Giorgi's Grave

[Nino]

You sleep beneath a lilac tree, it grows out
of your hair. In April it sprinkles you
with white and purple dandruff.
Your fingers merge with roots, toes erupt
from shoes and grow
into a Hawkbit and Plantain.
Your veins once blue, now green
still pulsate - now with maggots,
but they too live and particles of you
live in them.
Your semen that never gave you a daughter,
bear you an army of emerald children.
Your skin breaks down and cracks
and ants, carry you part by tiny part
within them.
Your stomach now wide gushed
is a cocoon for beetles, worms, and ants,
life wriggles, twists and turns
inside you.
You are a tiny universe and you expand.


I never root out weeds, I do not spray them,
nor do I stomp the ants, or chase away
the flies. When people pass
they think your grave has been abandoned,
but you overflow your grave
and everything that grows or crawls
above you, contains you -
including me.

[clarabow]

Nino - this is well imagined.

You sleep beneath a lilac tree, it grows out
of your hair. In April it sprinkles you
with white and purple dandruff. - dandruff didn't work for me (blossom is lovely?)
Your fingers merge with roots, toes erupt
from shoes and grow
into a Hawkbit and Plantain.
Your veins once blue, now green
still pulsate - now with maggots, - flies (see is a cocoon line)
but they too live and particles of you
live in them.
Your semen that never gave you a daughter,
bear you an army of emerald children. if not daughter then sons might be better?
Your skin breaks down and cracks
and ants, carry you part by tiny part - maybe atom by atom?
within them.
Your stomach now wide gushed - gushed?
is a cocoon for beetles, worms, and ants, - maybe another insect as ants are mentioned below - maggots?
life wriggles, twists and turns
inside you.
You are a tiny universe and you expand. AS you...


I never root out weeds, I do not spray them,
nor do I stomp the ants, or chase away
the flies. When people pass
they think your grave has been abandoned;
(but) you overflow your grave
and everything that grows or crawls
above you, contains you -
including me.


Very true, I believe W S's atoms may well be you or me

[Nino]

Clara (I hope I got your name correctly )

Thank you for your thoughtful and line by line comments. It will definitely help me make this poem better. Thank you for correcting my punctuation and giving me suggestions for different words.
Nino

[David]

Hi Nino,

This is interesting. I like the imagery of Giorgi becoming one with nature as it grows out of him, but I must admit that I liked the fancy of the plants and flowers far more than your maggots and beetles etc. That's just me being squeamish, no doubt.

It - and Clara's final remark ("Very true, I believe W S's atoms may well be you or me" - W S = Shakey?) - reminded me of this lovely poem, Transformations, by Thomas Hardy:

Portion of this yew
Is a man my grandsire knew,
Bosomed here at its foot:
This branch may be his wife,
A ruddy human life
Now turned to a green shoot.

These grasses must be made
Of her who often prayed,
Last century, for repose;
And the fair girl long ago
Whom I often tried to know
May be entering this rose.

So, they are not underground,
But as nerves and veins abound
In the growths of upper air,
And they feel the sun and rain,
And the energy again
That made them what they were!

Cheers

David

[Nino]

Ah David

What a beautiful poem! I wish I would ever write something remotely as beautiful as this.
You know I was reading about body decomposition for a little research and it downed on me that no matter how much I wanted my brother's death to carry on in beautiful flowers and plants, I can't escape the truth. After all maggots might be ugly for us humans. The thing is I wanted to avoid to make this poem too beautiful and more realistic. I was watching Stephen Hawking the other day and something that he said struck me, he said universe was created by imperfection and I just thought it was amazing.
Thank you for letting me know what you think and for the beautiful poem.
Nino

[David]

The thing is I wanted to avoid to make this poem too beautiful and more realistic.

That is a good thing to try to do, Nino, and in many ways I think you've succeeded. Don't mind me, I'm excessively sentimental about this sort of thing.

Cheers

David

[Nino]

David

I post it here because I value each suggestion or an effort, even if I don't agree.

[Arian]

I liked the fancy of the plants and flowers far more than your maggots and beetles etc. That's just me being squeamish, no doubt.

Be interested to know what you make of this, David - it's a piece from Sharon Olds, and is the leading poem in the last issue of Poetry London. Nino's poem reminded me of it, to some extent. http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14803

As to the piece here, there's a lot to admire, in my view - some very strong images arranged in a fluent and evocative way. I think a few changes of punctuation would make it even better, but that's often a matter of taste.

I enjoyed it

peter

[Nino]

Arian

Thank you for stopping by.
I've read the poem you posted and it showed me of how much more can be done to make my poem better. She has a really strong images and word choices.
As for punctuation you are totally right, upon rereading it -after posting - I already noticed that punctuation keeps flow of this poem in it's claws. I shall see what can I do in revision.
Thank you for advise.
Nino

[Nicky B]

Also reminded me of a more cerebral version of "On Ilkley Moor by tat". A folk song about a man who goes courting without his hat, gets ill, is buried, then eaten by worms, which are eaten by ducks, which in turn are eaten by his friends who sing "That's where we get our own back", i.e. serves you right for going courting without a hat. Which seems a little harsh really.

The part of this concept which interests me is the degree to which we are influenced by the previous history of the particles which make up our current body. If you look at your hand and think about where the molecules within have been, and how long they have been around for. Part dinosaur, part big bang, part tree part........ Does that change who we are today?

Love thinking about this stuff, so thank you for jolting my brain into action,

Nicky B

[Nino]

Nicky

Thank you very much for your comment. I am glad you took something out of my poem. It was interesting what you wrote and kind of disturbingly beautiful
If a corn field was to grow on someone's grave and we ate it, I guess it would mean we ate this person (in a way). Oh my God thank you in return, you gave me some more ideas.
Nino

[twoleftfeet]

Hi, Nino

I like your poem very much, but I would be tempted to leave out most of the detail in S1 :

You sleep beneath a lilac tree, it grows out
of your hair. In April it sprinkles you
with white and purple dandruff.
Your fingers merge with roots, toes erupt
from shoes and grow
You are a tiny universe and you expand.

- unless you actually want to challenge the sensibilities of Western readers who by and large don't want to think about
the realities of death and decomposition.
It's all contained concisely, anyway, in S2.

Geoff

[Nino]

Thank you so much for commenting, I will take your suggestions in to consideration.
Nino

[oranggunung]

Hi Nino

I like the sentiment of this piece. The knowledge of ecology and its acceptance feels very powerful.

I have some nits about punctuation, grammar and repetition, but I’m a pedant.
I find the tenses a little awkward. I’m not sure if that’s because of the punctuation or because it appears to change. The most difficult line for me to read is this one:


Your semen that never gave you a daughter,
bear you an army of emerald children.

I think this should be a past tense, rather than a present tense, as the emerald children are now present. Something like:

The semen that never gave you a daughter,
has born you an army of emerald children.


Your stomach now wide gushed

This line reads wonderfully, but I wonder if you meant to use the word ‘gashed’?


You are a tiny universe and you expand.

I love this idea, but want to make more of it. I wonder if Giorgi might be considered to be at the heart of a tiny universe, rather than the tiny universe itself?


they think your grave has been abandoned,
but you overflow your grave


the repetition of the word ‘grave’ feels a little awkward here.

I think you could use the word ‘plot’ in the first line, and still keep the same sense and flow:

they think your plot has been abandoned,
but you overflow your grave


and everything that grows or crawls
above you, contains you -
including me.

These closing lines seem to reflect love of Giorgi, but there is an awkward edge of cannibalism here. Might it be possible to express a love for the flora and fauna you have detailed above, and, by extension, a love of Giorgi.

I’ve tried not to rewrite the piece, as that’s frequently considered rude. I hope I haven’t overstepped the mark with my suggestions.

At the moment, the poem seems to be in broken English and I’m not sure that’s your intention. It does add something to the emotion of the piece, but it distracts my reading. I still think the poem is a powerful one. Thank you for sharing it with us.

og

[Nino]

Hello og

Your critique is most helpful and appreciated. Your comments about my English and punctuation are valid and I plan to improve them.
I personally don't consider rewriting arrogant in any way, you gave me suggestions and it's up to me in the end to consider them or not - I will.

This reminded me once when I was a little girl I read a book called " Little King" I did not like the ending, so I scratched it off and wrote my own:) my father had a fit when he saw book in such state:)

[Meesha]

Hi N

Nothing like a good Gyre theory to make a good poem, I say. And while I really like and admire the concept of this, its free verse execution is below par because, to me — and not only me as David points out by default —, the piece screams for the archaicness of both rhyme and meter...even the later would do it more justice.

Now there's a challenge I sense your hungry personality can't ignore.

M

Never read Nursery Rhymes after Humpty Dumpty gave me such frightful nightmares about parental trust.

[Nino]

Hello Meesha

Thanks for dropping by. I will think of what you suggestion in revision. This piece not only suffers from poor meter and rhyme, it has other more essential problems like poor English and punctuation, not to say anything about images that don't seem to be tied together. Unfortunately I realized that my poem reads like a draft only after posting it. You know sometimes you can get stuck and best thing to do is ask support of others - more experienced writers.
All the comments above will help me to make this poem better.

I find some nursery rhymes downright terrifying: )
How is that for a challenge: is anyone going to write something scary to get us in the Halloween mood?:)

P.S. my pm is still not working
Nino

[CSThompson]

This makes me think of Baudelaire's "Carrion" in terms of what you're saying, but his morbid images carry a cynical message whereas yours don't. Sometimes I think about how, when I am dead, life will just continue to manifest in the very same spot and there will be more of a continuity than a break. That's what this makes me think of.

[Nino]

Hello

Thank you for reading and letting me know what it made you feel.