My Papa's Waltz

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

Theodore Roethke

Today in class, we read and analyzed a poem called My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke, and even held a fake jury to determine whether the boy in the story was being abused. Almost everyone in our class had different ideas on what happened, based solely on the poem and what it says happened. We all agreed on one thing: that the father was drunk.
Although I think that the father in the poem could be interpreted as abusive in some parts, such as the line that states "my right ear scraped a buckle" or "you beat time on my head", I know that I've spent times with my whole family on a holiday where they get drunk, and dancing and knocking over some kitchen supplies isn't that harmful. hat I think that the poem is about more is how the little boy loved his father, no matter what he did. He started the poem by saying in the third line, "But I hung on like death" and ended, the last line being "Still clinging to your shirt", although the mother seems upset about the father knocking over some pans.

Beyond This Looking Glass (Narrative Poem, Mother to Child)

Beyond this looking glass (protection)
The night wind sings its song of death
But in the morning all is brought to life
again.
So don't cry
as the night settles in; (the city is lost without light)
I will hold you
(fall asleep to the sound of my breathing)
until the sun overthrows
The revolt of the moon once more, until it falls to the deepest depths
again.

The Incident Poem

Water built of glass
I am the pin that shatters it
Sinking slowly to the bottom
Oh, what creatures you can find
That are hidden
Through an opaque wall.
The top of the pin slips under
Although bubbles float to the top
A thin design of oxygen...
Air slithers in and out
Through plastic
Straining from sky to lung.
The ocean shatters
Shards become panicked birds
Clogging the tube
Sucking life out of the pin
When suddenly the pressure gives in
And the pin becomes nothing
But a small sanity within the glass.

Langston Hughes Apparently Dreams

The Dream Keeper

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.

-Langston Hughes

I like this poem. At first, the pace is a little fast, but it slows down at the line "that I may wrap them". The first four lines seem to be more rhythmic and upbeat, while the last four lines are slower and more relaxing; they have longer lines, and have words like "cloud-cloth", and "too-rough".
While most of the last half of the poem uses words that are (as one would assume) peaceful and slow, the phrase "too-rough" is the opposite. Hughes uses it in a way that says: "This is what the world can do, but if you leave your dreams with me, they'll be safe."
Although not the best, I can compare it to an advertisement on television. They say that they have the best prices, the bets deal, the best quality, the best results.
What sucks, though, is when another commercial comes on after it about people who have been known to die or have stroke or heart attack because of their product, and you too can call in now and get your money back.

No matter how reassuring this poem sounds, it's not, it's just reminding you about how "too-rough" the world can be. But to wrap your dreams in a blanket and hide them from the world is just taking the imagination form the world.
Dreams and the world belong together: Dreams lets you escape the reality for a while, but the world snaps you back into it. Without either one... who knows?
But some people like to wrap other people's dreams in a fluffy piece of fabric.

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.

Like Langston.

Big Big Big

I've seen this image a couple of times. It's by an insect macro photographer named Thomas Shahan and is of a male jumping spider.
OBSERVATIONS
-There are reflections of what looks like a camera lens and flash in the spider's eyes.
-The eyes are perfectly round and have an orange rim around them.
-The skin of the spider looks smooth and shiny, yet wrinkly, and has a golden/plum color. Also, individual hairs can be seen.
-The (mouth?) has 2 large (fangs?) sticking out of it
INFERENCES
-The spider looks frightened, but I don't know if that's because its eyes are big and round, which might naturally be that way.
-The two things sticking out of its mouth may be fangs.
-The spider is alone because no other spiders can be seen in the picture
INTERPRETATION
-Since the spider looks bigger than it normally would, maybe the photographer is trying to tell his audience that most things are bigger than they seem, or are more powerful than they seem
-That insects aren't always ugly and dirty, (I got this idea from the article that accompanied this picture, it brought up the point that the photographer made "even the most underestimated arthropods look cute, interesting, and downright gorgeous.")