Here's a few things, one written tonight, the rest written earlier this year. Starting with the new one. I'm not going to tell you the meter or system I'm using in each. Hopefully it will be obvious. Enjoy, or not. I'd like to thank Disgruntled Moth, whose thread from yesterday (here http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/show....php?t=1076300) inspired me to look over this stuff once again.
Untitled
Broken -
Looking out on the ocean;
The pebbles giving way
Now turn to sand.
Woken -
Reflections from the ocean
Mean nothing. Like grains
Fall through my hand.
Hyde Park
The morning sun gone,
And in the afternoon haze
One man sits juggling.
Sonnet – Untitled.
...And asking up the empty room,
The wholesome dark, in which my thoughts
Like leaves in bitter autumn winds
All dance with tremulous unrest,
And eyes wide open in the dark,
Whose lids fall heavy – yet do not rest –
What answer can I find in you?
Dozing, mercy lets me go,
Lets me, briefly, shut you out.
Clarity in night-time shreds up
Dregs of unforgotten kisses –
And waking lonely seems to me
Better than waking at your side:
Still at your side I’d rather be.
Bridges
Those huge purple brick bridges
Standing static and ivy draped,
Under whom the thunderous roar
Reverberates, and sends forth
Echoes of some immutable truth;
What would they say, if their
Years could betray the deathly
Silence they’ve kept until now?
Years of benevolent silence.
They’d speak of change in size and
Power, or maybe of the loneliness
Of always being overtaken, and
Left behind. Or, maybe they would
Refuse to speak - indignant -
And just leave us with graffitoe’d
Walls, saying “I woz ‘ere”.
In the
Depot, left abandoned
Each lone carriage slowly
Rusts; and etched in windows,
Memories of old
Burst and linger, timeless.
Cigarettes, whose smoky
Clouds once wafted round the
Empty carts (and brought
Pleasure too long since
Silenced) here are smoked no
More. The greasy baps and
Snacks from carriage E,
Eaten during beer fuelled
Frenzies after London
Derbies sell no more from
Carriage E’s deserted
Bar. It stands to reason.
The Stranger
Worldly angel, hear me say
I have not the sun today.
In the darkness, here I stand
Alone I am, thus lonely manned.
Working hard, here I prevail;
Darkness tries to make me fail.
Looking, I see horror’s faces,
I see every step he traces,
I see every glint he throws me,
Every ill begotten memory.
Every time he comes he lingers
Lean and pale, with bony fingers,
Nails as sharp as devil’s claws,
Voice like screeching rooks he caws.
He comes haggard in the night,
Sits with me and shares my plight.
Sits, but rarely says a word,
(Moors protect their secret history,)
Still to me he is a mystery);
Lonely demon, quite absurd.
Like the dark, he never leaves.
In my head, my dreams he weaves.
So this friend, he never strays,
In his seat he sits and stays.
Unlike others’ voices lying,
Death sits by, as I am dying.
The Old Days
I used to play in woods a lot when I
Was young; the sun would shine through boughs, or rain
Would filter down from leaf to leaf and land
Upon the ground before my feet. Those woods
Were like a home from home for me, whose doors
Were never closed. To run the trodden path,
With brambles biting at your heels and nettles
Yapping like toothless dogs at legs exposed
By shorts; to jump the fallen logs and all
The junk just thrown with no regard – old bikes,
Trolleys, old chest-of-drawers, piles of wood
And half a dozen dumped mopeds, all burnt to
Cinders; to delve further into the depths
Of effervescent woods, and lose myself
Among the rows of pines, and find my clothes
Upon returning home have swallowed
Their sickly summer stench; and then to bathe
Those bruised and swollen legs, the hot water
Penetrating seeping cuts: I’m filled
Now with a longing to go home and see
And infiltrate those haunts of old once more;
To dart between the beaten tracks and crouch,
And spy on friends and foes, and just once more
To see the sun through leaves with emerald
Hue, as it slowly falls on distant fields
And fades.
I really like the last one is as it's real and takes you there and I'm sure many can relate as it's very nostalgia-inducing, for many, methinks, and it's nice. I really like the longer ones, think you're best at thattt. x
Malsy has basically summarised exactly what I was going to say, only I am going to take a lot longer to say it.
You have a writing style that works very well with a sort of accumulative power, rather than the tight, immediate beauty needed for short forms. This isn't exactly a problem, and is very far from saying that you're a bad poet or that you should be writing prose; The Old Days is brilliant and The Stranger has moments of uncanny power, and even your short ones are decent. I am led to this conclusion, simply, by how the last four are your best, and they get progressively better as they get progressively longer and looser. I'll try to give more concrete reasons, though.
Untitled would, in a seeming contradiction to what I've just said, be better without the second stanza. The first is quite complete, and does say a lot in a very small amount of words, but the second doesn't really seem to add anything but confusion (at least with my reading of the first). There is a sort of faux-gravity in the rhyming of "Woken", delivered on its own as if to say 'This is very important', that is almost a bit silly, mainly because it doesn't quite seem to fit to the mood of the poem (again, at least with my reading). Then the bit about reflections is slightly confusing, and the final simile is a stock image taken out of a box. The roundness that you achieve in the first stanza completely deflates in the second.
Hyde Park is nice enough as it is, but I don't really like haiku. It has the same problem as the "woken" of the previous poem, in that the brevity appears to be pointing at a profundity or significance that isn't there (which is the fault of the form, not you). You've made the best of it, but I don't rate haiku poems as anything other than poetic burps. No matter how satisfying a neat one is to write, it is really difficult to make a burp sound beautiful so you may as well either make it funny in some way or keep them to yourself.
Sonnet - Untitled (which is no form of sonnet that I can think of) is troubling. I cannot quite make it out, which is either the poem or me. The first stanza would seem to work better with your style of 'accumulative power', as I called it before, but it is too fractured to achieve that. There is "And eyes wide open in the dark,/Whose lids fall heavy – yet do not rest" which exemplifies the problem. Perhaps you'd think it an intentional choice, rather than a problem, but it obstructs the sense for me. Here, you have eyes that are 'wide open...but with heavy falling eyelids...that don't rest' in a flip-flop-flip that cannot settle on any idea. This muddle - which is at its strongest here but present throughout - stops the stanza from being able to sit down anywhere before you grab its chair and tell it to go somewhere else. You have 'leaves' and a 'bitter wind' that come sweeping in one window and out another, in a simile that only has relevance in the lines in which it is found then doesn't fit again, and a dark that is puzzlingly 'wholesome' in an otherwise anguished insomnia. I suspect for each of these things you'll be thinking "But I meant to do that", but, whatever you intended, it doesn't quite seem to work. The second stanza is much nicer, although "clarity" is discordant with what has come before. The third stanza is needed to finish off the poem, I suppose, but it does sound a bit like the lyrics of a bad song. The poetic voice manages to disentangle itself from all the tortured and confused images of before only to deliver a final clear statement that is a bit boring. Maybe some people (who like those sort of songs) would disagree.
Bridges is a lot better than everything else so far. You have a consistent voice that is allowed to develop and build up good amount of emotional steam, with clever poetic touches like "and//Left behind". The only thing I don't like is the first line, as it's a bit clumsy. I'm sure you could say the same thing without the lifeless ballast of "huge purple brick". This poem is the start of the 'accumulative power' that you show further down. You have an idea that you float up in the air and then keep blowing it up higher and higher, with the deft but not over-used poetic touches giving it nudges in the right direction. In contrast, Sonnet - Untitled is like trying to float a feather by kicking it, (and Hyde Park is trying to get it up in the air with a single burp).
In the, if we are still following a progression down your poems, a backward step, in that it whilst it has the consistency and development that you're good at, it also tries for a poetic density that doesn't really work. Cliches such as "memories of old" and "no more" don't help. It's really good in places, such as "burst and linger", but it doesn't seem like you know where you are going with it.
The Stranger is interesting. The first four lines, "Nails as.../Voice like...", and "Like the.../In my head...", and the last two lines are unconvincing, as if you struggled with the rhymes. Also, whilst I suppose the break adds greatly to the poem, referring to the 'stranger' as a "Moor" is quite bizarre. The rest of the poem, except those few distractions, is very good. Because you don't attempt a poetic density, the ideas are allowed to pile up and complete each other, and the rolling rhyme scheme (except for when the rhymes are poor) adds to this well.
The Old Days is definitely the best poem. Since, as we have established before, dense, compressed poetry does not suit you, this (although not artless) does a lot better with the freedom that the looser form allows you. There are a few places where it stumbles slightly, such as the cliche "home from home...doors/Were never closed", and the inexplicable simile of nettles being like "Yapping toothless dogs", and "effervescent", but these are not enough to trip it over. It really is very, very good.
Malsy has basically summarised exactly what I was going to say, only I am going to take a lot longer to say it.
You have a writing style that works very well with a sort of accumulative power, rather than the tight, immediate beauty needed for short forms. This isn't exactly a problem, and is very far from saying that you're a bad poet or that you should be writing prose; The Old Days is brilliant and The Stranger has moments of uncanny power, and even your short ones are decent. I am led to this conclusion, simply, by how the last four are your best, and they get progressively better as they get progressively longer and looser. I'll try to give more concrete reasons, though.
Untitled would, in a seeming contradiction to what I've just said, be better without the second stanza. The first is quite complete, and does say a lot in a very small amount of words, but the second doesn't really seem to add anything but confusion (at least with my reading of the first). There is a sort of faux-gravity in the rhyming of "Woken", delivered on its own as if to say 'This is very important', that is almost a bit silly, mainly because it doesn't quite seem to fit to the mood of the poem (again, at least with my reading). Then the bit about reflections is slightly confusing, and the final simile is a stock image taken out of a box. The roundness that you achieve in the first stanza completely deflates in the second.
Hyde Park is nice enough as it is, but I don't really like haiku. It has the same problem as the "woken" of the previous poem, in that the brevity appears to be pointing at a profundity or significance that isn't there (which is the fault of the form, not you). You've made the best of it, but I don't rate haiku poems as anything other than poetic burps. No matter how satisfying a neat one is to write, it is really difficult to make a burp sound beautiful so you may as well either make it funny in some way or keep them to yourself.
Sonnet - Untitled (which is no form of sonnet that I can think of) is troubling. I cannot quite make it out, which is either the poem or me. The first stanza would seem to work better with your style of 'accumulative power', as I called it before, but it is too fractured to achieve that. There is "And eyes wide open in the dark,/Whose lids fall heavy – yet do not rest" which exemplifies the problem. Perhaps you'd think it an intentional choice, rather than a problem, but it obstructs the sense for me. Here, you have eyes that are 'wide open...but with heavy falling eyelids...that don't rest' in a flip-flop-flip that cannot settle on any idea. This muddle - which is at its strongest here but present throughout - stops the stanza from being able to sit down anywhere before you grab its chair and tell it to go somewhere else. You have 'leaves' and a 'bitter wind' that come sweeping in one window and out another, in a simile that only has relevance in the lines in which it is found then doesn't fit again, and a dark that is puzzlingly 'wholesome' in an otherwise anguished insomnia. I suspect for each of these things you'll be thinking "But I meant to do that", but, whatever you intended, it doesn't quite seem to work. The second stanza is much nicer, although "clarity" is discordant with what has come before. The third stanza is needed to finish off the poem, I suppose, but it does sound a bit like the lyrics of a bad song. The poetic voice manages to disentangle itself from all the tortured and confused images of before only to deliver a final clear statement that is a bit boring. Maybe some people (who like those sort of songs) would disagree.
Bridges is a lot better than everything else so far. You have a consistent voice that is allowed to develop and build up good amount of emotional steam, with clever poetic touches like "and//Left behind". The only thing I don't like is the first line, as it's a bit clumsy. I'm sure you could say the same thing without the lifeless ballast of "huge purple brick". This poem is the start of the 'accumulative power' that you show further down. You have an idea that you float up in the air and then keep blowing it up higher and higher, with the deft but not over-used poetic touches giving it nudges in the right direction. In contrast, Sonnet - Untitled is like trying to float a feather by kicking it, (and Hyde Park is trying to get it up in the air with a single burp).
In the, if we are still following a progression down your poems, a backward step, in that it whilst it has the consistency and development that you're good at, it also tries for a poetic density that doesn't really work. Cliches such as "memories of old" and "no more" don't help. It's really good in places, such as "burst and linger", but it doesn't seem like you know where you are going with it.
The Stranger is interesting. The first four lines, "Nails as.../Voice like...", and "Like the.../In my head...", and the last two lines are unconvincing, as if you struggled with the rhymes. Also, whilst I suppose the break adds greatly to the poem, referring to the 'stranger' as a "Moor" is quite bizarre. The rest of the poem, except those few distractions, is very good. Because you don't attempt a poetic density, the ideas are allowed to pile up and complete each other, and the rolling rhyme scheme (except for when the rhymes are poor) adds to this well.
The Old Days is definitely the best poem. Since, as we have established before, dense, compressed poetry does not suit you, this (although not artless) does a lot better with the freedom that the looser form allows you. There are a few places where it stumbles slightly, such as the cliche "home from home...doors/Were never closed", and the inexplicable simile of nettles being like "Yapping toothless dogs", and "effervescent", but these are not enough to trip it over. It really is very, very good.
Ah, some excellent points there, thank you.
I won't reply to it all (edit: or maybe I will), just to say a couple of things. Firstly you point out that the sonnet is in no form you recognise - that was half the point of the exercise. I find the sonnet form intriguing precisely because you can be completely original with your structuring of lines (here 7-4-3 instead of the usual 8-6, 8-3-3 or 8-4-2 [or if you want to be pedantic 4-4-4-2, 4-4-3-3 etc etc]). Completely agree about the end being weak. The eyelids thing is supposed to be blinking, but you're right that it seems to disagree with itself in those lines.
The idea of referring to "the stranger" as the "Moor" is supposed to be a play on the fact that, like the earlier sonnet, it's about insomnia and that the stranger is the night, hence the darkness, and therefore, the moor. Possibly a weak ploy on my part Again, I agree with you on your comments about the rhymes. (Likewise I do with pretty much everything you say about the first poem.)
Yeah, anyway. Your comments much appreciated, and pretty much spot on.
MSB did a very good job summing up your poems analytically, although I think he was a little too harsh and dismissive. From my more immature 'this-sounds-nice' point of view, I thought I'd just chime in that I greatly enjoyed reading most of these.
'Bridges' is definitely my favourite of the lot. You have a gem there. I won't point out all of the technical intricacies that really make that poem flow so well, but I think the first line is fine; "purple" and "brick bridges" seem to start the poem with that bitterness and harshness of tongue which continues throughout. You definitely get the impression there that whoever is observing these bridges is talking as if to an audience, without one. As a reader, reading it in silence, the constant referral to the noise of the trains, what would they say if they could talk, what would they refuse to say... and so on, really amplifies the ideas behind the whole poem.
I would be surprized if the subject matter in your poems, particularly 'The Old Days', was something that didn't mean anything to you emotionally. I think that, apart from a few areas that MSB mentioned, on the whole you manage to very effectively put across what it is these people and places mean to you, even if it is just as a casual observation left for the reader to ponder, like the man juggling in Hyde Park. I disagree with MSB about keeping haikus "to yourself". You are clearly capable of producing longer, more descriptive poems - you don't rely on purely triple-lined creations. So, when you have a little snapshot in time which details an occurance that the reader can playfully interpret independantly, I say go for it.
Your poems certainly capture something that I aspire to - check out this circular inspiration thing we got goin' on. Oh yeah.
I can't be anything but boring here - I absolutely agree with everything that's already been said, with bridges and the old days being the best poems by far. The tiniest disagreement I would have (contradicting myself) would be with MSB, for saying the first line is a 'lifeless ballast' in a negative way. I think it contributes nicely to the poems irony by counteracting the personification of the bridges later on. I also must state the obvious that the last line captures the essence of good poetry. Perfectly.
'The old days' fills me with something more than nostalgia... it's childhood in a nutshell, and the poem comes across as an amalgamation of flitting memories and impressions bestowed on a young and curious mind. (Sorry for sounding pretentious here; I always do when I start writing as if in an essay) It is almost worthy of a lump-in-throat moment, because it is the stuff of every child's dreams, and the idealised memories of childhood that adults cherish. In other words, if "The grass is always greener on the other side", this poem represents the greenest of grass. This is not negative criticism, just badly-worded praise of something that hits the spot and indulges the child inside.
Also:
A Small Hand's Contents
The heat of the buildings
Heaved inwards,
And Sun shimmered
On faded concrete.
Dust swam lazily, drifting
From head to head,
Face to sweated face,
Shining in the squinted
Light. Coins jangled,
Hidden from view
In cotton pockets.
Bare feet felt the streets,
Searching.
Love had evaporated
With the rain.
But then a hand
Shattered the monotonous
Steps, destined for paper bags
And plastic keyrings:
A tiny red flower,
Offered soft in a palm.
Last puddle of love,
And desperation.
No doubt
Mum left this morning.
She'll be back soon, no doubt.
"Won't be long in town,"
She said.
I watched her through the blinds,
Her bright red shoes
Cracking whips on the blurring pavement.
She'd done her hair up, dyed it too,
From Bird's Nest to City Chic,
In a sweeping of bronze bedragglements.
She fancied a change is my guess,
And I smiled for her, proud.
She had a shoulder bag cradled in her arms,
Tightly, like a wailing infant.
Her favourite bag, that one;
Took it everywhere she went;
It was well travelled, even for baggage.
Dad said, if there was one thing she could choose
To keep, of everything she had,
It would be that bag.
I laughed at him, because he was so wrong.
I said if there was one thing she could choose,
She'd choose me.
He laughed too, and I saw his teeth,
And the hole where one had rotted out.
I'll ask her when she gets back,
But I know I'm right,
And I want to remind her...
To take Dad to the dentist.
Kisses on the window pane [AKA succession of burbs ]
Morning light awakes,
Bounced from dew to curtains drawn;
Dances on the glass.
Sleepy lips breathing
Misted dreams, still warm with life,
Swirling into day.
Delicate breath sweeps
Onto the cool window; dreams
Remember themselves.
Swaying head leans in
To touch the morning outside;
Lips sting from the cold.
Another day's rain
Breathes other mist onto glass:
The kiss remembered.
There's innumerable others but I'd be here all night
MSB did a very good job summing up your poems analytically, although I think he was a little too harsh and dismissive. From my more immature 'this-sounds-nice' point of view, I thought I'd just chime in that I greatly enjoyed reading most of these.
'Bridges' is definitely my favourite of the lot. You have a gem there. I won't point out all of the technical intricacies that really make that poem flow so well, but I think the first line is fine; "purple" and "brick bridges" seem to start the poem with that bitterness and harshness of tongue which continues throughout. You definitely get the impression there that whoever is observing these bridges is talking as if to an audience, without one. As a reader, reading it in silence, the constant referral to the noise of the trains, what would they say if they could talk, what would they refuse to say... and so on, really amplifies the ideas behind the whole poem.
I would be surprized if the subject matter in your poems, particularly 'The Old Days', was something that didn't mean anything to you emotionally. I think that, apart from a few areas that MSB mentioned, on the whole you manage to very effectively put across what it is these people and places mean to you, even if it is just as a casual observation left for the reader to ponder, like the man juggling in Hyde Park. I disagree with MSB about keeping haikus "to yourself". You are clearly capable of producing longer, more descriptive poems - you don't rely on purely triple-lined creations. So, when you have a little snapshot in time which details an occurance that the reader can playfully interpret independantly, I say go for it.
Your poems certainly capture something that I aspire to - check out this circular inspiration thing we got goin' on. Oh yeah.
Yeah bro. Now all we need is to get some MSB **** down and we're burning
Does he write poetry? It would be interesting to read.
I volunteered to join in a 'poetry competition' that we have been discussing in the shoutbox. It needs someone to manage entries (who won't enter themselves). I'd ask if you could do the job, but I want you to write something too.
(Perhaps the interesting thing would be how someone who feels qualified to criticise everyone else can't actually write themselves.)
I volunteered to join in a 'poetry competition' that we have been discussing in the shoutbox. It needs someone to manage entries (who won't enter themselves). I'd ask if you could do the job, but I want you to write something too.
(Perhaps the interesting thing would be how someone who feels qualified to criticise everyone else can't actually write themselves.)
I hope that goes ahead.
(That is precisely why I thought it would be interesting. Although I do doubt you "can't actually write", in the same way people who "can't actually draw" can still pick up a paintbrush and create something beautiful.)
Okay dudes, here are some more poems. The first was written as my first (failed) attempt for the poetry competition that was held here. The rest, as in OP, were written mostly earlier in the year with the odd re-read and edit along the way. You may have noticed that I do not like to title my poems.
Escapism Competition Attempt #1
I often wonder, late at night,
Lying in the darkened gloom,
Exactly what it is that scares me;
What it is that makes me think
There’s something tragic, coming
Soon. As the darkness thickens
It envelopes me; and though I know
I’m safe, still there’s something quite
Unsettling about it all – as footsteps
In a late night alley make you check
Yourself at every corner and floor-
Boards creaking in an empty house
Makes you turn the volume louder –
So too then the shroud of darkness
Makes me shudder, and consider: Did
I do the right thing after all?
Those years I spent with women in
My hands’ caress – they were all just
Vulnerable girls, I guess – really weren’t worth
Half the effort. And now I’m left,
Withered and old, in this cell so
Grey, so... cold. Violence won’t bring
The joys of youth: it simply quickens
Life’s embrace; leaves you in the darkness,
Staring into empty space; thinking over
Sullen fate; contemplating your escape.
Untitled
Lots of large white piles,
Shovelled to the sides of
Pathways, turning into
Bigger puddles of icy
Slushy mess, through which
Endless feet timidly
Find their way.
The grassy verges still
Whited up, except in
Patches, where sodden brown
Emerges from beneath; and
Naked men of white
Stand as isolated
Scarecrows, and
All too quickly crumble
Into nothing. The roads
Come to a stand still, or
Are empty, and everyone
Holds their breath, as the
Weather forecast predicts
Lots more snow.
Untitled
Your voice, before so gentle,
Now hits with such force you
Plunge me into deeper
Waters than I dare to
Tread.
Now I cannot swim, weighted
Down with these notions I
Can’t bear to dispel; each
Telling me to cut the
Chord.
On the Blue Sea’s Surface
On the horizon, a
Lone
Ship floats, sails
Raised toward the sky.
From beyond, the sun’s light
Falls,
Glistening
On the blue sea’s surface,
And then slowly retreats
Back,
And is gone.
Meanwhile, the ship lingers
On the prospect, and in
One
Minute more,
Will be gone forever.
On the blue sea’s surface,
No
More ripples
Now float toward the shore.
Picadilly
Again I’m on the purple line,
Metro out and killing time,
Nothing in this dark can shine.
Considering all the time I spend,
Every bump and every bend
Of every journey should swiftly mend
Every rift. Here’s to you, my friend
Of indigo and violet hue.
Here’s another tribute to
Your rallied lines, and you.
Basically it's a poem that comprises 6 verses of 6 lines whereby the final word of each line has to be repeated in every verse in a different position (I can't even remember the order but there's some weird mathematical process to work out where they go each time based on their position in the first verse) and then they all have to be repeated in the 3 line conlusion (two in each line, again pre-defined by the position they appear in the first verse).
In the darkness the worm does creep,
And the dirt clings to his purple skin.
The moon’s echoes soar up high
Floating into the distance as silent breath,
And the huth in the air casts shadows
That reach larger than one can dream.
That cold night, it was like a dream
Where only lonely souls dare creep,
Moving slowly in the darkness, those shadowy
Figures, the darkness blackening their skin.
Their movement quiet, almost as if not breathing.
Glancing their eyes to the moon up high,
Twinkling like a star in the sky up high,
They move furtively across this wasteland dream,
Trying desperately to avoid breathing
Too loud, as they cautiously creep
Toward what frightens them out of their sallow skins;
Across the dark horizon, through the shadows.
As the moon descends, their pallid shadows
Are cast long over the land. Up high
A vicious bite rings out; their skin
And bones stop dead in the nightmare.
But whispers come, and they must creep;
But keep their feet, and keep their breath.
In the darkness they dare not breathe.
Nothing can be seen. Except their shadows.
And still into the nothing they creep.
They dread the sun rising high.
Time passes like a lethargic dream.
They wish they had thicker, thicker skins.
They move laboriously in artificial skins,
In the dark and in the dirt; lumbering breathless;
They pass like sullen creatures in a dream.
The moon’s descent has decapitated their shadows.
They’re close enough that they could say “guten tag”,
And yet they continue that endless creep.
Fast movement pierces skin in shadows,
A loss of breath; shouts bellow, flying high.
This is not a dream. To their deaths they creep.
I really like both of the above out of that selection. The latter one intrigues me. I can't go into the critiques of things, but based purely on reading, those two do it for me.
Basically it's a poem that comprises 6 verses of 6 lines whereby the final word of each line has to be repeated in every verse in a different position (I can't even remember the order but there's some weird mathematical process to work out where they go each time based on their position in the first verse) and then they all have to be repeated in the 3 line conlusion (two in each line, again pre-defined by the position they appear in the first verse).
In the darkness the worm does creep,
And the dirt clings to his purple skin.
The moon’s echoes soar up high
Floating into the distance as silent breath,
And the huth in the air casts shadows
That reach larger than one can dream.
That cold night, it was like a dream
Where only lonely souls dare creep,
Moving slowly in the darkness, those shadowy
Figures, the darkness blackening their skin.
Their movement quiet, almost as if not breathing.
Glancing their eyes to the moon up high,
Twinkling like a star in the sky up high,
They move furtively across this wasteland dream,
Trying desperately to avoid breathing
Too loud, as they cautiously creep
Toward what frightens them out of their sallow skins;
Across the dark horizon, through the shadows.
As the moon descends, their pallid shadows
Are cast long over the land. Up high
A vicious bite rings out; their skin
And bones stop dead in the nightmare.
But whispers come, and they must creep;
But keep their feet, and keep their breath.
In the darkness they dare not breathe.
Nothing can be seen. Except their shadows.
And still into the nothing they creep.
They dread the sun rising high.
Time passes like a lethargic dream.
They wish they had thicker, thicker skins.
They move laboriously in artificial skins,
In the dark and in the dirt; lumbering breathless;
They pass like sullen creatures in a dream.
The moon’s descent has decapitated their shadows.
They’re close enough that they could say “guten tag”,
And yet they continue that endless creep.
Fast movement pierces skin in shadows,
A loss of breath; shouts bellow, flying high.
This is not a dream. To their deaths they creep.
I like the way this is written. Although, certain words and phrases personally I wasn't too fond of. "Twinkling like a star in the sky up high" - that line was one I disliked. But, overall, I do like it, more than the others. I did enjoy reading the first one though, for the escapism competition.
Your 'Escapism' draft is sixteen lines of lifeless prose before it actually turns into a poem. I wonder if I am missing something, because you normally pay a lot of attention to formal matters, but there isn't really anything interesting until it gets going much later on. The ideas are all a bit scattered too. I don't really think there's much happening in the other ones, either, until you get to Picadilly and High Noon, which are back up to the standard you can achieve but don't really in these newer poems (the latter especially). It seems that you write considerably better when you use more interesting forms.
Your 'Escapism' draft is sixteen lines of lifeless prose before it actually turns into a poem. I wonder if I am missing something, because you normally pay a lot of attention to formal matters, but there isn't really anything interesting until it gets going much later on. The ideas are all a bit scattered too. I don't really think there's much happening in the other ones, either, until you get to Picadilly and High Noon, which are back up to the standard you can achieve but don't really in these newer poems (the latter especially). It seems that you write considerably better when you use more interesting forms.
I guess the problem with the 'Escapism' contest was that we weren't given a form, but an idea. Since I actually now find form informs content a lot more than I ever did I was sitting there without really knowing how to put those ideas into any kind of poem. The 16 lines you mention were, I guess, just fluffy, working my way into the idea, before I come to what I have at the end. Which, as I said before, I felt deviated too much from the theme. Maybe I could have got rid of the beginning and reworked it, I don't know. Funnily enough, the same happened with my second entry, but I thought submitting a single couplet would have been a little bit too minimal. We'll never know now.
Post your poems, artwork, graphics, photographs etc, or others' works (must be credited).
A few (more) poems - Updated Nov 14th
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Again, I agree with you on your comments about the rhymes. (Likewise I do with pretty much everything you say about the first poem.)
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