The Examination of Our Petals

I might not find
the words you long to drink.
I might dash in and out
but i'll be there in the night -
a nursery-rhyme star - for you,
listening to the wishes
of your heart, mutilate
spurt up out of your mouth.

Heart pounding sensations
not likely to be listed
in a dictionary
fill you up, spilling over
the edge of this real dimension.
"Leave me alone" twists from your lips,
defying the wanting
to be touched.

You're so far away.
Cold cocoon wrapped
in loneliness.
I hacked you open
to see the cold watery swamp
icing you
dead.

Blueberry moon-like,
you are deceptive.
You show no cuts
to disinfect.
But I know
you are sometimes empty.

I want to pounce
save you - like you
talk saved me out of
wordless ditches.

Not long ago.

It looked like a mirror
but it was a window.
It was a nibble
of a bran muffin.
It was a bagel with cream cheese.
It was pulling away the covers,
putting our feet on the floor
and stamping out death.
Not letting each other
shut the window and seep slowly
back into the mirror.
It was promising you a poem
as opposed to death.

It was
friendship.

elkpetal --

I enjoyed this very much. I was skeptical at first, mainly because I think you started out a little shaky, but by mid-poem, I was into the groove of things. Nicely put together, for the most part.

I think the first and last stanza don't do the poem justice. The first stanza tries too hard and isn't original enough. It doesn't have enough spitshine -- your verbs are boring. Mutilate, spurt, find, make, dash listen. These don't do much for me. This, out of that stanza, I do like:

"but i'll be there in the night -
a nursery-rhyme star"

Your last stanza is too preachy and it detracts from the delightful subtleness of the rest of this piece. I think you could go without it entirely.

Stanzas two, three, and four are my favorites. I love the title and I love the meaning. This:

"It was a nibble
of a bran muffin.
It was a bagel with cream cheese."

Was iffy at first for me, until I put it into perspective with the rest of the piece. It adds an extra, needed dimension.

Good job with this,

-Kylan

Hi. Welcome to YWS!

I really like this. My favourite lines are;
"I hacked you open
to see the cold watery swamp
icing you
dead."

and

"Blueberry moon-like,
you are deceptive.
You show no cuts
to disinfect."

You have some beautiful fresh imagery here, but I find that this gets a tad sentimental in parts. I'd cut your more direct lines such as;
"but I'll be there in the night -"

and

"I want to pounce
save you - like you
talk saved me out of
wordless ditches.

Not long ago."

and

"It was promising you a poem
as opposed to death.

It was
friendship."
I think that by replacing them with imagery or omitting them altogether, your poem would become more focused and lose a little of the sentimentality.

I love the contrast between the food imagery and the imagery of cuts and swamps and hacking things open.It's very effective.

Hope this helps.

Jas

thank you guys so much for the feedback.

i understand what you're saying about the first stanza, i find that when starting a poem i try too hard. it's only by the second or third stanza that the poem starts to pour out of me without much effort. i'll try poetry exercises as a warm up next time and hopefully that will help.

initially this was written for a friend, who doesn't quite 'get' poetry, so i did over-sentimentalise it and start preaching for fear the poem would otherwise mean nothing to her :/ but i am so pleased to know that within the poem there were some good bits. i'll definitely work on this, cut the first and last but incorporate some of the food imagery.

again, thank you for your help