Colter's Hell

[HenryBones]

Colter's Hell

Who is to say they hadn't been right
all along, those old end-time
believers

who saw straight through the fanciful
accounts of mudpots, steam
vents and geysers

to the Gates of Heaven, the Mouth of Hell.
Not, you may be sure, the skinny
dipping threesome

who hot potted their way from one al
fresco sauna to another
late that summer

at the tail end of the last century.
They had been skipping back
through the dark

when they found themselves falling
foot first down the rabbit hole
of a fumarole

that had just then began to crack
and tremble, its spittle-flecked
jaw giving out

on to what might most accurately
be described as a Spanish
Inquisitor's

wet dream. We can only guess, of course,
but studies - on the classic
Sicilian

bull, for example, or the Chinese
Iron Maiden - suggest
they'd have been

hours in the dying, that the breath
of superheated gas
on naked flesh

would have elicited from them
screams of such fervent
intensity

it is still a miracle to think
they were never heard,
never found.

[blackpanther]

what did you to this piece?

It was all going so well - the rhythm and rhyme were bang on until about half way through and then it just went missing.

In case anyone is wondering it's the third line of each stanza and then it gets to "late that summer" which could be "summer free" to keep the rhyme going, maybe the third line in each subsequent stanza ought to be re-thought. JMO.

i get where you're coming from with the words and i love the history lesson

donna

[ray miller]

Enjoyed it, not sure about the al fresco line break.

on to what might most accurately
be described as a Spanish
Inquisitor's

wet dream.

I find that passage very unconvincing. The tone becomes almost whimsical, at odds with the rest.

[Suzanne]

Thank for the American history. I enjoy your contributions.
The idea of the poem is good. The images are interesting but
the form is unsettling as it doesn't make sense to me other than for looks.
Reading it aloud is choppy in this form.

I would suggest dropping it and writing it so something easier to read. And tell.

But thanks. Enjoyed it.
Suzanne

[Ros]

Who is to say they hadn't been right
all along, - perhaps this is a bit too much of a standard saying to use as an opening? Doesn't grab the reader enough. I know the last line of each verse retains the 3 beats, but I think single words aren't working - they are giving too much emphasis to that word, which seems odd.

also seems odd to call it a miracle that people dying in agony aren't rescued.

Think there's a good story here but you need to rejig it a bit.

Ros

[Suzanne]

Sometimes three syllables on the end and sometimes four.

[blackpanther]

i'll raise my confederate flag

"Inquisitors wet dream" --- would've kept the flow of the rhyme too instead of splitting it up.

i love the imagery on second reading with nice visuals and doesn't require much to sort out the rhyme either

like quite a lot of my poetry - could be tighter

donna

[HenryBones]

As ever, thanks for the comments all.

I sort of hit on tercets with a short last line by way of the 'believers' 'geysers' rhyme, which, if you don't mind indulging me, I quite proud of, but it is a strange form, and I take the criticisms on the front, though I think I'll stick with the basic shape and see if it's not just a case of me not writing it very well.

I'm glad people liked the historical dimension though the core of the narrative is not, in truth, very old - it's an anecdote about a trio of seasonal workers in Yellowstone who partook in some illicit warm-water bathing (some of the pools being safe to swim in, apparently) but then getting lost in the night on their way back to camp and falling into something rather hotter and more deadly. It's in Bill Bryson's book A Short History of Nearly Everything. John Colter, from the title, was one of the first Europeans to pass through that part of the world and the expression 'Coulter's Hell' made me wonder how such otherworldly geography must have seemed to the folk first hearing about it - the first non-natives, I should say - but also how that otherworldliness continues to stalk us today, to sometimes lethal effect.

Thanks again for reading everyone, when I get a chance I'll look at some revisions.

[Suzanne]

This feel awkward to say but....

Yes, let's say the form is fine,the rhymes are pleasing and that the writing is the problem.
Lol

Now, i say that to be encouraging but realize it sounds awful.


But Mr. HB, I am beginning to look for your posts with delight.
You have added a wonderful element to this little group by way of your themes and imagination.

Keep what you are proud of and jiggle the other bits. This is art.

Warmly,
Suzanne