stinkdog wrote:
Somewhere they fox trot madly
While in lunar shadows slowly
I keep pace with crickets gladly
And Moon rises with my bile
Who wrote this poem and what does it even mean?
in the book your hero qc sets himself apart, he goes off into the woods to train and sacrifice to get better. he leaves his girlfriend etc...
with that in mind:
"somewhere they fox trot madly"
others are off dancing and having fun. he is not with them. he is alone.
"while the lunar shadows slowly"
this simply tells us that it is night time. it re-enforces the 1st line of others out dancing - it is night time, when others are out on dates.
"I keep pace with crickets gladly"
crickets come out at night. keeping pace tells us he is moving. he is happy to be moving (running). i take it to mean as the crickets chirp he is is moving/running and can hear them, he runs to their sound, like keeping pace with a drum. it seems to convey almost a peacefulness of running - he does it gladly, keeping pace with chirping crickets. this also seems to imply he is alone in the night. he uses "i" not "we."
"And Moon rises with my bile"
the moon rising simply signifies time passing as he runs. as he works out, as time passes and as he runs either his anger rises or maybe he feels the need to throw up from a hard workout. i dont really think it means to literally throw up. i suspect more that it means he is exerting great effort. i do not think it means literally "anger, bitterness of spirit" since that would seem to contradict the the line before where he keeps pace with the crickets "gladly", unless parker means that his mood has now changed. rather i think the better explanation is that parker is attempting to show great effort on the part of the runner.
in short, the poem is about a runner who works out hard at night, while others dance/date and have fun. but not just work out, work out very hard. the runner sacrifices dating/dancing. even so there is a peacefulness about the running even when it is done very hard and alone in the night.
my 2 cents.