An interview was conducted with Spencer Koelsch (SK), the author of the following poems, for the purpose of elucidating some of his thoughts, the interview will be displayed after each poem.
Drowning
shadows play on the dappled water.
dappled from the rain.
rain.
falling.
falling.
water blurs;
goes black;
fades.
“dead:” the impassionate officer.
Gone
oRIDGEinal: What do you want to say about “Drowning”?
SK: I wrote it while thinking of suicide. The theme is drowning. The purpose of the piece is to make the reader understand the sense of loss that a suicide or any death causes.
oRIDGEinal: Is there anything you want the reader to feel while reading this?
SK: A sense of loss of someone that is close to them.
oRIDGEinal: What does rain represent?
SK: The water from a shower.
A Dark Place
The cell is not dark.
Blackness pervades it.
Darkness does not start
to even explain.
The feeling of death:
Prison in a life-
time stops to explain
the boredom, the pain.
Nothing on earth can.
Death is not earthly.
It survives away:
On the lifeless
land of the future.
Near or far, it comes
to all the living.
Destruction with it.
oRIDGEinal: What is the feeling of death described in the poem?
SK: Being trapped and burdened by responsibilities and stuck in the feeling of the inability to do anything else.
oRIDGEinal: Are darkness and blackness two different things?
SK: Yes, blackness is the absence of light, darkness is little light.
oRIDGEinal: I like how you’re saying death survives
SK: And life dies.
History
Stories of things past
that go by so fast.
Nothing can stop Time,
the killing of kine
Vitriol burns scars,
none so deep as Mars.
oRIDGEinal: I like the “Vitriol burns scars, none so deep as Mars” part.
SK: Mars obviously represents war.
oRIDGEinal: Whoa! That gives it a lot more meaning.
SK: Yeah, Mars is the god of war…
