...the words to flood from my eyes some night..."), since my dad was really homophobic—until he finally found out, years later, that I was gay.
Just so you know, I revised this poem, as I often do with my writing! And I changed how this poem was written when I was editing it on my "Small All White in the Forest" and "Paul Whiting — A Creative Writer" blogs. So, I wanted to show you how this poem used to be written, before I revised it as above.
And it used to be written like this:
Toasting Quietly
Toasting quietly under
midnight's citrus sun to
graceless bats singing
their hunter's song;
trying to learn from the
chattering lights, the
words to flood from
my eyes some night.
Thus, I revised this poem to be written as it is above.
And this poem was also published on my "Paul Whiting — A Creative Writer" blog (please see the hyperlink below for the blog), since I feel that the message in this poem applies to the message that I am trying to convey through "Paul Whiting — A Creative Writer."
This poem was written in Salt Lake City, Utah.
-Paulee
https://paulwhitingwriting.blogspot.com
This "Small All White in the Forest" Post No. 005 was edited on September 7th, 2023.
"Poetry is using the fewest words possible in order to describe all that is possible to describe." –Paul Whiting [June 1st, 2022]
