invitation for public slicing, dicing, and other constructive skewering

[greenmountaineer]

Very nice, Mer. The near rhymes and skillful enjambment, neither of which I thought were over-used, enhanced the lyrical quality of the poem IMO.

I read "addicts" as a noun in L3, emphasis on the first syllable, which made the line sound clunky. Of course, it was the verb, emphasis on the second syllable, which makes the line sound better. Why put the reader there in the first place, particularly in the first stanza? I confess a bias here. I think the first few lines of a poem should be as clear as possible to the reader (There are some exceptions to that IMO, but that's off topic.) Agreed that the mistake was mine as the reader, but it still felt like a fly in the ointment. I might suggest you consider a simile here in which you compare your "purgatory" to some habitual or addictive behavior.

S2: At first I thought you had too many "acts." After reading the whole stanza, I realized I was wrong. Combined with the near rhymes and the skilled word choice, the repetition is very effective, and the whole stanza is the most lyrical and beautiful one in the poem. You might want to consider it as your first stanza and the current one the second. That way you introduce the reader to your enchantment, and the former first stanza introduces the "yes, but..."

My only problem with S2 is I'm not sure who "you" is. Is your "kid" or someone else?

In the same manner, who is "we?" Up to this point, I thought the poem was a reflection, ie, self-talk, musing. "We" suggests a dialogue.

I like the image of "a wrought iron fence/of a life misspent" but the stanza needs more. I wasn't convinced of the truth in the last line. I'm sure it's there, but it needs more, I think.

 

[legerdemer]

Very nice, Mer. The near rhymes and skillful enjambment, neither of which I thought were over-used, enhanced the lyrical quality of the poem IMO.

I read "addicts" as a noun in L3, emphasis on the first syllable, which made the line sound clunky. Of course, it was the verb, emphasis on the second syllable, which makes the line sound better. Why put the reader there in the first place, particularly in the first stanza? I confess a bias here. I think the first few lines of a poem should be as clear as possible to the reader (There are some exceptions to that IMO, but that's off topic.) Agreed that the mistake was mine as the reader, but it still felt like a fly in the ointment. I might suggest you consider a simile here in which you compare your "purgatory" to some habitual or addictive behavior.

S2: At first I thought you had too many "acts." After reading the whole stanza, I realized I was wrong. Combined with the near rhymes and the skilled word choice, the repetition is very effective, and the whole stanza is the most lyrical and beautiful one in the poem. You might want to consider it as your first stanza and the current one the second. That way you introduce the reader to your enchantment, and the former first stanza introduces the "yes, but..."

My only problem with S2 is I'm not sure who "you" is. Is your "kid" or someone else?

In the same manner, who is "we?" Up to this point, I thought the poem was a reflection, ie, self-talk, musing. "We" suggests a dialogue.

I like the image of "a wrought iron fence/of a life misspent" but the stanza needs more. I wasn't convinced of the truth in the last line. I'm sure it's there, but it needs more, I think.

Thank you, gm. I like your suggestion of switching the first two stanzas. I'll think about your other suggestions as well. "We" was ""I" one point (" I know") at one point, and might be again - that last will be the toughest, of course.

I really appreciate your careful reading, and am glad it seems to mostly work.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

I think my favorite lines are:

I want to gift them to my kid,
to keep under her pillow, baby teeth,
ephemeral and delicate and brief.

"Ephemeral" and "brief" may be just a little redundant, but I'm a sucker for assonance; I like the echoes in "gift" and "kid", "ephemeral" and "delicate", "teeth" and "brief".

 

[legerdemer]

I think my favorite lines are:

I want to gift them to my kid,
to keep under her pillow, baby teeth,
ephemeral and delicate and brief.

"Ephemeral" and "brief" may be just a little redundant, but I'm a sucker for assonance; I like the echoes in "gift" and "kid", "ephemeral" and "delicate", "teeth" and "brief".

My thoughts precisely, AH - I just fell in love with the sound.

 

[legerdemer]

a second pass

This incorporates some of gm's suggestions. It isn't finished, but it helps to see it to roll it around the tongue.



Bliss, A Purgatory

I fell in love with acts of kindness,
acts of art, wandering intellect and heart,
spontaneous acts that reveal
you - the one whose soul
has spoken, open, laid itself bare
out there for me to collect and share.

I did not want to fall in love,
that heady feeling that addicts
and lures you in...
And yet I did.

Wisdom and age are funny things.
I want to gift them to my kid,
to keep under her pillow, baby teeth,
ephemeral and delicate and brief.

And when she needs a hug most
I'd gift her my experience as I've lived
adventures in call and response
with friends and lovers, other hearts.

That stricture in my chest and throat,
the warning that I shouldn't, I've ignored
over and over, at high cost.

Ignorant bliss, I well know, is a myth -
there's no such thing... bliss is won
through the wrought iron fence of life.
I misspent mine, perhaps, with loves misfit.

 

[legerdemer]

a couple more changes....

Bliss, A Purgatory

I fell in love with acts of kindness,
acts of art, wandering intellect and heart,
spontaneous acts that reveal
you - the one whose soul
has spoken, open, laid itself bare
out there for me to collect and share.

I did not want to fall in love,
that heady feeling that addicts
and lures you in...
And yet I did.

Wisdom and age are funny things.
I want to gift them to my kid,
to keep under her pillow, baby teeth,
so painful, delicate and brief.

And when she needs a hug most
I'd gift her my experience as I've lived
adventures in call and response
with friends and lovers, other hearts.

That stricture in my chest and throat,
the warning that I shouldn't, I've ignored
over and over, at high cost.

Ignorant bliss, I well know, is a myth -
there's no such thing... bliss is won
through the wrought iron fence of life.
I misspent mine, perhaps, with loves misfit.

 

[legerdemer]

The Lesson

My archaeologist's painstaking tool scrapes away
what life ever so slowly, gradually deposited
and sands of time each layer upon layer lay
atop another's birth and life, and finally death, as
winds and rains and rivers, even other stones, erase.

And even ere the end I reach
I learn just this:
that real life and real love don't mix.​

 

[AlwaysHungry]

I will venture a few comments:

"Life deposited" and "Sands of time lay" seem to both be talking about the same thing. They may not actually be redundant, but I think you need make clear why they are not.

"Layer upon layer lay" is euphonious and elegant, while also being a bit confusing on the first read-through. It makes the reader do a double take. I don't actually object to that, as long as that is what you intend.

"Other stones" puzzled me, because it makes me think that I missed an earlier reference to a stone. Is it in fact a stone that you are disclosing with your archeologist's tool?

Now, the second stanza doesn't seem to follow from the first -- how are you learning about love through archeology? It's a provocative idea, but I think it requires a hint or two. Then there is the final line: its wording seems to assert, categorically, that there is no such thing as real love, except in some fantasy world. Is that actually what you mean to say? Because I'm a Bill Shakespeare Sonnet #116 kind of guy, myself.

 

[greenmountaineer]

The first line for me was a tongue twister, Mer. Is there some way you can work archaeology into the title instead to set the image? I do like the staccato of the other "t" sounds in the first line that emphasize "scraping," but I think the added beats in "archeologist" dulled their effect.

I was confused about the syntax in line 2. Is "deposited" supposed to be a verb? Also, "slowly" and "gradually" strike me as redundant. Redundancy can work IMO, but I don't think they do here, given their proximity.

I would have worked the line like below unless I misread it, and you intended something else:

My painstaking tool scrapes away
sediment ever so slowly deposited
as sands of time, layer upon layer that lay
....

The last line needs work. There are sufficient allusions to "real life" I terms of what you're describing in the dig, but I see none about "real love" to connect with. I'd encourage you to develop another stanza about this following the first. For example, is it a lost love? or maybe a series of lovers where that one true love was always more imagined at the time than real?

How about the sweat of work and the sweat of two lovers? The hot desert sun of the dig and how cold and dark it is when the sun goes down and you're alone in your tent? These are hasty examples. I mean to suggest more images of real love that don't mix with real life if you're going to keep that as the climax of the poem.

I'm looking forward to reading the edited version.

 

[pensivepoet]

The Lesson

My archaeologist's painstaking tool scrapes away
what life ever so slowly, gradually deposited
and sands of time each layer upon layer lay
atop another's birth and life, and finally death, as
winds and rains and rivers, even other stones, erase.

And even ere the end I reach
I learn just this:
that real life and real love don't mix.​

Archaeologist's kind of clanks in the first line. And instead of slowly, gradually, i would have gone with something more opposite of painstaking.
Like~chaotically deposited.
I would take out the "and" before sands as it seems not needed and the poem has 7 ands in it, some of them very close together. Also the and between birth and life.
But i like the ending very much. I like that there was no allusion to love until the very end. I get it.
I didn't want to be lead to that conclusion throughout, but rather have it jump up at me.
There's a lot to like about this piece.
But then, i'm no poet.

 

[legerdemer]

Thanks!

Thanks so much AlwaysHungry, greenmountaineer, and pensivepoet for your feedback.

This one was very much a blurt, though I'd been thinking about it quite a while. I will think about the problems you've pointed out and each of your suggestions carefully and try to fix it, though it may take me some time.

Thanks again for reading and thinking about it.

 

[legerdemer]

.....

 

[legerdemer]

Welcome to the Funhouse - an edited version (thanks, AH)

In funhouse mirrors, in frothing ocean waves,
we see ourselves as abstract shapes,
projected through so many prisms - broken yet fluid,
a cubist painting of a nude or face.

When you write of what could be me, a projection,
or the essence - sweet? tangy? bitter?
I only hope not bland or tasteless.

Water bathes, it quenches thirst and sates,
but not this hunger
to touch, to know, to taste...

Your memories, I see them now, the foamy sea easily conjured -
its restlessness, its longing

memory ebbs and flows, it coats, it sweeps...

What could be you revealed, elusive glimpses, just a hint
that nearly is, and then diffuses, floats away... and disappears.

Reflections you would see of you -
I wish that I could see them clearly too
the mirror held just so... the shapes receding to eternity,
smaller and smaller, more abstract,
more you
than I
in fact.

 

[legerdemer]

Naked

Naked, I understand you. Silently
I read your mind with my fingertips, as if
Braille was my first language,
my mother tongue, tracing the filigree
of ridges below your testes, a map of your being.

When your lips close around my nipples, I know
you've read between the lines, sprinkled
stardust that sparkles, crackles and pops
with the heat of our fire, the flames a
highway to the moon, or to my heart,
to planets beyond Jupiter, beyond Neptune,
beyond imagination, yet to be discovered.

There's no sweet or bitter on my tongue,
only the effervescent need to feel,
to suckle, to burrow.

When my skin slides against yours,
your peaks nestle in my valleys,
explore my nooks and crannies.
You rustle them up, awaken them
to all possibilities...

At last our juncture excludes even a single
ray of moonlight between us.

The little that is left to say hovers
weightier than the heaviest atoms, more
radioactive than plutonium, decaying
not with the Big Bang but
with the loudest silence I'll ever hear,
resorbed into the black hole of real life.

Naked, I may even understand myself.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Here is a salvo of first impressions: first, your poems are vocabulary builders. Now I know that "resorb" is a word. I liked that burst of astronomical imagery in the second stanza; the flames and fire seemed to work with the planets. I thought that the inclusion of "or to my heart" was very deft and ironic, but I also thought that "you've read between the lines" was incongruous. I couldn't see how it worked with the rest of the stanza.

I also thought that the word "effervescent" was somewhat incongruous. I tried to imagine how a need to feel could be effervescent. In stanza four I was slightly puzzled by the use of "rustle them up", where "rustle" as a transitive verb seemed slightly out of place.

I especially liked the stanza about the Plutonium, and how it hearkens back to stanza two. I'm not sure about something "decaying with the Big Bang," but my astrophysics is weak.

 

[greenmountaineer]

An enjoyable read, Mer. The first stanza was very smooth and erotic. I thought, however, this was redundant: "...my first language/my mother tongue..."

The overstatement in all of stanza 2 was really well done and for me the strongest part of the poem. I didn't think stanza 3 added to the poem. Stanza 5, I thought, would have been a fine conclusion. I think stanza 6 extended the metaphor a bit too much, and I'm not sure why, naked or otherwise, it's important to understand yourself as opposed to the enjoyment between two lovers so well presented previously.

My take without adding words; only paring down:

Naked

Naked, I understand you. Silently
I read your mind with my fingertips, as if
Braille was my first language,
tracing the filigree
of ridges below your testes,
a map of your being.

When your lips close around my nipples, I know
you've read between the lines, sprinkled
stardust that sparkles, crackles and pops
with the heat of our fire, the flames a
highway to the moon, or to my heart,
to planets beyond Jupiter, beyond Neptune,
beyond imagination, yet to be discovered.

When my skin slides against yours,
your peaks nestle in my valleys,
explore my nooks and crannies.
You rustle them up, awaken them
to all possibilities...

At last our juncture excludes even a single
ray of moonlight between us.

 

[legerdemer]

I like what you did to it, gm. It's quite a different poem now, more uplifting and optimistic.

An enjoyable read, Mer. The first stanza was very smooth and erotic. I thought, however, this was redundant: "...my first language/my mother tongue..."

The overstatement in all of stanza 2 was really well done and for me the strongest part of the poem. I didn't think stanza 3 added to the poem. Stanza 5, I thought, would have been a fine conclusion. I think stanza 6 extended the metaphor a bit too much, and I'm not sure why, naked or otherwise, it's important to understand yourself as opposed to the enjoyment between two lovers so well presented previously.

My take without adding words; only paring down:

Naked

Naked, I understand you. Silently
I read your mind with my fingertips, as if
Braille was my first language,
tracing the filigree
of ridges below your testes,
a map of your being.

When your lips close around my nipples, I know
you've read between the lines, sprinkled
stardust that sparkles, crackles and pops
with the heat of our fire, the flames a
highway to the moon, or to my heart,
to planets beyond Jupiter, beyond Neptune,
beyond imagination, yet to be discovered.

When my skin slides against yours,
your peaks nestle in my valleys,
explore my nooks and crannies.
You rustle them up, awaken them
to all possibilities...

At last our juncture excludes even a single
ray of moonlight between us.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

I thought, however, this was redundant: "...my first language/my mother tongue..."

GM, I must disagree with you, possibly because I have a dirty mind. I saw, in my mind's eye, an exploration with fingers a la Braille, then an exploration with tongue.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

I'm not sure why, naked or otherwise, it's important to understand yourself as opposed to the enjoyment between two lovers so well presented previously.

On this, I am inclined to agree.

 

[legerdemer]

.... duplicate post

 

[legerdemer]

GM, I must disagree with you, possibly because I have a dirty mind. I saw, in my mind's eye, an exploration with fingers a la Braille, then an exploration with tongue.

It was there as a transition for the more literal-minded.

On this, I am inclined to agree.

On the end line, it was meant to infer coming full circle after a long voyage. But like many of my poems, it is hard to know when the transition from speaking to myself to speaking to others has been or not been successful.

gm, as usual when I am in my trigger-happy mode and assuming that I would not get more feedback, I posted the version you skewered. I'd like to post the version you suggested as well - perhaps with some minor modifications. I hope you don't mind.

 

[greenmountaineer]

It was there as a transition for the more literal-minded.



On the end line, it was meant to infer coming full circle after a long voyage. But like many of my poems, it is hard to know when the transition from speaking to myself to speaking to others has been or not been successful.

gm, as usual when I am in my trigger-happy mode and assuming that I would not get more feedback, I posted the version you skewered. I'd like to post the version you suggested as well - perhaps with some minor modifications. I hope you don't mind.

Not at all. BTW, I didn't think I was skewering. The poem had a nice coherence, even with the stanzas I suggested to be deleted. Stanza 6 was well written and could stand on its own, except that it lost some of its effectiveness for me because of the well written second stanza that stayed with me throughout the poem.

I also liked ending the poem with:

At last our juncture excludes even a single
ray of moonlight between us.

because ties so nicely with "highway to the moon, or to my heart,
to planets beyond...

The image of love in my mind is when anything is possible (ie reaching for the stars) but it comes back down to the closeness between lovers where not "even a single ray of moonlight between" them can be seen.

While it may be a stretch for some, the moon is also a feminine symbol, and for that reason merits greater emphasis in the poem IMO.

 

[Piscator]

An enjoyable read, Mer. The first I think stanza 6 extended the metaphor a bit too much, and I'm not sure why, naked or otherwise, it's important to understand yourself as opposed to the enjoyment between two lovers so well presented previously.

I disagree with this. I feel that Stanza 6 introduces a necessary element of bittersweet regret. After the tryst, the lovers must separate, life returns to normal, back to ones partner, or ???? and the inability to make the leap, introduces both an element of sadness and reality to the poem.

 

[legerdemer]

I disagree with this. I feel that Stanza 6 introduces a necessary element of bittersweet regret. After the tryst, the lovers must separate, life returns to normal, back to ones partner, or ???? and the inability to make the leap, introduces both an element of sadness and reality to the poem.

They are certainly very different poems, Piscator. You caught the mood I wrote it in. It's why I'm considering posting gm's version as well - what a difference a stanza makes...

Thanks for taking a look and giving me your feedback - I appreciate it.

 

[legerdemer]

A History in Blood - parked here for possible tinkering

A vengeance loosed upon me when it came,
childhood shoved out of its way,
innocence stained with promises
of pleasures so sensual and torrid,
held sway over all else.

Pain radiates,
my contribution to the human race
a reminder, month after month, year after year,
of promise unfulfilled,
a waste of possibility.

Each drop wells, swells, escapes down my thighs.
Luna's reminiscences of life, of power,
of motherhood and love, lust returned, of gifts received
though sometimes turned away.

When men cringe and slink away from the
sticky, fluid, life-giving force, I laugh--
wanting to spit in their face, to SCREAM!

Month after month, the blood still comes.
When it stops, panic strikes! Is now the time?
Should I give in? Should I wait?
Time's never right: more demands
she places on me, that bitch Career.

Until, one day, my womb demands
to share its love:
a second heartbeat incubates,
a quiet rhythm, too tentative.
Too weak.

The beat gives up, the soul not whole nor
wholly ready for the world outside, denies
existence and retreats, a mass of congealed
blood and pain, it spills, the rug drenched,
a clot of nothing, yet.

Another year.
Another plea.

Another seed blooms.
This one is hardy with desire to live,
to beat the odds of eternity against it,
battles demons, battles sleep, the world.
Absorbs everything.

And so it goes, the rhythm of life I share.
A badge, a gift.

When finally the spigot curbs its flow
and nearly dries, should I now laugh or cry?
Freedom to be a princess or a whore,
being wrenched away before I realize
it is a choice, and mine to make.
I'm not yet ready to let go.