Untitled

[Brotherfergus]

I lay lifeless before my ruin
whose cold flesh,
stretched thin
over protruding bones,
glows with the ember
so acquainted
with the stars.

His slender lips, cracked with gore,
gesture a word
that ever remains, unuttered.

Beneath his darkened eyes
hang the marks of madness;
The medals of his kind.

Those that pave
the streets at twilight
chattering lightly
to the bitter breeze of winter.

Now I drift
in this unearthly recess
I strove to command.
An elective martyr,
a blind soothsayer,
a seer without vision.

And in irony;
Even this sight cannot awaken what was lost.

[kozmikdave]

Gidday BF

As I reread this several times, it began to grow on me. I found it a bit confusing here and there but much of the imagery is stark and captivating. It could still use some tinkering.

I'd be inclined to make the first line a single sentence followed by a line break. it's a good first line, but then you go on to describe the personification of it. So after setting yourself up as the subject, you switch mid-sentence. I found that a touch confusing. Something like:

I lay lifeless before my ruin.

His cold flesh,
stretched thin....

I liked the following image but have no idea what it is describing.

...glows with the ember
so acquainted
with the stars.

Beneath his darkened eyes
hang the marks of madness;
The medals of his kind. [lower case T?]

Those that pave
the streets at twilight
chattering lightly [should be "chatter" to make it a sentence.]
to the bitter breeze of winter.

And in irony; [lose the semi-colon - use a comma and start next line with "even".]
Even this sight cannot awaken what was lost.

There needs to be just a few glimpses more of what the situation is. Perhaps a useful title would focus the attention and take some of the guesswork out of it. It could be so many things; poverty, pestilence, etc. It would be nice to know what you had in mind.

Hope that has been helpful.

[Elphin]

Interesting post BF

Like dave I am not entirley sure what the topic or theme is - I suggest you use the title to point us in the right direction.

I can see your style is to use grand language, would it be accurate to describe it as almost gothic. In fact the best writing in this poem is when you let in some gentler language in s4. Just a suggestion but I think it would be quite effective to combine with s3 and trim a little. For example

Beneath his darkened eyes
hang the marks of madness;
the medals of those
that pave the streets at twilight
chattering lightly
to the bitter breeze of winter.

a blind soothsayer,
a seer without vision

Is this repetition - I see a subtle difference between not seeing and having no vision but I think a seer without vision would capture the ambiguity.

I hope you have a go at polishing this.

elphin

[du bois]

I enjoyed reading this one. You make used of some interesting juxtapositions: bones/embers stars/lips words/eyes. I am wondering though, as the previous post suggests, whether it could be trimmed somewhat to give it a more protrusive direction. Thinking about the first stanza:

[quote="Brotherfergus"]I lay lifeless before my ruin - this is nice, but I agree that it might be a more effective line on its own
whose cold flesh, - is it the persona that has cold flesh or the persona's ruin? maybe 'in cold flesh'?
stretched thin - if the flesh has been stretched then it has likely been thinned too so perhaps you could lose 'thin'
over protruding bones, - maybe protruding could be lost here too? something of a cliche
glows with the ember - embers tend necessarily to be associated with a glow so perhaps lose one or the other?
so acquainted - acquainted is a nice word
with the stars.

There are some ideas here which you clearly wish to draw out and to have that is fantastic but maybe a little more work would make it easier for the reader! To re-iterate though, some of your lexical choices are admiral.

[walrus]

Cool poem! Needs a title pretty please with sprinkles.

Especially enjoyed ...

His slender lips, cracked with gore,
gesture a word
that ever remains, unuttered.

"cracked with gore" ...brillo man!!!

walrus

[Cryptic Cadence]

I for one struggle to get the meaning of this poem and no doubt some here were a bit confused. However, there is very strong imagery here. It went from strength to strength, beginning to end. The language is simple, but you have managed to use that very effectively;

cracked with gore

A few cliche lines, but it was woven well into some preceding and succeeding lines which were original and enticing, so I'll forgive that;

hang the marks of madness

This threw me off completely from the meaning and made sure I never quite understood what on earth this was about:

Those that pave
the streets at twilight
chattering lightly
to the bitter breeze of winter.

The excitement remains though, all that is needed now is a good title to portray whatever is meant, perhaps then I can figure out a bit more. Please give this a title

[DavyRam]

Ooooh. "Untitled"s always make me wary, but I like this. Consistently evocative, I had no problem getting a consistent reaction to in terms of sound its a piece of excellent desolation.

"I lay lifeless before my ruin
whose cold flesh,
stretched thin
over protruding bones,
glows with the ember
so acquainted
with the stars." - "glows with embers" reads a bit more smoothly here. I'd suggest putting a comma at the end of the first line here. It's a good, weighty start to the poem, and you're hurrying the reader onto the second too fast. If you don't want to make the stanza too loaded with pauses I think you can take the comma off the second line without disrupting anything.

"Beneath his darkened eyes
hang the marks of madness;
The medals of his kind." - good stanza, one of the more illuminating of the poem for me.

I agree with Elphin,you can boot "blind soothsayer" as the weaker of two similar images and add an extra image to keep the tripartite - I want to know more about this poor soul.

"And in irony;
Even this sight cannot awaken what was lost." - "An irony"? You're remarking on a specific thing, so "in irony" sounds like its trying too hard.

And watch for rogue caps. Over all very good.