The After-Effect of Undercooked Oxygen

015. Calamity -- At the End of the Day, Les Miserables

This is one of five entries for Cal's Contest: Some Kind of Chorus. I'm somewhat happy with this, actually (despite how depressing it is?), but I'd love to improve it.
Critiques would be welcomed.

paper-cut ragdolls, devouring the banquet that they aren’t going to get
and choking on their second servings of undercooked oxygen;
the after effect is a brief reprieve of oblivion--
fresh as peppermint, but does nothing for the hunger.

mothers whose faces are mirrors of the melancholy that they’re drowning in,
reinventing their concept of tomorrow until it includes a future.
to them, the winter’s cool touch is almost welcome; the snowflakes
(unique as they’ve heard) offer a snowy finale that cannot be duplicated

the boys lean upon each other and point to the cerulean sky, alternately crying
and rejoicing that opportunity lies just across the bridge, just through that closed door.
“Someday,” they promise, “Something other than death will be waiting on the other side.”
and someday has never seemed so tangible, never seemed like such a possibility.

two-dimensional shadow children, wasting away under the stars, but
knowing that Lady Luck has blessed them with another day of nonexistence;
“Tag, you’re it,” they echo, and those are the sweetest words ever to be heard
because being “it” allows them to chase that new beginning.

the stick figure of unmentioned pasts who drifts from one hell to another,
awaiting the dawn that is to come, and trying to find that Exit 12b – To Paradise.
but the calamity of the day isn’t yet completed, and he must wait out the storm
until he is able to turn down the avenue with the “Dead End” sign.

yesterday’s miracle is a corpse on the street,
and the only apparent difference
between her life and her death
is that now, she doesn’t look so tired.

Hey Evi! I am here to review your poem. Here are some suggestions.

to them, the winter’s cool touch is almost welcome; the snowflakes are just as

unique as they’ve heard, offering a snowy finale that cannot be duplicated

I think that you should change the ending of the first sentence. Make it:
to them, the winter’s cool touch is almost welcome; the snowflakes are just as unique as they’ve heard
offering a snowy finale that cannot be duplicated

until he is able to turn down the avenue with the “Dead End” sign.

This sentence doesn't have much flow to it. You can change it a little.

I am not exactly sure what this poem is about, I only have a vague idea. If you could make it clearer, that would be great.

O.o Evi, I don't get this...at all...Like Vivi pointed out, there were some mistakes. I really liked the rhythm and flow when I read it out loud. I enjoyed how it was worded and I think that this is a good poem. I honestly think this might just be me being oblivious, but I'm completely lost. What exactly is your poem about? For me, none of the stanzas really connect together except the very last one. I don't mean they don't flow literally. However, I believe that I'm completely missing the metaphors and the symbolism in this. I would make this clearer; if possible, be a little more blunt with us please? Hint us in the right direction with what the rag dolls and the undercooked oxygen symbolizes, maybe? I feel like I'm totally missing the real meaning behind this poem. Normally, I would just say that it's me being oblivious (XD), but Vivi got confused too, I see. So, I love the metaphors and especially the part about shadow children playing tag. But, I don't really understand what teh rag dolls are doing. The title, Undercooked Oxygen, seems like it should play a central role in the poem. But, I'm totally missing it...What exactly is it supposed to mean? I loved the last three stanzas; I felt like the meaning was clear and when read out loud it was ah-mazing. But, the first three, I honestly can't tell if the "people" you are discussing are dead or alive. [/rant] xD
Basically, I liked this poem a lot. However, I would like it a lot more if you could clear up the meaning in the first three stanzas. Other than that, awesome job...as usual... I hope you win Cal's contest, you totally deserve it...
fluteluvr77<3

Thanks Vivi and Flute! ^^ Yes, I guess this turned out a bit more ambiguous and vague than I had originally intended. I'll definately try to clear up the meaning in those first three stanzas, but I'd love some more opinions as to how I could do that? And, if you were forced to guess at what the poem was about, what would you say?

I'm going to put my intended meaning in a Spoiler just in case someone wants to compare the meaning they gleaned to what I had originally aimed for. So, don't click the spoiler until after you've read the poem. xD

[spoiler]The song, At the End of the Day (from the musical Les Mis), goes like this:

At the end of the day you're another day older
and that's all you can say for the life of the poor.
It's a struggle, it's a war, and there's nothing that anyone's giving;
one more day standing about. What is it for?
One day less to be living.

I was trying to describe some of the different people in poor communities. Mothers, children, sons, old men. How their conditions had affected them, and who had hope. I'd love opinions on how to make this clearer (especially in the first three stanzas?)

P.S. Undercooked oxygen refers to them eating air, since they have nothing else to eat. Oxygen is the most they can get their hands on.[/spoiler]

Evi wrote:paper-cut ragdolls, devouring the dinner that they aren’t going to get
and choking on their second servings of undercooked oxygen;

Couple things blatantly wrong with this. I'm assuming they're devouring oxygen as their "dinner", so...why aren't they going to get it? This is called equivocation, I think - using the same word for different meanings. Dinner is used as both a real, unrequited meal and as a connection to breathing, but don't splice those two together because it becomes irritating and over-cute.

Secondly, "second servings" is unnecessary and actually counterproductive, although it coincidentally and somewhat unfortunately meshes with the content of the first line, and only the first line. The children only get to breathe twice? Why twice instead of once, three times, four? I would buy this if that theme of literal suffocation carried through the poem, but it doesn't, at least not visibly, and so sounds ridiculous here. Change it.

the after effect is a brief reprieve of oblivion
but it is only fresh as peppermint, and does nothing for the hunger.

Oblivion isn't a continuous force, not unless you have to supremely stretch your mind to believe it to be so. Therefore, reprieve doesn't make sense.

All of your intra-sentence transitions are really getting in the way of the flow of this poem. "that they aren't", "is a", "it is only", "and does...for". These words are all like chewing on glass and you need to cut many of them down. Use your poetic license and don't feel that every sentence needs to adhere to grammar; in poetry, it's probably better if it doesn't. Replace those ugly center transitions with hypens, colons, commas, semicolons, or just delete those words altogether.

mothers whose faces are mirrors of the terror that they’re drowning in,
reinventing their concept of tomorrow until it includes a future.

Terror is the wrong word to describe what I'm feeling is an endless melancholy, a metaphorical march into the ceaseless dark in silence. Terror implies...chaos, active destruction, which doesn't seem to be present in the poem. Change it to something more passive.


Second line makes sense but almost too much sense. Where is the poetry in that? It's utterly dry and needs to be supplemented by imagery or...something. Anything.

to them, the winter’s cool touch is almost welcome; the snowflakes are just as
unique as they’ve heard, offering a snowy finale that cannot be duplicated

the boys lean upon each other and point to the cerulean sky, alternately crying
and rejoicing that opportunity lies just across the bridge, just through that closed door.
“Someday,” they promise, “Something other than death will be waiting on the other side.”
and someday has never seemed so tangible, never seemed like such a possibility.

two-dimensional shadow children, wasting away under the stars, but
knowing that Lady Luck has blessed them with another day of nonexistence;
“Tag, you’re it,” they echo, and those are the sweetest words ever to be heard
because being “it” is the equivalent of being that much closer to alive.

the stick figure of unmentioned pasts who drifts from one hell to another,
awaiting the dawn that is to come, and trying to find that Exit 12b – To Paradise.
but the calamity of the day isn’t yet completed, and he must wait out the storm
until he is able to turn down the avenue with the “Dead End” sign.

Best part of this poem and I don't mean that lightly. Imagery, metaphor, symbolism does do it for me and this would be perfect if, as I've mentioned before, you didn't hack apart the poem and throw in useless pieces like "like such a", "unmentioned pasts", "isn't yet", etc to ruin it. Please go over those and scourge them, lower them or destroy them.

Also, "is the equivalent of being that much closer to alive"? Really? In such a good series of stanzas, that stood out as the worst and most terrible line of the entire poem. Trite, lack of imagery, rambling...everything possibly bad about poetry is in that line. Just get rid of it and start another line, maybe of the same idea, maybe a continuation of the rest of the stanza. I don't know. Just take out that monster of a line you have immediately.

yesterday’s miracle is a corpse on the street,
and the only apparent difference
between her life and her death
is that now, she doesn’t look so tired.

Decent ending, solid, and the only complaint is that it's not as great as the three stanzas that came before it. But there's really nothing you can do about that.

What I got for the theme was...1800s London maybe, some sweatshop in an immigrant district of town? Homelessness, despair, perhaps material poverty. It was well-presented.

Overall, this is pretty freaking something for a recent 13-year-old. Keep this up...that is all I can say as a general comment. Keep it up.