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renathon
Junior Member

since 2002-06-09

Posts 23

0 posted 2003-10-19 01:43 AM

"The Snowman Revisited"

The Earth had a glower of metal,
it had always shone this way,
a hapless plain of crumbling crust.
Somewhere a man adjured nourishment,
but received a mouthful of rust.
Hopeful,
he dragged his feet another day.
The wanderer had been made in the likeness
of the tundra outstretched,
the only ground his boots had touched.
His memories waxed
and he recalled a sea voyage,
his great embarkment
aboard a brilliantly colored galley,
long since rendered inoperable
and buried in ice
a million steps behind.
Presently, his faculties faded
and he knew not of paint or wood
or sails that brought hope,
but of the sun forever on edge,
tugging at him with an unseen rope.
In his travels through ice and wind
the only glimmer was that of the ice around him,
yet behind a cloud of snow shimmered something new.
As he walked on his path, he felt it
his boot waterlogged and leaden.
He marvelled at the pond,
a blue color he had never seen,
the surface unmolested
by a single flake of snow or patch of wind.
It rippled as he sloshed through it,
affectionate in its warmth
and relaxing in its appearance.
He glanced beyond the surface and could see
vast flora, small decapods
and multi-colored fish.
The lonely roamer's spirits lifted,
he was so filled with desire
to have a friend
that he cast his hands into the water
but came out empty handed.
He thrashed his arms impatiently, angrily,
stamped his feet and punched the perfect pond.
He looked again, his eyes filled with tears,
he saw from end to end what he'd done.
The water was tainted, the silt from the floor
churned and clouding the once pristine surface.
He waited a moment and saw wonderful coral towers,
toppled over, the homes of a myriad sea creatures
turning white and gray like his face
and crumbling into nothing.
The holocaust of an entire habitat.
At his hands,
the end of the only color
in all of the forbidden land.
He became a statue of ice,
muted from the landscape
and he saw among other things,
what he could never do.
He saw the erection of homes and infant fish.
The resurgance of color in this self contained kingdom,
everything rectified, renewed and no trace of what he'd done.
The lonely traveler thawed
and again saw something in the sun.
He quietly took what he had witnessed
and left the pond as he had left it,
silent in the snow.

-Renathon 7/21/03

River
Senior Member

since 2003-09-16

Posts 627
my own little world

1 posted 2003-10-19 04:30 PM

i have no critisism in this, but i must say it is an improvement from the last one wich was posted...a year ago? (it was that silly Serenity Blaze that dug it up, lol) despite it's length, i read it to the end and thought to myself that it is an interesting, decent poem/story. other critics can scold me for not bashing anything, but i don't see anything unlikeable about it, so there. lol.

- River

Love hurts as bad as it feels good.

merc
Junior Member

since 2003-10-15

Posts 35

2 posted 2003-10-19 08:25 PM

I liked this poem, but not specifically for its poetic merits.

You could simply join all your lines together and make a short, albeit cryptic, little story.  I don't know what that means really, I can't see why a poem can't be read straight like a story.

I'm not sure what poetry, wether it be form or what have you, does for this piece.  It would be just as effective if you did in fact adjoin these lines into a linear story.

I'm glad you didn't try to rhyme, I think it would have ruined it completely.

I did have one problem though, and it is with this line :

and he knew not of paint or wood

There is no reason for this tense, in fact there usually isn't a reason for this tense ever.  It is just a pet peeve of mine, and seeing as how you are not trying to fit this poem into any type of rigid structure I don't see how this furthers the effect or theme of the poem in any fashing.

The last thing I will say is on the presentation of this piece.  I would encourage you to play with it, here is an amazing post with ideas on how you can play with the form of your poem to enhance or rather to complete it's effect.

The act of writing poetry, and this is just my opinion, seems to me to be the act of setting a liquid or fluid thought into a rigid unchanging form.  Every aspect of how this is done should bely the effect you want to get across to your ready.  A very serious heartfelt poem is not furthered by rhyme or even by perfectly executed meter in most cases.  I shouldn't say that, there are never absolutes, but you get my point.

I don't think I really conveyed what I was thinking properly, but for fear of jumbling it further I'm going to stop now.

I enjoyed this, and am interested to see how you shape your style in future pieces.

renathon
Junior Member

since 2002-06-09

Posts 23

3 posted 2003-10-19 10:06 PM

The line "and he knew not of paint or wood" is important to my poem. In the previous lines I describe the character as embarking on a voyage on a galley and as you know galleys are made of wood and are colored with paint. I state that he knows not of these things, which means he knows not of that voyage he took. In other words, he's forgotten about an event "that brought hope". It's obvious I'm talking about a voyage he's taken since I then mention the "sails" that were the source of hope and as you know sails are components of a boat or galley.

merc
Junior Member

since 2003-10-15

Posts 35

4 posted 2003-10-20 02:32 AM

I'm not suggesting you scrap the line.  I said the tense was wrong.

He knew not of paint and wood.

or

He didn't know of paint and wood.

When you correct it you see the line doesn't make sense.  It's incomplete, that doesn't mean it can't be easily fixed at all.

He has forgotten paint and wood

I don't know, I'm not here to rewrite the lines, and I'm definately not suggesting that you scrap the line.  I just do not like the tense ("he knew not") and I don't find it necessary.

gringakiwi
Member

since 2003-08-05

Posts 189

5 posted 2003-10-20 10:33 AM

um, someone please correct me if I am wrong, but aren't they the same tense?
"he knew not of paint and wood"
and "he didn't know of paint or wood".
??

renathon
Junior Member

since 2002-06-09

Posts 23

6 posted 2003-10-20 05:02 PM

Yes, I'm not sure what he or she's referring to really. It's all muddled.

merc
Junior Member

since 2003-10-15

Posts 35

7 posted 2003-10-20 07:05 PM

I'm sorry I didn't phrase my example properly.

"He knew not of paint and wood."

The reason why I had problems restructuring this is because it is incomplete, it sounds like a proper sentence but it is missing a subject.

We don't know what it is about paint and wood that "he" doesn't know.  I think the author said "he" didn't know them at all.  This is fine, I just think there is a better way to say it.

I'm over my head, I know what I'm trying to say but I don't know the proper terms and examples to phrase it understandably.  Let me research it a bit more and I'll come back and post it properly.

Not A Poet
Member Elite

since 1999-11-03

Posts 3885
Oklahoma, USA

8 posted 2003-10-20 10:22 PM

He is the subject and knew is the verb. What is confusing you is the inverted word order. What the author means is, He did not know of paint and wood. It might also be stated as, He knew nothing of paint and wood, or even He knew naught of paint and wood. How often in regular speaking or even writing would one say I knew not when he meant I did not know? That is the confusing part. That apparently was the, or at least an, acceptable form a few hundred years ago but it is out of fashion today. If you are going to write a modern poem, using modern language, then such constructs are nearly always distracting and undesirable. If you want to use such then the whole poem usually has to be in a similar language. That is an extremely difficult thing to do.

[This message has been edited by Not A Poet (10-20-2003 10:25 PM).]

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