Poetry Forum

Worship

Your perfection, a solitary statue
In a bare desert, thrusting to vie with the sun,
Proud pose, unassailable, like your marble flesh
Which the skeletons at your feet profoundly confess.

My sky, stumbling remarks a sacrifice
At your veiled altar. No munificence.
Coiled in the razor wire of your voice
I choke in awkward incompetence.

My fawnings, like a fish, viciously hooked
Waiting for you to pull me out or let me go,
I am your plaything, ponderous marionette
Of my impending fate, I do not know.

Later, away from the crucible of your gaze
Stripping away all pretensions, save those
You wear, nonchalantly, permanently unfazed
The cinema of hindsight closed
And I drift into a fitful sleep.

I have consulted the Auguries
Who have seen signs of great importance,
Your mind when revealed, like sun through cloud
Will blind me with its honest magnificence

hey all would love some criticism etc. on this I wrote last week. Some of it is cringe worthy notably line 4 and line 6 but I'm too involved in it to objectively pull it apart. Help!

benjy

Hey benjy. I did kind of like it. I think theeand me share a problem posed to us by a woman. I'm clutching at straws really but i did get the impression that you have fallen for someone who is somewhat unattainable. Correct me if I'm wrong.
The poem is good. Bear in mind that i am an amateur too so my crits are based purely on what I think of it and aren't compared to great poets who now reside in the grave.
The last verse seems to lose it a bit. It doesn't really carry the same tone as the rest of the poem and seems a touch simple in comparison to its predecessors.
Not sure about my fawnings either. Not sure how it fits or if it is necessary.
Line 12 is a touch weak and maybe cliche. Some rewording might help.
Impending doom, my fate unknown. Maybe. It just seems a touch simplified and i'm not sure it fits in with the more complex structure of the rest of the poem.
I would thin it down a little. Remove some i's and me's and which's and so on.
But I think it shows a lot of promise. It has complexities to it that I would struggle to achieve and your use of similes is good. Just try to make it clear that its coming from your angle without actually having to point it out.
And remember, I don't really know what i'm talking about! Just trying to squeeze in amongst the bigwigs!

Benjy,

Interesting first offering. There are some nice phrases in here. I particularly like "the cinema of hindsight".

Perhaps you're being too self-consciously "poetical", in the belief that it's a different language from the one we normally speak. Lots of long words in here. Too much latin, man!

What we like (what I like) is plain English words in surprising conjunctions. Does that make sense? Try that.

Just in case you think long words are essential - or, to put it another way, transcendence (Latin! D'oh!) is not attainable without them - consider this by Philip Larkin:

"Cut grass lies frail:
Brief is the breath
Mown stalks exhale.
Long, long the death

It dies in the white hours
Of young-leafed June
With chestnut flowers,
With hedges snowlike strewn,

White lilac bowed,
Lost lanes of Queen Anne's lace,
And that high-builded cloud
Moving at summer's pace."

And that's a desert island poem for me.

Hope that's helpful.

David

I wonder if the complexity of your writing reflects the complexity of your thought processes?

I admire writers who are able to use words to slowly reveal a depth of emotion - which is what I read here, I love the lines,

'Coiled in the razor wire of your voice
I choke in awkward incompetence.'

I would never be able to write like that - it has a beauty about it.

I found that I had to read this through very carefully to be able to follow it's story, and I struggle with having to concentrate when I read poetry - I want to be able to 'get it' straight away, and then go back again and again to revel in the beauty, the rhythm, the feelings and the vision. This poem has all these factors, but I really had to 'try hard' to get them.

Like Marm - I am writing simply about 'my' preferences and what 'I' like - I am no expert, just here to read and learn!

Overall - I enjoyed reading this - and that is what counts.

hey guys thanks a lot for the help

I may try and re-write it with ur thoughts in mind....

thank you so much, its nice when people like your work (or parts of it anyway)

benjy

can we use this thread as a semi-workshop for this piece maybe....If anyone can help that'd be amazing

Your perfection, a solitary statue
In a bare desert, thrusting to vie with the sun,
Proud pose, unassailable, like your marble flesh
Which the skeletons at your feet profoundly confess.

I hate the last line here, but have used it to make a semi rhyme with the line above

My shy, stumbling remarks a sacrifice
At your veiled altar, concealed by smiles,
Coiled in the razor wire of your voice
I choke in awkward incompetence.

changed line 2, do people prefer this? I think I do.

My fawnings, like a fish, viciously hooked
Waiting for you to pull me out or let me go,
I am your plaything, ponderous marionette,
a dancer in this most macabre show,

changed the last line here, the alliteration maybe is ear catching, but a bit cheesy, should I feel confined to making it rhyme?

thanks a lot people, any help, suggestions of lines etc. would be amazing. I'd really like this to be the best it could be...

benjy