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Difficult Interpretation
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Neici's & Chris' Interpretations of...
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The Day Brushes It's Curtains Aside
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to
a dark stage.
I lie there awake in my prison bunk,
in the eye-catching silence
of prison night.
I study the
moon out my grilled window.
I figure this and that,
not out, just figure, figuring more,
the inner I go, through
illimitable tunnels,
roaring great, myself back back back.
I lie still, listening to water drops
clink and
pap pap pap
in the shower stall next to my cell.
In that airy place we call the heart,
I move like a magician
in
the colorful stage lights of my moods,
my bright dreams, and blue light
circles a tear on my cheek, and lips with her
name.
>From flowers in my hands
her face appears. In cards
she is the queen. These are tricks
and I am
the magician.
Tomorrow morning I will crawl out of bed
knowing I cannot escape the chains
they've wrapped around
me.
I will crawl out of bed tomorrow,
as though I had stepped out of a box
on stage. It was no illusion,
when
the sword plunged into the box,
I smiled at the crowd,
as it went deeper and deeper into my heart. | |
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Neici's Interpretation:
The first stanza of Jimmy Santiago Baca's "The Day Brushes
it's Curtain Aside" definitely seems literal with the exception of its opening line. It is
describing his current situation and activity and as the poem continues, Baca describes his surroundings in detail, capturing
sensory images, mostly appealing to the visual and hearing senses. Eventually the poem progresses into what seems like a daydream
or even a possible fantasy with a great deal of imagery. Baca describes the heart as "airy", which
suggests emptiness, yet freedom. As he goes on to describe his movement "like a magician['s]",
the meaning of this piece grows fuzzy, continuing with lines like "in the colorful stage lights of my
moods", which could indicate some very regular, noticeable mood changes, especially when paired with the descriptions
of his "bright dreams" and "blue light", which seem contradictory as
happy is to sad. There is no indication of who the feminine subject is in the lines "... and lips with
her name... she is the queen", thus only adding to the confusion
because "she" has seemed to develop out of nowhere, not being mentioned before or after these lines in the poem. As the piece
continues, it seems to drift back to a more literal state as Baca acknowledges that he is still in prison and these dramatizations
will have disappeared the next morning. He goes back to using imagery and a magic trick as a metaphor to describe what being
placed in prison has done to him.
Chris's Interpretation:
In this poem Jimmy Santiago Baca is In his prison cell at night. Using the metephor of himself being a magician, he describes
his moods and thoughts. Prison is this stage of misery, and he is the miserable magicain. In his agony of the dark lonely
prison he thinks about a woman."In cards she is a queen." the next day is going to wake up. Even though he knows he
is still in prison, he knows he still has his thoughts about his woman and they cant take that from him.
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