Poetry Forum

In bed
like a forgotten
Obelisk,

I fold my
arms across
my solid chest.

Heavy heart
thudding, slowing.

----------------------------

Outside young men
Preen, in violent
Nike purple.

Argue about Charlotte,
her diseases, and how
they’d rather fuck a dog.

Their intoxicated tones
sink into the night
like molten-steel casualties,

my foot upon their heads.

CAMUS

In fairness I think the second part is slightly more effective than the first. Overall I liked it however, as it reminded me of many a conversation I used to overhear outside the halls of residence at UC Swansea, (usually after the bar had closed.)

There was one woman who fitted Charlotte's description, and she (ALLEGEDLY) had so many diseases she was referred to as 'Lucky Dip'.

Some lines in this are well crafted and for me they are:-

"In bed
like a forgotten
Obelisk,"

and...

"their intoxicated tones
sink into the night
like molten-steel casualties,"

The memories are all flooding back now...

BEST REGARDS
SEAN KINSELLA

i really liked this - i would disagree with sean, i think the first part is as good as the second. one question though - why "obelisk"? they are usually upright, and though i suppose a "forgotten obelisk" might have fallen into the horizontal, it doesn't quite fit with the detail of the arms across the chest - that's more like a sarcophagus or effigy.

Camus, this has an unsual stucture that I like, I've been looking at it for a while, at first glance it looks like two poems, the last line clues me in.
The line between the two sections is great. Charlotte section jars nicely.
dillingworth makes a good point "forgotten Obelisk" is a problem area.
The other problem area is:
"Heavy heart
thudding, slowing."
which really adds nothing, either make it add or drop altogether.

I like this:
"Preen, in violent
Nike purple."

if you can find a word that evokes both fallen, and forgotten I would keep Obelisk, otherwise I would consider sarcophagus,.

Thanks for the input guys,

All worthy.