Poetry Forum

Another night off the substitute’s bench,
The lads all reeking of the deep, sharp stench.
Acrid burn of pine fresh flush,
And aftershave.
Anyone seen Dave?

Down among the spew stains and cigarette butts.
Pigskin jacket and pigskin snacks,
Fat men joking with the girl out back.
But that’s ok,
She’s game.

See, she’s smiling.

OK - I have to comment on this before I head for home. This is a very cool poem, and from the fourth line on I think it's as good as perfect. "Down among the spew stains and cigarette butts" is concrete and expressive and like the rest of the poem has pace and vigour. Really effective variation of line-length and syncopation.

The second line sounds like it's lacking a syllable - shouldn't it be "the same deep stench"? The scansion sounds awry there, so the poem trips up before it gets going. As it stands you've got "the LADS all REEking of the DEEP STENCH". With "same" (or whatever other modification) you take the stress off "deep" and reinstate the basically iambic metre. Having said that, I can see that the weight of the spondee "DEEP STENCH" is worth something of its own. See what other people think.

Other than that, this is fantastic. Definitely my fave, out of the ones you've posted so far. More like it would be much appreciated.

Thanks kj,

The second line did cause me some trouble and I am still not happy with it. As it stands it is one syllable short, annoyingly. I wanted to keep the assonence of REEking and DEEp which I think is key to the rhythm of the line but whatever I did (and I went through many itterations including 'same' and a repetition of 'deep') felt contrived.

I think the problem stems from the first line which is rhythmically uneven and this over stresses the first syllable of line two, effectively throwing you into the second line off balance as it were, so I shall have to go back and reconstruct from there.

SF

I agree that it is the best you've yet posted.

For the troublesome spondee line:

The lads all reeking of the deep sty stench

?

Up to you.

The title made me think it was going to be some re-hashed, cliche statement for/against/alluding to religion. Good job on completely overcoming those expectations.

- Caleb

Update: Thank you both kj and Caleb, think I've cracked it.

I tried 'deep, strong stench' but the ST consonance was overbearing and 'strong' took the emphasis off 'stench' too much. Also, 'Strong' is too much like 'deep' and seemed to be superfluous. Have arrived at 'deep, sharp stench' which rhythmically works better, and 'Sharp' provides a better direction for line three's 'Acrid'. Opinions?

SF

That's more like it. 'A billion/Times told lovelier'.

I think it needs a new title though - to do it justice.

Cheers
Cam

The edit works for me. I agree with Cam re: new title.