Wow. This is the first time I've read this type of poetry! It's outstanding, althought a little confusing--Im used to the characters being fleshed out [although since it's a poem I suppose that isnt necessary]. Good job!
-Evangelina
Break the boundaries, hunt the hunter, and leave me a tip.
----to kill or not to kill
You've outdone yourself, Cal. It took me a while to warm up to it--I'm always hesitant about dialogue in poetry--but this was, on the whole, very well done. A few nitpicks: the second stanza just seems off, somehow; the flow's not very clean. The alliterative part of the third line, in particular, struck me as off.
In the third stanza, I think it would flow a little neater without the "you" at the end of the first line; and though I can only guess at what farsh is, I really love this stanza--it seems to really be where the poem takes on a life of its own, and it's where I decided that maybe dialogue in poetry isn't always such a bad thing. ^~
In the last stanza, in addition to having an unnecessary comma (third line), I think it might up the dramatic effect and help the flow if you restructured the line breaks more like this:
“Now listen,” the dedushka commanded. “Trees are very much alive--” And then he remembered the smell of polyurethane and sawdust.
The first time I read this it felt too detached - I don't know if this was the effect of the dialouge, or just the feeling that there was a far-away observer recording what was happening and nothing more. As I read through again, though, the effect grew on me. So I think with these kinds of poems you walk a careful line near being too detached or distant from the characters. The words here seem very careful, and that works.
“Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.” — Mary Shelly
