The Sapling

Spare this sapling tethered to a tagged sign
planted on the corner where we used to chew the lotus
everything is different in this cranny

below the adult line of sight
but above their line of hearing
unsculpted screams of Red Hot Chilli Peppers

that lost their spice when I lost my company
at "The greatest Thai restaurant in town!"
whose new waitress doesn't know my usual.

The leash's tug pulls me on and an agitation
in the angles of cracks that broke their damn backs
turns the slate sky on a creaking hinge

that rusts from your piss but
deaf dog, mostly dead dog,
do you remember like I do?

Whoa, I really liked this. It had a loose flowing rhythm and for once I liked the lack of punctuation, which kind of emphasized it. The voice and style are definitely things I like to read, so maybe I'm being a little biased, but I thought this was great. It flowed so well and sent images through my head with every word. My only complaint is that I'm finding nothing to critique.
Keep writing,
StoryWeaver

Hi there!

This is a very good poem, I enjoyed reading it! You had great emotion and imagery. It flows really well and has a great rhythm to it. I think you should've used some punctuation though. It works well without it, but I think it'll sound better if you add some commas or dashes.

Overall this is a great poem. Keep writing!

Evenin’, Inkwell.

This piece is very different. It’s a solid message, but it’s sealed up so tightly due to a couple of disconnected images and metaphors that it’s rather inaccessible. The inaccessibility is also due to a lack of punctuation in several places to indicate where your trains of thought are going. I’m certain that this was intentional, but may I caution you against idolizing author’s intention over accessibility? It’s a growing trend at the moment around YWS to nix out capitalization and punctuation altogether, but I’m not really a fan. It’s a form of pretention in my book, and it displays a self-love of the author rather than a love for the reader. Thus, I want to caution you against putting yourself so far above the reader that they have to chisel at your work as marble to see a statue that is uncertainly formed.

Continuing on, I’m not getting the lotus reference. Call me an idiot, but it’s such an iconic symbol that’s rarely used that it draws the reader’s attention, and it doesn’t seem to carry that much weight intentionally. Furthermore, this entire phrase—“Spare this…the lotus,” is very clunky and strenuous to the reader. Perhaps it’s the “tethered to a tagged sign” that does it, though I’m a fan of the image. Play with it and see, maybe. The following two lines are, obviously, the weak spot in the marble of this poem’s shell—“everything is different in this cranny below the adult line of sight”. While it may pass unnoticed due to the clunkiness of phrasing around the two lines, it’s rather obvious opposing the confines of the remainder of the piece; however, I’m not sure this is a bad thing, as it’s a relief that there is a pressure point here. And I do like pressure points.

Stanza two and three are really where I got sick with you and your lack of distinctive punctuation. It absolutely killed your flow and made me want to quit reading. In fact, I did quit reading the first time through because of this pileup of phrases. I suggest, as I said before, putting yourself on the reader’s level and figuring out how you can touch them without rubbing your literary prowess in their faces.

The last line of stanza three is what triggered the pressure point in the first stanza. It’s a universal feeling, I think, people get when something is suddenly taken from them, and that’s the key of this poem in terms of time and change. Continuing, the image of the leash/dog comes out of nowhere, though I’m unsure if this is a valid point to make given the lack of great length to this piece. So perhaps just smooth over the transition here—between a thai restaurant and a sidewalk in the slate evening. It’s another disconnect for me.

You have a brilliant nod to childhood in stanza four, line two. I think it may be my favorite stanza of the entire poem. The imagery is slight, but brilliant.

Stanza five, however, is unnecessarily lyrical and disconnected. The aging of the dog is clever and all, but it comes and goes so quickly that it just doesn’t need to be here. Given that, it’s still another hard-to-crack piece of the change puzzle. I just wish it wasn’t so lyrical.

Overall, decent job. Not the best I’ve seen of you, but it certainly shows some maturity in concealing—I’m just afraid that you may have overshot it in a couple of places.

Let me know if you have any questions or need anything, and keep them coming.

-Lumi