Too early for the rainbow, too early for the dove These are the final days, this is the darkness, this is the flood
L cohen

"I shall never bond again, as I have bonded with you..."

Whether on the shoal or on the shore,
I'll seek the lighthouse evermore.

I'm sorry but I'm lapping up your words like a kitten given its first bowl of fresh milk!! I don't know what to say but I must pick up my jaw from the floor definately how rude of me!!

If at first you don't succeed destroy all the evidence that you tried.

ok ok ok...this one first, you fecund man - keeping me overworked. Tch. No rest for the wicked they say (that's why you're up all night obviously).

Near-enough-to-a-quote: 'I don't know why you think this one is so good.'

Hm. Here's some reasons for you -

In terms of prosody, the poem is a wealth. I could just read and reread and continually find elements to examine. It's a very fascinating piece C.

It also has a nice sense of melancholic drama, which you know how I love. Now when I say drama I don't mean the hysterical women railing against the brutishness of men form of drama etc...heh. I mean, this has a sense of theatre. You have a stage with a setting for her, then the lights dim, the scene changes and it is his turn on the stage. Then it turns again, and she is back. Your format - your division between her and him - creates this, as well as the content of the piece.

You twist concepts. For example:
'in pockets,
she carries her destination -
a crystal, some change,
and the cat who'd whisper acceptance'

Now, how can a destination be something carried? This perverts traditional interpretations. Which makes for interesting, and more than interesting - success.

SBS (won't make the whole LBL mistake again sniff..)


she finds herself climbing;
steps toward the night
blistered in the skin of a dream
as feet crumble memories
beneath a wrinkle of denials.

in pockets,
she carries her destination -
a crystal, some change,
and the cat who'd whisper acceptance
when she couldn't bear to witness
pretense
from the local daydwellers.

Ok, firstly. I like the punctuation pattern you have here. Isn't it just so much better omitting all those nasty capitals? (I tell you it's going to be hard for me not to mutilate all my old poetry and remove the all the capitals. Keep me away from them!)

Right, my first gripe with the poem, that begins here. You have so many '_____ of ____' lines.

By using so many (and I'll point then out as I go along cause I'm nasty-mean) you have a predictable rhetorical device, which loses it's emphasis by the end. The actual device, rather than the image, becomes a cliche.

So - 'skin of a dream' number one. 'wrinkle of denials' number two.

Personally, I don't care for wrinkle of desires anyway. Blech. So yeah, I think you need to work on the first verse in terms of that. The second verse? Dammit man, it's awesome. Local daydwellers? Can I have that? Why'd you put 'pretense' on one line? I like it.


stars:
she asks if space is wide enough
to blanket her fears
within the ache of esteem,
or quick enough
to chase away the visions
of imperfection.


Firstly - 'ache of esteem' number 3. 'visions of imperfection' number 4.

'stars:
she asks...' etc. Reminds me of a mike oldfield song - you might recall it. It's basically just music and then a female voice says 'stars' every now and then - and it's almost possible to see the colon at the end of the word, pointing to the next flow into the music. I like that effect in here. Esteem is something that creates a space within us - stars are the fixtures within a universal space. I like how you have combined the inner and outer spaces here. This projection of space links to the notions of space you've created in terms of theatre, and in the way you have 'spaced' the poem on the page. The use of the word 'quick' inserts an element of time...which also aids idea of space and theatre...it is nicely built, this poem.

they answer,
but her ears are tuned
to a different frequency:
one set
to the melancholy of his tune -

'melancholy of his tune' number 5.

maybe just his melancholy? Maybe just his tune. Maybe just his melancholy tune. Depends how important the word 'tune' is to you. How important is the musical thread to you? It's there...not overt, but there.


        he remembers
        when sad songs
        weren't his bag,
        when miserable
        was a moment
        and not a state of
        existing in a past
        he can never change…
        not even in his dreams.
        not really.
        not now.
        not enough
        to wake with a smile
        instead of an ache
        that cries out
        for an embrace
        he's now forgotten.

Sniff. This damn near made me cry. How do you do that? That whole ache thing? It has no tint of pity...just...weighted sadness. There is a discernable shift in voice, between him and her, which of course compounds the sense of two players on a stage. I wouldn't change anything in this part.


she is a shell,
shattered on the shelf,
wondering -

   do I know you,
         have we met before,
     and,
       why can't you remember…

the moon interrupts her reverie,
proclaiming:

     'time is a wound
     over the skin of your flesh
     that claw marks won't hide.'

'skin of your flesh' number 6.

Ok, hate the moon image - oh so cliched. It runs the danger of making the superb image of the stars cliched also. I really really really (read the ly emphasis) recommend dumping the whole moon thing hon. Why does something in particular speak to her? Why not just have that section as either an internal thought, perhaps tailing on from the part where she wonders on the shelf...

tears, she finds, are a luxury
for those who walk the earth

Having said that, this last part is a delightful ambiguity - is it the moon or the girl who finds tears a luxury? But I still stubbornly think that the moon just has to go. The poem can survive the lack of ambiguity - the last-line-haunt (which you do so well) carries the ending sufficiently.

Well.
I think I's said me bit...hope it helps...

[This message has been edited by Severn (10-03-2002 06:39 AM).]