Not For The Thin-Skinned

[PandoraGlitters]

I'll be back to give feedback, Annie. Noticed this went unanswered.

 

[butters]

if any one can take this apart and improve it, I'll be grateful. It started off as two halves, then went to 3 sections, then I swapped it about again to this but think it maybe would be better as 3


expanded skulls


in dark delicious silence
torpid grubs burrow
their soft slow way
umber juices atrail
as they inch upwards
inwards
swollen with intent to hatch
in hot, expanded skulls

this was the 3 parter version

in dark delicious silence
torpid grubs burrow
their soft, slow way

umber juices atrail
they inch upwards
inwards

swollen with intent to hatch
in hot, expanded skulls


neither set-up looks right to me. suggestions on line-breaks and layout more than anything are required but I've chosen this thread to post it in because any radical thoughts about changes might make for a whole new improved piece or even a totally different poem. All I know is that I'm disatisfied with it as it stands. I'm really stumped right now so please, any help out there?

la butty

 

[EroticOrogeny]

if any one can take this apart and improve it, I'll be grateful. It started off as two halves, then went to 3 sections, then I swapped it about again to this but think it maybe would be better as 3


expanded skulls


in dark delicious silence
torpid grubs burrow
their soft slow way
umber juices atrail
as they inch upwards
inwards
swollen with intent to hatch
in hot, expanded skulls

this was the 3 parter version

in dark delicious silence
torpid grubs burrow
their soft, slow way

umber juices atrail
they inch upwards
inwards

swollen with intent to hatch
in hot, expanded skulls


neither set-up looks right to me. suggestions on line-breaks and layout more than anything are required but I've chosen this thread to post it in because any radical thoughts about changes might make for a whole new improved piece or even a totally different poem. All I know is that I'm disatisfied with it as it stands. I'm really stumped right now so please, any help out there?

la butty

I like it better as 3, rather than 1. There's no question about your imagery - it comes through clearly.
Somehow the line with just 'inwards' provides perhaps more pause than needed, but 'in' does seem to be essential to convey., so don't think you want to drop it. Perhaps
inch upwards, inwards
dropping the 'they'
However, could probably dispense with 'with' in next to last line.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

if any one can take this apart and improve it, I'll be grateful. It started off as two halves, then went to 3 sections, then I swapped it about again to this but think it maybe would be better as 3


expanded skulls


in dark delicious silence
torpid grubs burrow
their soft slow way
umber juices atrail
as they inch upwards
inwards
swollen with intent to hatch
in hot, expanded skulls

this was the 3 parter version

in dark delicious silence
torpid grubs burrow
their soft, slow way

umber juices atrail
they inch upwards
inwards

swollen with intent to hatch
in hot, expanded skulls


neither set-up looks right to me. suggestions on line-breaks and layout more than anything are required but I've chosen this thread to post it in because any radical thoughts about changes might make for a whole new improved piece or even a totally different poem. All I know is that I'm disatisfied with it as it stands. I'm really stumped right now so please, any help out there?

la butty

What a gruesome girl you are! Going in thin and coming out stout eh? Yes I prefer the 3 parts as I think it conveys the slowness more of the inevitable journey, bit worried about 'torpid' although it sounds good but not having looked it up I could be wrong (probably am!) to me torpid speaks of something not moving at all much. Also do they not actually come to the surface to hatch? Not being an expert on entomology and not knowing what sort your grubs are I can't be sure!

 

[butters]

I like it better as 3, rather than 1. There's no question about your imagery - it comes through clearly.
Somehow the line with just 'inwards' provides perhaps more pause than needed, but 'in' does seem to be essential to convey., so don't think you want to drop it. Perhaps
inch upwards, inwards
dropping the 'they'
However, could probably dispense with 'with' in next to last line.

thanks I'll give that a try on wordpad - see what it feels like. cheers! Much appreciated, EO

What a gruesome girl you are! Going in thin and coming out stout eh? Yes I prefer the 3 parts as I think it conveys the slowness more of the inevitable journey, bit worried about 'torpid' although it sounds good but not having looked it up I could be wrong (probably am!) to me torpid speaks of something not moving at all much. Also do they not actually come to the surface to hatch? Not being an expert on entomology and not knowing what sort your grubs are I can't be sure!

haha, thanks for replying UYS

not so much gruesome, I hope - but the image of grubs worming their way up into the brain was where I was at with this. In earlier incarnations I did use the word 'trunk' at one stage as a tree/human torso ambiguity but it got dropped along the way. These grubs are ideas, that slowly filter into the stream of us, work their way up from extremeties intent on hatching inside our minds. Torpid was the choice to imply how slow, how sleepily, these fat grubs move. So - ideas coming together to actually morph into something that's recognisable. At least, that was my intention. The use of swollen was to imply they develop and fatten along the way as they get closer to the nursery of creativity. Shit, lol, that sounds rough when it's spelt out that way!

Does the normal expectation of grubs working their way out towards the surface spoil the overall imagery here for you, UYS, by setting up something of a misdirection where mine are moving into the core of mind? Thanks a lot for your time and comments.

 

[Epmd607]

I like this one the best:

in dark delicious silence
torpid grubs burrow
their soft slow way
umber juices atrail
as they inch upwards
inwards
swollen with intent to hatch
in hot, expanded skulls


I'd drop 'upwards' and put 'inwards' in its place. So it reads 'as they inch inwards', so it sounds like 'innards'.

 

[butters]

I like this one the best:

in dark delicious silence
torpid grubs burrow
their soft slow way
umber juices atrail
as they inch upwards
inwards
swollen with intent to hatch
in hot, expanded skulls


I'd drop 'upwards' and put 'inwards' in its place. So it reads 'as they inch inwards', so it sounds like 'innards'.

oooh! how visceral

thanks for the thought. I will try these all on for size. ta

 

[UnderYourSpell]

thanks I'll give that a try on wordpad - see what it feels like. cheers! Much appreciated, EO

haha, thanks for replying UYS

not so much gruesome, I hope - but the image of grubs worming their way up into the brain was where I was at with this. In earlier incarnations I did use the word 'trunk' at one stage as a tree/human torso ambiguity but it got dropped along the way. These grubs are ideas, that slowly filter into the stream of us, work their way up from extremeties intent on hatching inside our minds. Torpid was the choice to imply how slow, how sleepily, these fat grubs move. So - ideas coming together to actually morph into something that's recognisable. At least, that was my intention. The use of swollen was to imply they develop and fatten along the way as they get closer to the nursery of creativity. Shit, lol, that sounds rough when it's spelt out that way!

Does the normal expectation of grubs working their way out towards the surface spoil the overall imagery here for you, UYS, by setting up something of a misdirection where mine are moving into the core of mind? Thanks a lot for your time and comments.

Sigh I can see I was taking this too literally which makes me wonder if I am poetically minded at all

 

[butters]

Sigh I can see I was taking this too literally which makes me wonder if I am poetically minded at all

don't be daft I've read some of your work that's been brilliant!

I've discovered that what I take from a piece isn't alwayswhat the author imagined a reader might see, but it's no less valid because of that. Sometimes we can see things the author has there subliminally, and does't realise it till after the event. This happens more often than you might imagine. While we create at one level, parts of us bleed over into a work so very often. Not always, but enough for it to no longer surprise me when they say 'Oh my god! how did you understand that about me?' and stuff. Another poet I knew said to me 'Everything's a metaphor'. I've written 'straight' pieces only to see how others find so many alternate meanings to them. It's like I've written a whole bunch of different poems, not just one! Now I try to look beyond the immediate words to see what else they could represent.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Oh well I've just put unadulterated filth on Champ's Challenge!

 

[EroticOrogeny]

I, too, tended to take it a face value and didn't catch your metaphor. I did wonder about 'hot, expanded skulls', but didn't carry it a step farther.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Room for a little one?

When hell froze over
the man himself
skated round lost souls,
emptying their pockets
of stolen golf balls.
There arose such a wailing
teeth chattered
not gnashed,
and the flames of hell
dripped icicles,
grinning teeth dropping
seeds of destruction.

Love the emptying their pockets of stolen golf balls. That's a workable original image. Hell froze over and seeds of destruction are cliches so it's like this little bit of original deliciousness between sesame seed buns.

I like also teeth chattered not gnashed. I am curious about what it was that made hell freeze over.

 

[lorencino]

My consumptive confusion

if any one can take this apart and improve it, I'll be grateful. It started off as two halves, then went to 3 sections, then I swapped it about again to this but think it maybe would be better as 3


expanded skulls


in dark delicious silence
torpid grubs burrow
their soft slow way
umber juices atrail
as they inch upwards
inwards
swollen with intent to hatch
in hot, expanded skulls

this was the 3 parter version

in dark delicious silence
torpid grubs burrow
their soft, slow way

umber juices atrail
they inch upwards
inwards

swollen with intent to hatch
in hot, expanded skulls


neither set-up looks right to me. suggestions on line-breaks and layout more than anything are required but I've chosen this thread to post it in because any radical thoughts about changes might make for a whole new improved piece or even a totally different poem. All I know is that I'm disatisfied with it as it stands. I'm really stumped right now so please, any help out there?

la butty

thanks
Snip

not so much gruesome, I hope - but the image of grubs worming their way up into the brain was where I was at with this. In earlier incarnations I did use the word 'trunk' at one stage as a tree/human torso ambiguity but it got dropped along the way. These grubs are ideas, that slowly filter into the stream of us, work their way up from extremeties intent on hatching inside our minds. Torpid was the choice to imply how slow, how sleepily, these fat grubs move. So - ideas coming together to actually morph into something that's recognisable. At least, that was my intention. The use of swollen was to imply they develop and fatten along the way as they get closer to the nursery of creativity. Shit, lol, that sounds rough when it's spelt out that way!

Does the normal expectation of grubs working their way out towards the surface spoil the overall imagery here for you, UYS, by setting up something of a misdirection where mine are moving into the core of mind? Thanks a lot for your time and comments.

I have to admit to having spent the last three days being baffled by this poem. Reading it as one stanza or three left me exactly in the same place—totally misunderstanding the poet's intent. The only clue that the grubs represented ideas lies in the last word of the poem and it never occurred to me no matter how many times I read the poem.

Where I really got stuck was on the line

umber juices atrail​

because, as far as I know, grubs don't leave a visible trail but slugs and snails do. Then, the trails that slugs and snails leave, dries to a colourless sheen, so umber suggested passion because of its ruddy colour, i.e., what is colourless is reddened by passion which is consistent with the "dark delicious silence" of the first line that suggested something sensuous to me.

Then there was the question of what kind of grubs could these be. The final line's "hot, expanded skulls" suggested sickness and death and so I thought of the grubs of wasps that feed off the living host in which the wasp laid the egg the grub is hatched from. Eggs hatch into grubs; wasp grubs don't hatch inside the organism they are consuming.

Grubs eat away at their living hosts until they morph into adult wasps at the time that their host dies and the exit.

Thus I thought the poem had something to do with being consumed by passion. I saw a progression from "dark delicious silence" as the pleasant birth of a passion (sexual passion or any other) that ends with the explosion of the skull (explosion is the only way a skull can expand) and the death of the subject who has been consummed by their passion. Perhaps even the idea of the quietly delicious initial stages of arousal moving slowly through the stage of "swollen with intent" (i.e., the point where arousal becomes energized by demand) towards the explosive death of orgasm.

So as you can see I was influenced by my obsession with matters sensuous to find a meaning that had no bearing on what your intent is in this poem.

I think torpid works as a good sound in the line that it appears but its meaning is all wrong. "Torpid" is inconsistent with the "Intent" of the grubs no matter how slow. Torpid suggests disinterested inactivity to me.

 

[butters]

thanks to all who've given me their time and thoughts here. Straight away it would appear I need a new title - to act as some kind of signpost to point the way the poem was meant to lead.

Then I need to change things up a bit with the actual wording so as not to baffle a reader, to make myself clearer.

OK! this is all good. I can work with this feedback, thanks again

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Love the emptying their pockets of stolen golf balls. That's a workable original image. Hell froze over and seeds of destruction are cliches so it's like this little bit of original deliciousness between sesame seed buns.

I like also teeth chattered not gnashed. I am curious about what it was that made hell freeze over.

Everly Brothers - Cold
there you go

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Is this a poem?

And what about a title?

slowly into the rushes
canoe's tip parts and spreads
so slowly so quietly
that I do not wake

until the shore's groan
where the bow presses
into clay

 

[champagne1982]

And what about a title?

slowly into the rushes
canoe's tip parts and spreads
so slowly so quietly
that I do not wake

until the shore's groan
where the bow presses
into clay

Of course it's a poem. Instead of calling the bow a tip, can you use the terms that name the parts of a canoe? The part that rests on the shore would either be the rocker, or further along the bottom, the keel. It would define the imagery more clearly for me (since I'm familiar with the vehicle) and your poem becomes an education for the reader who doesnt, too.

I dislike the possessive apostrophe s. When you're referring to inanimate objects they really don't own anything, so, maybe (unless you're in love with the sibilance) change canoe's to canoe bow and shore's groan to the shore groans.

 

[Angeline]

And what about a title?

slowly into the rushes
canoe's tip parts and spreads
so slowly so quietly
that I do not wake

until the shore's groan
where the bow presses
into clay

I agree with Champ though for different (slightly) reasons. I think there are too many "s" sounds in that second line, but if you move "the" from line one to the start of line two and maybe use "the canoe parts and spreads/lakewater so ...." Maybe you don't want to say "lakewater," but it's the water that's spreading, not the canoe, so maybe something to clarify that. Otherwise it's perhaps a fragment, something you can fit to a longer piece but for sure don't lose it!

 

[butters]

And what about a title?

slowly into the rushes
canoe's tip parts and spreads
so slowly so quietly
that I do not wake

until the shore's groan
where the bow presses
into clay

I'm loving the imagery here. Such a sensual metaphor. Your title needs to reflect that, or at least use it as a pointer. I would hesitate to suggest 'cleave' because of its duality of meaning; 'parting the rushes' is maybe too heavy handed, but you can see where I'm coming from.

I see it as a complete piece; the overlaying of the one image on top of the second - the physical craft nudging its stealthy way to part the reeds without disturbing its sleeping passenger/the sleep sex where the partner wakes only as the invading partner causes them to 'groan' in pleasure.

I think this has merit as something small and gem-like given the right polish.

I'm not keen on 'canoe's tip either - could you use prow perhaps? would tie-in sound wise with bow too. maybe drop the word canoe altogether, certainly not using the possessive imo.


hmm ... 'the shore's groan'

hmmmm - how about:

till shores groan
where bow presses deep
into clay


I don't care for the rep of slowly twice in those first lines - perhaps you could introduce the work slick' or something suggesting moistness here. I know the rushes and a canoe suggest water anyway, but IF you choose to drop the word canoe, and maybe use rushes somewhere in the title, it might be an idea to reinforce the moisture content of this little write. Also, maybe consider using the word reeds instead of rushes. It would link you to the sound of deep, though it'd be a trade-off with the soft sounds of rushes/presses. Up for consideration is all.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Thank you so much Ange, Champ and Chip. Fiddling.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

And what about a title?

slowly into the rushes
canoe's tip parts and spreads
so slowly so quietly
that I do not wake

until the shore's groan
where the bow presses
into clay

Overall I enjoyed this very much. More or less in agreement with many of the remarks. Just go with 'canoe'. I think dropping canoe loses too much.
I don't see a need to state lake water or some such - I see the rushes parting and spreading clearly here. And I prefer 'shore groans' (not shores - there's just one). Not sure that rocker or keel would help - I'm not familiar with canoes so wouldn't know what a rocker is on first reading. And keel would depend on the extent to which the craft was breached.
Anyway, my 2 cents worth.

 

[Angeline]

Overall I enjoyed this very much. More or less in agreement with many of the remarks. Just go with 'canoe'. I think dropping canoe loses too much.
I don't see a need to state lake water or some such - I see the rushes parting and spreading clearly here. And I prefer 'shore groans' (not shores - there's just one). Not sure that rocker or keel would help - I'm not familiar with canoes so wouldn't know what a rocker is on first reading. And keel would depend on the extent to which the craft was breached.
Anyway, my 2 cents worth.

My issue with not using "lakewater" or some noun after canoe is that the verb "parts" can only then refer to the canoe, and a canoe does not part or spread, the thing it is moving through does. But I could be getting too obsessive here; language has a way of bringing that out in me.

Oh and I think you're absolutely right about not losing "canoe." It lends such a clear image, a good marker for the reader. And I don't know what could work in its stead besides maybe "rowboat." The poem has such a small, intimate feeling that anything bigger than a canoe or rowboat would change the perspective.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

My issue with not using "lakewater" or some noun after canoe is that the verb "parts" can only then refer to the canoe, and a canoe does not part or spread, the thing it is moving through does. But I could be getting too obsessive here; language has a way of bringing that out in me.

Oh and I think you're absolutely right about not losing "canoe." It lends such a clear image, a good marker for the reader. And I don't know what could work in its stead besides maybe "rowboat." The poem has such a small, intimate feeling that anything bigger than a canoe or rowboat would change the perspective.

I can see what you're getting at there - the object is on the previous line, but I didn't see the canoe as experiencing this. Perhaps 'rushes' would help with that, not sure if the verbal sense helps or hurts the image.

I prefer canoe over rowboat, which seems more ponderous.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Thank you, EO and Ange. I think it needs expanding just a little. I'm working on it. Your feedback is really helpful.

 

[Angeline]

A bump for another excellent review and feedback thread that would love to chew on some new poems. Read the first post for the rules.