We watched the monsoon lightning
like it was our favorite pinball game.
They say lightning never strikes the same place twice
and you only have one true love.
As your car lit up like a firefly’s insides,
thunder clapped so loud our hearts were forced to beat.
We’ve been heartbroken.
Lightning does not always strike where it is supposed to -
resulting in forest fires and dangerous swimming pools
Likewise, if love strikes where it should not, we get
the makings of Shakespeare, tabloids, and difficult childhood.
When I looked into the eye of your storm, I wanted
to clean my regrets like rain using Hawaiian ho’oponopono.
The first time we argued
about time, money, and sex
I wanted you to sit me down in an electric chair,
strap me in like potential,
flip the switch and let Old Sparky kill my memories,
regrets and mistakes
until all there is left is love.
Even a storm cloud believes it can fly before it cries.
Our love was rekindled in your car during the monsoon storm
BOOM
Lightning flash
BOOM
Thunder clap
BOOM
Hold hands, lock lips, rub your feet on the carpet.
Use the static to kiss my stomach.
You are my hotwire, my fire,
and this lightning we are watching is looking for a conductor.
This lightning speaks.
This lightning knew how Thor and Zues handle electricity for a living.
This lightning has read books.
This lightning cannot see you smile because it only looks you in the eye from inches away.
This lightning broke its’ glasses, but it can smell you in bed every morning.
This lightning talks to you in whispers late at night and giggles under blankets.
This lightning felt you tremble inside.
This lightning held your hand
as we drove away from the parking lot
where we watched God
play Lite Brite.
That night, I was lovestruck.
From: Chainsawsmoking: Poems Wrapped in Cellophane
Summary
“How the Lightning Sings” by Aaron Hopkins-Johnson is a poem centered on arizona, place and geography, memory. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
Analysis
Voice
A personal, first-person speaker combines recollection with direct emotional address.
Style and form
The poem is musically inflected, typographically emphatic, first-person. The poem moves by accumulation: images, references, and tonal turns build on one another, so meaning emerges from their relationships as much as from narrative sequence.
Themes and imagery
Its strongest thematic currents include arizona, place and geography, memory, love and relationships. Concrete images give those abstractions physical weight, while changes in diction and pace keep the poem from settling into a single emotional register.
Reading the poem
A productive way to read “How the Lightning Sings” is to watch how its images change function as the poem progresses. Details that initially establish scene or memory become emotional evidence. The result is a poem whose argument is carried through association, rhythm, and image as much as through explicit statement.
Explore this poem
Source & rights
Source: Chainsawsmoking: Poems Wrapped in Cellophane (Lawn Gnome Publishing, 2016)
Rights: © 2016 Lawn Gnome Publishing. All rights reserved.