Himalayan Pomegranates

For Kyllaroc: I told you I'm a hopeless case.
For anyone else: I'm in a writing slump. Halp please?

Himalayan Pomegranates

I knew a ghost, who always said
he liked pomegranates better
when he paged through a dog-eared copy
of a guide to the himalayas.
he'd stumble over words
about that place where he would stick out his thumb
until the sun was a fingerprint with peeking sepals
in the summer afternoons.

I could close my eyes and see him
moor together the terai broadleaves with
trails of shrubs, poking out spiny fingers
like newborns to their milk maids.
the seeded veins of the mountains
he could trace (once he learnt to paint,
which was an intent)
that would crook their way up
to the fustian sun sitting at the stigma.

and he died, eating pomegranate seeds
that cracked as the thumbprint lost it's grip.
sinking down the silver side of the hills,
as it splashed a last attempt to thrive
in colour codes across the sky.
he bound himself there like sweet persephone.
he doesn't like to be so lonely, sitting on this throne
so every night, he'd smile with red between his teeth
and offer me a piece.

No, no, no, Kamas - this is not a 'hopeless case'. Or, if it is, you are putting my poetry to shame. I wouldn't say you're in a writing slump at all!

So...I loved this. It's classically Kamas, but longer - so thanks. More for me to enjoy. And guzzle. Sweet, colourful, cute, yeah, that's how you love to play it.

I knew a ghost, who always said
he liked pomegranates better
when he paged through a dog-eared copy
of a guide to the himalayas.
he'd stumble words over
that place where he would stick out his thumb
until the sun was a fingerprint with peeking sepals
in the summer afternoons.

The beginning is intimate, a confession, a casual part of a conversation. Draws us in immediately, but retains a beautiful mystery. The narrator once knew a ghost who liked pomegranates - really? I want to meet this ghost immediately. It's so bizarre seeing this ghost 'page though a dog-eared copy / of a guide to the himalayas' - that's such a human kind of act, so strange for a ghost. Which is why I like it. The ghost seems just as much a chatty companion as an old grandfather, or a well-traveled neighbour.

Still...it makes me think: why ghosts? Why pomegranates? Why the Himalayas? (I wasn't aware there were pomegranates in the Himalayas - I thought they were a summer fruit, the mountains being too cold a place to have them but of course, I may be wrong). I'm going to be looking for something that links the three up together nicely or else...I'll be tad disappointed. Imagery for the sake of imagery is not something I enjoy; but then again, when I find something with amazing meanings behind the symbols, I get extraordinarily excited.

I could close my eyes and see him
moor together the terai broadleaves with
trails of shrubs, poking out spiny fingers
like newborns to their milk maids.
the seeded veins of the cornhusk mounts
you could trace (once you learn to paint)
that would crook their way up
to the fustian sun sitting at the stigma.

Haha, very Kylan-esque. It blurs in on itself, it flows so well, so beautifully well, that I seem to slur over everything, not thinking too deeply about what it's actually saying, what the images actually are; I just revel in the magic of the words. The ghost is...not really a ghost, is he? He's so alive here, here in the midst of green and nature, the earth and everything - hmmm, almost a ghost I would fall in love with.

and he died, eating pomegranate seeds
that cracked as the thumbprint lost it's grip.
sinking down the silver side of the hills,
as it splashed a last attempt to thrive,
in colour codes across the sky.
he bound himself there like sweet persephone.
he doesn't like to be so lonely, sitting on this throne
so every night, he'd smile with red between his teeth
and offer me a piece.

So...I'm assuming that the second stanza was about his life as a traveller when he was, well, alive? And that's probably why it sounds so real, so earthly to me. Strange - he died eating pomegranate seeds - and yet they are his favourite fruit; did he die happy, then? Yeah, the pomegranate had reminded me of Demeter and Persephone and all, long before you spelt that out - is the ghost Hades, then? How he offers her, the narrator a piece? You say 'thumbprint lost its grip' as if he let go of the map, fell off the map of the earth, fell down the silver side of the hills and so...is that how he died, then, eating pomegranate seeds?

Oh, wow. If that's so, then that's really clever, considering you only concretely reveal this towards the ending, saving the best for last. Even if that's not so, I'm sure there was a very specific purpose for writing this and if I have not found it...PM me .

I'm here to critique, as promised! *salutes* And the first thing I notice is that my user title is as apt as ever. XD

Himalayan Pomegranates

This title made me go "O_o ?" which was a good thing because it got me wondering how you were going to make this work.

I knew a ghost, who always said
he liked pomegranates better
when he paged through a dog-eared copy
of a guide to the himalayas.

I love these lines to death. Love them, love them, love them. There's just something so personable and quirky about this ghost that makes me want to learn more about him.

he'd stumble words over

This line read awkwardly. I see what you meant, but "stumble" really isn't the right word, since how do you stumble something?

until the sun was a fingerprint with peeking sepals

I'm not sure whether you want "peaking" as in coming to a point, or "peeking" as in barely visible. The mention of the Himalayas has me thinking "peaking" is more appropriate, especially since sepals typically come to a point.

The second half of this stanza was a bit disappointing. I felt like you were trying too hard to come up with creative imagery, and that you veered away from describing the ghost and his quirks. I also felt that there was no concrete anchor, especially in the line "that place where he would stick out his thumb" as "place" is such a vague word, and I'm left wondering why he sticks out his thumb in just this one place. Is there something specific and special about this place that encourages his behavior, or is it just something he does all the time? Basically, I'm left wondering why you mentioned this behavior, and why you weren't more descriptive of it.

trails of shrubs, poking out spiny fingers
like newborns to their milk maids.

"Spiny fingers" and "newborns" don't go well together, in my mind, since a newborn's fingers are short and chubby.

the seeded veins of the cornhusk mounts
you could trace (once you learn to paint)
that would crook their way up
to the fustian sun sitting at the stigma.

There's a lot about these lines that didn't make much sense to me. At first glance, they read like a sentence fragment. Switching the first two lines would fix this impression.

The use of the words "fustian" and "stigma" is also a bit confusing/doesn't make sense. Do you mean "stigma" in the sense of the part of the flower that the pollen is received through? The other definitions don't make sense. Similarly with "fustian", are you intending to compare the sun to pollen, or are you saying that the sun is somehow like stout cotton cloth? If you'd intended the meaning of "pompous", that use of "fustian" only applies to language.

Another thing that puzzles me is the sudden shift to "you". It comes out of nowhere, and earlier in the stanza, the narrator is talking about how they could visualize things so clearly. I suggest sticking to having the narrator directly describe what they are seeing.

One last thing I'm wondering is how does this stanza lead directly into the last stanza? I'm not seeing a clear connection, mainly because the ghost is very much absent from this second stanza.

that cracked as the thumbprint lost it's grip.
[...]
as it splashed a last attempt to thrive,

I'm not really liking the punctuation at the end of these lines. A comma after "grip" would be more appropriate, while I think the comma after "thrive" is unnecessary and separates it too much from the following line.

he bound himself there like sweet persephone.

Where is "there"? As is, it took me a third reread and linking the pomegranate and Persephone together to figure out where "there" possibly is.

he doesn't like to be so lonely, sitting on this throne
so every night, he'd smile with red between his teeth
and offer me a piece.

This was a great ending.

Overall, you've got a great idea here, and a great character in the ghost to write a poem about. I only wish you'd focused more on the ghost, especially in the second stanza, and that you'd kept the language elegantly, vividly simple and clear rather than peppered with exotic words with obscured meanings. I'm not saying to not use unusual words; just to use them sparingly and in a manner that clarifies the meaning of the poem, rather than confuses it.

I really hope you keep working on this piece. I really, truly enjoyed reading it, even with all the issues I mentioned.

Aw, Kammie, this is wonderful! Truly and incredibly awesome. I'm impressed.
So, I loved the story behind this piece. The title made me wonder, and you followed through with a great poem that told a story! And that's exactly what poetry is supposed to do--tell a story.
Just a few nitpicks, though:
1.) In the first stanza you didn't capitalize Himalayas. It's a specific place, so it needs capitalizing--though I'm sure this is just a typo, it did indeed make me stop reading, because I was like, "Oops! That should be capitalized." XD.
2.) I agree with Kyllorac when he says that "spiny fingers" and "newborns" as a combo doesn't really work. Newborns in general have short, stubby, and soft fingers. I wouldn't think of saying spiny in description with them.
Kyllorac and Navita seemed to have covered the rest, so I'll leave it there. By the way, spectacular ending. It was beautiful.
Simply fantastic, Kamas!
Toodles,
Mizz

Kamas!

Yes, I enjoyed this. I enjoyed it most because it's a complete departure from your usual stuff. It's refreshingly lighter, and kind of quirky. Here, I find a voice with a lot of potential. Now, I can't say I completely grasped the last stanza, but on the whole the feeling I got from this piece was a nice one. A summery, winsome original.

The first stanza was my favorite. I loved the succession of things. And the bit about the pomegranates and the Himalayas was strangely relatable . It was also easy to grasp, while not giving up word choice and imagery. The word "sepal" particularly intrigued me. The image itself was also a bit hard to grasp. But I think I got it in the end.

However, things started breaking down a little as it went on. Little by little things got less clear, and the purpose of the poem hid behind words like "terai" and "moor" and "fustian". All of these are lovely words, and your images are complex, but you, as I do, need to work on simplifying a little bit.

and he died, eating pomegranate seeds
that cracked as the thumbprint lost it's grip.

I see here that the "thumbprint" is a reference to an aforementioned metaphor to the sun. I didn't get that at first. It's really subtle, so you may either want to ditch it or make it more obvious. Though it brings me pleasure now that I've figured it out.

poking out spiny fingers
like newborns to their milk maids.

I don't like the use of the word spiny here.

On re-reading this poem, I'm finding it awfully beautiful. You've got a great way with words. Something inspired for sure. As I said, I really like how you toned things down, how you shortened your lines. It clarified things, aesthetically anyway. Now, all I'd like to see is a bit more...exposition, I guess? Something that you should usually stay away from. I guess what I mean is that I want a bit more directness out of you. I want to know what this poem means, however lovely it may be.

-Kylan

Hi Kamas,

I already know what you're doing right, and you already know what you're doing right, so let's get down to the finer points of what makes this poem less than good. And the main reason (as I mentioned earlier to you) is that your imagery ends after each line - or more specifically, after each thought's closing.

Normally, I would not point this out to many people on here because they have bigger problems than the nuances of where and when to balance description with artificial elements such as lines and punctuation. But this has potential, and so you should know that the purpose of imagery is to transcend man's attempts to impose self-societal controls upon his own being, and doing so requires the image to flow across the borders of lines. One day, take a glass of water and fill it to the brim. Then loosen the tap and watch the liquid droplets converge on each other as they pound into their bretheren below, fusing to form a single entity that breaks the barrier of the cold glass to meet the outside world. That is, the water overflows. Once it escapes the glass, it becomes more than a stale, lifeless pond. It becomes a waterfall, in motion, unbridled of restraints as it reaches to kiss the ground.

Of course, like water, you have limits. All is bound by gravity in the world, and like so, the words on paper are bound by our human understanding. To this extent, your poems of course have to make some kind of sense - a waterfall has a direction, after all, and doesn't spin any way it wants to. Keep that in mind lest you take my advice too far.

Kamas wrote:Himalayan Pomegranates

I knew a ghost, who always said
he liked pomegranates better
when he paged through a dog-eared copy
of a guide to the himalayas.
he'd stumble over words
about that place where he would stick out his thumb
until the sun was a fingerprint with peeking sepals
in the summer afternoons.

Now, this is an example of the poor way in which you confine your descriptions. Let's take a look:

Line 1: Ghost, sharing wisdom, etc
Line 2: Pomegranates, okay
Line 3: Dog-eared
Line 4: No imagery
Line 5: No imagery
Line 6: sticking out thumb
Line 7: sun being fingerprint (note: Good, here you do have some crossover between L6 and L7, but it's not enough)
Line 8: summer

Now, I can see some kind of interconnectedness among your lines 6, 7, and 8, but it's very weak. Thumb ----> Fingerprints of Sun ----> Summer.

The reader is left wondering about how you made the jump from ghosts to the Himalayas to the sun. Each image in your poetry seems to be a gunshot. It's quick, makes its point, and leaves a slight trail. However, it doesn't linger nearly long enough for the reader to register, so your first priority needs to be to connect the images together now that you have them coherently stacked. Is the ghost luminous like the sun? Is his pale skin as fleeting as rays of light playing hide-and-seek through a forest canopy?

Now, I will concede that you do have some good images in the last stanza that do bring back memories of the first (the ghost, pomegranates, the sun, etc) but then there's the gap of the middle stanza that has to be developed, and the lines within each stanza should grasp each other's arms before they launch themselves into the space that is the reader's mind. It's a tough task, but it needs to be done.

I won't do a line by line for this work, nor any more of yours, because you've gone beyond the point where such menial hand-holding is necessary. I expect to see more than these bullet wounds of descriptions in the future.

Hope that helped,
Galerius