Untitled (Verboten)

If the pen could capture the sound of your voice,
would it draw the sky for me? Moon and Sun?
The sky as seen from a Babel unfinished,
gray light across naked stone?
Or the sky reflected in water, deviative,
clouds rent by concentric echoes?

Would it draw the sky as she sees it?

Would it draw the face of an angry god,
finger stretched forth, accusatory,
at the child who is barely a woman, and who
discovered love in an apple’s flesh?

The guilt of mothers lays heavy as sin
across the shoulders of daughters.

I've always liked how your poetry feels (or rather reads) so abstract but if I go over a few more times, really take it in, and I can find a deeper meaning behind it. I love how lucid (and is that even the right word? It could very well not be) it is written.

Would it draw the face of an angry god,
finger stretched forth, accusatory,
at the child who is barely a woman, and who
discovered love in an apple’s flesh?

I loved this stanza the most, and the bolded part, even more so. I'm still working hard at understanding "An apple's flesh" but the imagery I get from it makes up for my own lack of understanding.

…The guilt of mothers lays heavy as sin
across the shoulders of daughters.

I adored the ellipses (isn't that what they are?) at the beginning here, it created a sort of drama for me. But I'm arguing with myself in the grammar of the phrase, though you are better at grammar than I, something about it reads very strangely, and it puts me off. I like the general...idea that I think you are trying to come up with through it, but it reads strangely to me, and perhaps should be reworded? But it is only my opinion.

bon travaille (which I am using as a verb, though it should be a noun, pardon that.)

The first line drew me in right away. It sets down the basic idea for the rest of the poem and laid down something concrete, this pen drawing bit. Okay, I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say, but if you expressed the other ideas in this poem without the questions about this figurative drawing of a voice, it would be much less likable and whimsical.

EDIT: Sorry that this randomly posted. I have no idea why the first bit ended up here, but it's continued a couple posts later. Bizarre.

As you are wont, lovely Lady of Verse, you craft poetry here that puts anything I could ever accomplish to shame. The rhythm is nice, the imagery stark and beautiful, and most importantly, there's depth to the poem. It's meaning is not obvious at a first read, but one can't even skim it without sensing its poignancy. In short, I think Claudette's amendation from "how your poetry feels" to how it "reads" was unnecessary: Very few poets I know can make poetry that "feels" as powerfully as you can.

The beginning seems ever so slightly clunky, though, sort of like a shaky start to a nigh perfect Olympic ice skater.

"If the pen could capture the sound of your voice,
would it draw the sky for me? Moon and Sun?"

Lovely lines, of course. I think, though, they would read smoother this way:

"If my pen captured the sound of your voice,
would it draw the sky for me; moon and sun?"

The first question mark makes me pause uncomfortably. It's a rare moment of awkwardness, and I'd suggest weakening the pause. Maybe even replace it with a comma and write, "both moon and sun?" But I don't think I like the capitalization of both of them (neither if you deign to mold it with the prior sentence, of course). Unless you're putting some significance there, I don't think it really fits. "If the pen" sounds less organic than "if my pen," and I doubt the speaker is talking about someone else's pen. If so, even "your pen" or something would be better, though I don't think that's the meaning you're after. "Could" is just unnecessary. By "if" we already know it's not a certain thing, and the tense of "captured" lets us know what you'd like the pen to do. Say the most with the fewest words necessary, as they say, though I know I don't really follow that rule, lol.

Otherwise, 'tis lovely, 'tis perfect, 'tis typical of Emeraldi. ^_^

The first line drew me in right away. It sets down the basic idea for the rest of the poem and laid down something concrete, this pen drawing bit. Okay, I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say, but if you expressed the other ideas in this poem without the questions about this figurative drawing of a voice, it would be much less likable and whimsical.

If the pen could capture the sound of your voice,
would it draw the sky for me? Moon and Sun?
The sky as seen from a Babel unfinished,
gray light across naked stone?
Or the sky reflected in water, deviative,
clouds rent by concentric echoes?

I think this stanza has too many questions. It's just that it's a large chunk, perhaps. I really like the last question; perhaps put it by itself to create a natural pause and emphasizing the phrase. It doesn't need to be emphasized, but I felt that it was sort of overshadowed as an immediate afterthought to the Babel part.

Would it draw the face of an angry god,
finger stretched forth, accusatory,
at the child who is barely a woman, and who
discovered love in an apple's flesh?

Excellent! It made me think of an image one might see in a fresco in some Renaissance Italian cathedral.

...The guilt of mothers lays heavy as sin
across the shoulders of daughters.

Clau liked the ellipses, but I'm not so sure. Very rarely are they acceptable in poetry (usually because people use them at the end of lines *retches*), but I think you may have gotten away with it. I wouldn't be sad if they left, but they don't make me particularly sad being there either.

Enjoyable work and beautiful images!
Colleen

I too had to read this several times to truly take it all in. (But I seem to do that with every poem, so that really doesn't mean anything. )

If the pen could capture the sound of your voice,
would it draw the sky for me? Moon and Sun?

I really like this beginning here. The imagery is different. A pen can't draw a voice, but it can draw what the voice says.

The sky as seen from a Babel unfinished

Cool reference. Although it is a tad meaningless to anyone who doesn't know what Babel is. (I'm guessing you're simply alluding to it for the image of the gray stone, and I catch a hint of you perhaps alluding to evil or what is perceived as evil as Babel was thought way back when).


Would it draw the face of an angry god,
finger stretched forth, accusatory,

I don't necessarily like the use of the word "accusatory" here as it seems to throw off the flow or something. Perhaps a synonym? Though I'm not sure what would work instead.

at the child who is barely a woman, and who
discovered love in an apple’s flesh?

Okay, "apple's flesh" is... both good and bad. I like it when you just read it for what it is, but once you try to delve deeper, it gets uncomfortable. Maybe that's just me, maybe I'm just being squeamish, but I get a rather risque image from it... and I think most people might guess what that image is.

…The guilt of mothers lays heavy as sin
across the shoulders of daughters.

I wasn't as big a fan of the ellipses (is that pluaral? idk). It felt like a false pause.

Well, I'm not very good at critting poetry, so take this all with lots and lots of NaCl. It felt like you spent a lot of time on this one, Em, and it shows. But what do I know? Maybe you wrote it during class!

Thanks for all the comments, guys! I've decided to take out the ellipses... still vacillating over other changes. Keep 'em coming!

Hi, Fand -


Thank God you didn't have a lesbian here. That might have made you violent.

Seriously, this wanders from wonderful fun to boring in a few words, repeatedly.

"If the pen could capture the sound of your voice,
would it draw the sky for me?"

Whoosh - it's the sound of energy escaping - but to where? This leading inquiry is half-baked, packed with the promise of a good first-line and farted on by an illogical conclusion. When does drawing voices entail a sky? This isn't even skew-adjoint.

Keep the close, but lead into it with something with active hormones, like, "I swear to God, next time I get drunk I'm going to park that fucker ..."

Good to see you back.


Best,
Brad