The Last Symphony

First it is silent, the dust blows over the land in great threads,
then she comes and spins out the orchestral melody from the sheer force of death itself,
and when it turns on her, flicking it's tail, betrays her,
when it gently pushes forward, reaching, striving to touch her grey lips,
the sounds of a cello sputter out, slow, painful, long;
death howls in pain,
it's flesh pulling away in neat strips, the music threatens, bolder, challenging,
as death stares from a distance with its ghoulish eyes,
dead and wide, staring, boring into reality.
Life clings to the music at it reaches new strains, the notes high and demanding,
fleetingly skipping ahead as they plunge to new heights,
twirling around each other like satin ribbons.
Death hunches forward quietly, waiting to lurch forward, to trap life as it
flows by in pursuit of the notes, blissfully ignorant.
Death waits to pounce and smother it with it's heavy paws,
And then it happens, life can no longer keep up,
as the music nimbly leaps and dances higher and higher,
life heaves, tired and burning out.
it sinks to the grown, gets up, jutting forward, then stumbles to a pause,
but the notes are too distant, far off, dull.
It yearns to hear them, and shudders at the icy glare of death as it observes her.
The music has risen higher, it's twirling in the moonlight,
the dry caked earth where life heaves is long forgotten.
Life painfully, achingly knows she was too slow,
she mewls out a soft cry, her companion is too far of to hear.
The opportunity is ripe, death growls, and pounces upon its prey,
The last high notes of a violin pierce the air.
Death retreats with the night, and the music is a far off thing.

I love it! As I read your poem, I had this mental movie playing in my head and I think that is so great, that you were able to create that with words. Bravo. For the most part, my critiques are very minor.

First of all, your punctuation seems a bit off. Like prose, you punctuate poetry the same way. Commas and periods only go where there is a natural pause and words are only capitalised if they are a proper noun or follow a period, exclamation point, or question mark. I think you do okay on your capitalization, but I felt like you overused some commas. Which disrupted the flow of the poem.

Secondly, you had a few spelling errors. Most of which spell check wouldn't have caught, simply because they were the wrong words, spelled correctly. For example:

it sinks to the grown,

Grown should be ground.

her companion is too far of to hear.

Of should be off.

Finally, watch your redundancies. You never repeated the same words, but you seemed to say the same thing in a different way. For instance you talked of thread, strips, and ribbon several times, and by the third time it just sounded repetitive to me. I'd read through your poem again and see if anything else stands out as being redundant.

Other than that, keep writing! You have serious talent.

Zehra!

I haven't read anything of yours in ages. This is pretty!

First it is silent, the dust blows over the land in great threads,
then she comes and spins out the orchestral melody from the sheer force of death itself,
and when it turns on her, flicking it's tail, betrays her,

I don't like the first, second, then, finally words used to narrate in writing, especially not poetry, and I think it would sound better if you dropped "first" here, dearie, and similarly "then".

Also! I think betrays should be active voice, betraying to be uniform with flicking.

when it gently pushes forward, reaching, striving to touch her grey lips,
the sounds of a cello sputter out, slow, painful, long;
death howls in pain,

(Similarly, I don't like "when" =P)

Also! Sputter. It's interesting that you paralleled it to a cello -- I would've used a word as moaned or groaned or something that evokes the image of slow pain.

it's flesh pulling away in neat strips, the music threatens, bolder, challenging,
as death stares from a distance with its ghoulish eyes,
dead and wide, staring, boring into reality

Nice image here -- "boring into reality" sounds funny, though.

Life clings to the music at it reaches new strains,

Not too sure what's being said here? As it reaches new strings, maybe?

fleetingly skipping ahead as they plunge to new heights,
twirling around each other like satin ribbons.

Pretty image! I like the reverse use of plunge!

Death hunches forward quietly, waiting to lurch forward, to trap life as it
flows by in pursuit of the notes, blissfully ignorant.
Death waits to pounce and smother it with it's heavy paws,

I'd just connect these so that you don't have to repeat death so closely.

And then it happens, life can no longer keep up,
as the music nimbly leaps and dances higher and higher,
life heaves, tired and burning out.

I think you should tell us this in a more interesting manner, because you put such an elegant personification to death, and here, I want to see a battle or something beautiful where life and death collide.

it sinks to the grown, gets up, jutting forward, then stumbles to a pause,

Ground, dear.

but the notes are too distant, far off, dull.
It yearns to hear them, and shudders at the icy glare of death as it observes her.
The music has risen higher, it's twirling in the moonlight,
the dry caked earth where life heaves is long forgotten.

Before your narrative style did not bug me much, but here, with the lack of exciting images, I felt that your potential was wavering.

Life painfully, achingly knows she was too slow,
she mewls out a soft cry, her companion is too far of to hear.

Hm, I don't know if I like this; it's a little boring.

The opportunity is ripe, death growls, and pounces upon its prey,
The last high notes of a violin pierce the air.
Death retreats with the night, and the music is a far off thing.

I'm left wondering here, who won?


At any rate, I enjoyed this. I think you could've made your presentation a little cleaner- - instead of invariably narrating every action, keep up the lively images and leave much to be imagined by us.

I enjoyed this! You should write more poetry.

June