The Amusement

take a breath
outside

deeply hug the air
with arms flying
until you are lying back
in the streaming grass

take a moment
smile

watch the earth chatter
with murmuring happiness
until you cannot breath
in the rhapsodic air

take a friend
grapevine

idle in the shade
with ribboning secrets
until you are close
in the candied cover

take this act
fathom it

Hey Hibiscus!
Well, the style was definitely understated, with zero uses of capitalization and small blocks of prose composed of tiny lines. I liked it. It was simple, elegant, and sweet. Overall, it's a nice display of amusement. I especially liked the line:

until you are close
in the candied cover

I don't really know why, but I think the usage of the word 'candied' tickled my fancy for some reason. It's not something that I would naturally assume would describe a grapevine (which is what I assume you were referring too, as it pertains to being a cover). Great job!

Hey Hibiscus -

Me again! And I am intrigued at the way your writing style is so flexible, so eagerly changed. While 'Senses' had all your i's dotted and t's crossed when it came down to punctuation, I see this as a wonderful divergence. I have rarely read poems that abandon all kind of punctuation, and the ones that do it well are generally great reads. They have this kind of incredible freedom to express the extremes of emotion - some might say, indeed, that they are so free so as to be incomprehensible, but that's really a matter of taste. And why do I think the above works? Because you don't run away too wildly with that extreme - instead, you provide us with a much milder, much more accessible feeling; that of amusement. On that note, here might be a good time to mention that I do not like summarising the entirety of the poem in the title - it sort of takes away from the mystery that could otherwise help drive the poem intellectually. So. Think of something more elusive, less common, but tangible enough.

It's bizarre (and yes, I will compare), but while 'Senses' was so remarkably grounded in reality, down-to-earth, so to speak, this is so free-flowing, ethereal, in the clouds. Even so, I think that where this falls down in its lack of use of innovative language and imagery - it's all a bit run-of-the-mill, really; not terribly original. Example:

watch the earth chatter
with murmuring happiness
until you cannot breath
in the rhapsodic air

('Breath should be 'breathe'.) This seemed too contrived, not inventive enough for the type of feeling it wants to incite - chattering earth, murmuring happiness, rhapsodic air - meh. A load of synonymous vocabulary that has, all in all, very little differentiating it from the title.

idle in the shade
with ribboning secrets
until you are close
in the candied cover

Same here. For the type of extraordinary image/feeling I can see you are trying to evoke, this just isn't right. It's not that it's wrong, either, just that the lines are all a tad off, like there's something ever-so-slightly not right about them. Poetry can be rather unforgiving of bad lines, especially short poetry as this, so I'd think about rehashing it so that intent is clearer, so that it has the effect you want.

Anyway, I hope that was helpful for you. Any questions, discussions etc - PM!


Navita