Soledad (was Time Lapse Twilight)

[pomespennyeach]

rev. 3

Above my solitude, a gray dome
a length of thunder to the south
intercepted by a black ring
of sky high pecan and cypress.

Absence carries thought
perpendicular to the slight rain,
linear veil of forgotten eyes,
down towards the invisible river.

A tribal chorus of cicadas
carve the air into pictographs
of abandonment as light fades
into the impossible earth.

Rain slaps forever young grass
invoking silence until tree frogs
set up their piteous cries
to ground the dawn of darkness.

A barking dog pursues night to its beginning..

***************************************************

rev. 2

Above my solitude, a gray space dome
and a length of thunder to the south.
Around me, a tribal chorus of cicadas
carve the forest of pecans
with hieroglyphs of abandonment.
Ancient voices for an infant grief.
A barking dog pursues me
to night’s beginning.



************************************************

Above my solitude, a gray dome
and a length of thunder to the south.
A tribal chorus of cicadas
carve the forest of pecans
with aural hieroglyphs of abandonment.
Absence carries thought
perpendicular to the slight rain
linear veil of forgotten eyes.
Ancient voices for an infant grief
at an altar of rusted iron,
sculpture welded in the mind of the dead.
Rain slaps forever young grass
invoking silence until tree frogs
set up their piteous cries
to ground the dawn of darkness.
A barking dog pursues me
to solitude’s end and night’s beginning.

[NotQuiteSure]

Hi PPE,
enjoyed this one, the tone, the mood, just think it wanders a little off course in lines 6-8 and 13-14.
Oh, and of course it deserves a better title, especially given how good lines 2 and 9 are.

Too radical I'm sure, but ...

Above my solitude, a gray dome ............... anything better than dome?
and a length of thunder to the south.
Ahead A tribal chorus of cicadas ............... maybe a direction to show where this is in relation to N?
carve the pecan forest
Ancient voices for an infant grief
aural hieroglyphs of abandonment. ............ do you need aural?
A barking dog pursues me
to solitude’s end and night’s beginning. ....... solitude's end? Really?

Regards, Not

.

[pomespennyeach]

Hi PPE,
enjoyed this one, the tone, the mood, just think it wanders a little off course in lines 6-8 and 13-14.
Oh, and of course it deserves a better title, especially given how good lines 2 and 9 are.

Too radical I'm sure, but ...

Above my solitude, a gray dome ............... anything better than dome?
and a length of thunder to the south.
Ahead A tribal chorus of cicadas ............... maybe a direction to show where this is in relation to N?
carve the pecan forest
Ancient voices for an infant grief
aural hieroglyphs of abandonment. ............ do you need aural?
A barking dog pursues me
to solitude’s end and night’s beginning. ....... solitude's end? Really?

Regards, Not

.

Not,

O not too radical. I'm in a cutting mood. But what's wrong with "dome"? Too cliche or something else?

And I'll drop "aural" and "solitude's end".

And I'll call it just Time Lapse. Is that any better? It was written piecemeal as twlight turned to night, light rain turned to heavier rain, with different creature choruses as the evening progressed. That's why I wanted Time Lapse in the title.

Although, if I do all that cutting, that is lost, but that's OK.

PPE

[NotQuiteSure]

Hi PPE,

what's wrong with "dome"? Too cliche or something else?

Too dull in comparison with the rest of the piece.
Just be way of an example, for me dome conjures up St. Paul's Cathedral, so I might have
Above my solitude, a gray cathedral dome
what's your equivalent?

That's why I wanted Time Lapse in the title.

Hey, your poem, your title (but it seems a bit as if you are speaking only to yourself with it. What's in it for the reader?)

Regards, Not

.

[pomespennyeach]

but it seems a bit as if you are speaking only to yourself with it. What's in it for the reader?)

Not,

You are good at asking the hard questions I say that with admiration, by the way.

It seems it goes against my instinct to concern myself with the reader, maybe because in most social situations I am awkward as hell and never know what to say, and my poems are where it's finally my turn to talk. Need to work on that I think (not the social part, too late to worry about that).

I need a mantra: how's "Who would want to read this"?

PPE

[NotQuiteSure]

Hi PPE,

Who would want to read this"?

My comment wasn't about that so much as the title was telling you something you already knew, but it doesn't seem to tell the reader much if anything. Of course, the single block format doesn't lend itself visually to the time-lapse idea. Could it be broken down into smaller units, couplets for instance? (And if the idea does matter, then I'd suggest Time Lapse Nocturne)

I need a mantra

Gosh no! If you're writing for yourself (and who isn't?) then onward, and damn the reader!
If you must have a mantra, then 'how can I make this better?' wouldn't be too terrible. But, I don't think you need one.


Regards, Not

.

[CalebPerry]

I like this poem very much. With its gentle and interesting language, it creates a mood very effectively.

It is written well enough that I don't mind that I don't understand some of the images, such as "carve the forest of pecans" or "aural hieroglyphs of abandonment". Not every word in every poem has to be literal. However, if "carve the forest of pecans" simply means that the pecans become invisible in the darkness, that image works.

I've decided to take your title literally, that this is a poem about the twilight. I'm not trying to find deeper meanings in it.

The poem gives the impression that you live in a tropical environment.

[pomespennyeach]

Thanks for the read and the impressions Caleb. Yes, we are in South Central Texas about 3 hours drive from Mexico and it's quite tropical at times.

The poem was basically built around that word "hieroglyph". It may be I wrote it just so I could use it

But I was trying to hint about the feeling that those sounds would have been heard by everything from stone age native americans through the Aztecs and the Spanish.......and on.....in addition to me with my "infant grief"...infant in the sense of how brief my life is in comparison to these sounds.

So maybe I need to add some of that detail to the poem to make that idea clear.

[CalebPerry]

Your new version, which is quite a bit shorter, is also good. The conciseness helps with the clarity. I now understand that the pecans image and the hieroglyphs image were tied together.

I recommend "a gray dome" instead of "a gray space dome".

"carve" should be "carves" since "chorus" is singular (though it describes a group).

Putting "Ancient voices for an infant grief" by itself is very effective.

I prefer your previous ending:

A barking dog pursues me
to solitude’s end
and night’s beginning.

Still a good poem (perhaps better), if now three bites instead of six bites.

[CalebPerry]

Oh, I have to say something about your new title.

I always believed that "Soledad" was just a proper name; but when you made it the name of your poem, I thought "it must have a meaning", so I looked it up, but the dictionary I looked in didn't list it. Maybe you can shed light on that.

[Macavity]

Hi PPE,
This is the second poem I have read today where the revision has gone into demolition mode! Some readers/writers have a preference for contraction (l do for free verse). I do love your revised ending. I do miss the rain slap and those frogs Much prefer the original title.

I like this, I prefer that, add this, cut that...as many opinions as readers

mac

[pomespennyeach]

Oh, I have to say something about your new title.

I always believed that "Soledad" was just a proper name; but when you made it the name of your poem, I thought "it must have a meaning", so I looked it up, but the dictionary I looked in didn't list it. Maybe you can shed light on that.

I assumed it was simply Spanish for "solitude" although the Spanish dictionary also translates it as "loneliness" and "isolation". I grew up hearing Spanish because of the high population of Hispanics in Texas. Studied it in school starting in elementary school, though I'm far from fluent. My son was fluent and lived in Spain for 3 years before his death. Then I came across it in Giacomo Leopardi's Zibaldone where he writes a little essay on the uniqueness of that word in expressing the idea of solitude. So for all those reasons, I pulled it out of my hat for this poem.

[pomespennyeach]

Hi PPE,
This is the second poem I have read today where the revision has gone into demolition mode! Some readers/writers have a preference for contraction (l do for free verse). I do love your revised ending. I do miss the rain slap and those frogs Much prefer the original title.

I like this, I prefer that, add this, cut that...as many opinions as readers

mac

Giving Not's suggestion a try. I need to let it stew for a bit. I think it's going to change quite a bit when I try another of Not's suggestions to restore or embody the Time Lapse idea. In which case the frogs will probably return.

[ray miller]

The lines you've cut are pretty much the ones I understood least. I think a gray dome is fine, space dome conjures up spaceships for me.

hieroglyphs of abandonment. - Which means what? I'd be more taken with hieroglyphic abandonment.
I like the new title, a prisoner of grief. I wonder how many people have heard of Soledad, though.

[Leaf]

Hi PPE,

Sorry I'm late to this! I'm reading rev. 3.

I hadn't heard of the word 'Soledad', so I googled. I like it; and I like the translated Echo in S1 L1. You have some great imagery from the get-go and I like the sonics in the thunder too.

S2 is trickier, but I appreciate the imagery here as well and especially the 'forgotten eyes'.

S3 picks up with the cicadas and the tree frogs of S4 are cool too. The dog at the end adds to the soundscape and I like the slightly sinister mood.

So all in all, positive; a few things do escape my understanding, but I'm not always great at getting things!

Best wishes,
Leaf

[CalebPerry]

I should have realized that soledad is Spanish. Sorry.

[pomespennyeach]

Hi PPE,

Sorry I'm late to this! I'm reading rev. 3.

I hadn't heard of the word 'Soledad', so I googled. I like it; and I like the translated Echo in S1 L1. You have some great imagery from the get-go and I like the sonics in the thunder too.

S2 is trickier, but I appreciate the imagery here as well and especially the 'forgotten eyes'.

S3 picks up with the cicadas and the tree frogs of S4 are cool too. The dog at the end adds to the soundscape and I like the slightly sinister mood.

So all in all, positive; a few things do escape my understanding, but I'm not always great at getting things!

Best wishes,
Leaf

Thanks for the read and comments. I tried to at least give the imagery as much coherency as I could, but I know it's obscure....but not deliberately so. For example, I can't explain "the impossible earth" but it was the right phrase for whatever the poem is trying to say (I'm attempting a Not feat; setting it free to be as good as it can be).

PPE

[Macavity]

Nice to see the frogs back PPE, though I feel pursues has more resonance than marks.