The fall of encomium

There is little to this stone town,
too small of stores to buy anything useful
and too few to go out of business.
It's a place where brick roads fade into
the sky as I lookdown the street, at the
off color, mostly white houses that only glow
when the sun is setting and dragging the
red roads across the sky.

I'm currently walking to the general store
to sell some rope, iron weights and coal.
They took what could be used, the rope
and the coal. I planned to use these
to burn my house down and then hang myself,
but I've recently concluded that living is worse
than death.

When I got home I placed my money
underneath my pillow and the weights next to me.
I could pay off my dreams and weigh them down.
-painlessly healing unbroken and consistent thought...
I fell asleep.

Silhouettes came in clear cars,
racing down main street, they covered
the rough roads and pulled the color from
the sky, making everything black, smooth
and endlessly bound to the distance.

They consumed the stores and rearranged them into
houses. I wanted to give them my iron weights
but they said no one else could live with them,
that I needed to wear them like the sun had to wear
the night, when I imagined the coal burning a hole
through the floor, becoming nothing in a void.

They gave me my iron weights back with an inscription:
"There is no pain in healing the unbroken
only pain in breaking and confusion in healing."

I woke up in darkness,
and perfectly fine with it.

Wow. Its like one of those terribly sad but undeniably good stories you read and feel guilty at how relatively happy your life is. There were a few flaws sure, like typos and the rythm isn't exactly easy to follow so I guess it's not exactly relying on being easy to read to get its images across. On the other hand that doesnt really matter because it is so cleverly written and SO sad!

Advice, maybe change "the sky as I lookdown the street, at the
off color, mostly white houses that only glow"
To something along the lines of
"the sky as I look down the street at the ---- no comma
almost white houses that only glow"

"I planned to use these
to burn my house down and then hang myself,
but I've recently concluded that living is worse
than death."

"When I got home I placed my money
underneath my pillow and the weights next to me.
I could pay off my dreams and weigh them down." ------ LOVED IT. These parts broke my heart, so beautiful and sad.

"the night, when I imagined the coal burning a hole
through the floor, becoming nothing in a void."

Maybe break this up somehow as it is a bit of a run-on.... and in general work on the punctuation to create
more effective pauses etc.
Just advice.
Otherwise I cannot explain enough how much I loved this poem and how much the story touched me. I feel stupid even giving advice so feel free to ignore it.
Keep writing! Seriously.
T x

You've deserved a review for a long time Ed.

Upfront, you have a deeply intimate and romantic voice to all of your work. It deserves to be read aloud. The inner struggle of the narrating voice and the speaker create a very real sense of character in what you write. You deserve more appreciation in my opinion. Few writers can call on emotion and pull at it, and still not drop into melancholic shades of violet and blue.

My main qualm with your poem is your rhetoric/diction and a problem on economy of words. You weigh down your lines too much with the desire to make complete sentences instead of finishing the image, the sensation, the sensual lust readers unconsciously seek in a good poem.

For instance, be wary of transitions, articles, etc. Watch their placements at all times, they are meant to move from one place to another, not bridge images or build them (unless you're very, very creative; but that's not the purpose of this poem is it?). Also, you avoid cliches, which is great but you also fall into a tendency to make very....exploratory syntax manipulations. As well as with modifiers. Keep this minimal, sparse; hit at the main theme.

Spoiler

silented1 wrote:There is little to this stone town,
too small of stores to buy anything useful
and too few to go out of business.
It's a place where brick roads fade into
the sky as I lookdown the street, at the
off color, mostly white houses that only glow
when the sun is setting and dragging the
red roads across the sky.

I'm currently walking to the general store
to sell some rope, iron weights and coal.
They took what could be used, the rope
and the coal. I planned to use these
to burn my house down and then hang myself,
but I've recently concluded that living is worse
than death.

When I got home I placed my money
underneath my pillow and the weights next to me.
I could pay off my dreams and weigh them down.
-painlessly healing unbroken and consistent thought...
I fell asleep.

Silhouettes came in clear cars,
racing down main street, they covered
the rough roads and pulled the color from
the sky, making everything black, smooth
and endlessly bound to the distance.

They consumed the stores and rearranged them into
houses. I wanted to give them my iron weights
but they said no one else could live with them,
that I needed to wear them like the sun had to wear
the night, when I imagined the coal burning a hole
through the floor, becoming nothing in a void.

They gave me my iron weights back with an inscription:
"There is no pain in healing the unbroken
only pain in breaking and confusion in healing."

I woke up in darkness,
and perfectly fine with it.

You'll see above me I have your original poem in a spoiler. Below is my effort to show the points I made above so you can consider them in the future on whether you find them useful, clearer, more concise, etc.

They took what could be used, the rope
the coal. I planned to burn my house down,
to hang myself; but living is worse
than death

in this little stone town,
too small of stores to be useful,
too few to go out of business.
It's a place where brick roads fade into
the sky. I lookdown the street-- at
the off color, mostly white
houses that only glow when
the sun is setting, and dragging
the red roads across the sky.

I walk to the general store
to sell some rope,
iron weights and coal.

The house. I place money
underneath pillows, the weights next to me.
I could pay off my dreams, maybe
weigh them down.
I fell asleep.

Silhouettes came in the clear
cars, racing down main street, they
covered the rough roads and pulled
the color from the sky, making all black,
smooth to the distance.

They ate the stores and mix-matched them
into houses. I wanted to give up my iron weights
but no, no one else could live with them,
I would wear them like the sun had to wear
the night. The coal burned a hole
through the floor; I would fall through
to a void.

I woke up in darkness,
home.

Again, consider that my opinion on an alternative to your attempt. I tried to restrict what I added and took out, aiming to keep your perspective and follow the rules I set at the beginning of my post. Food for thought Ed, thanks for posting.

I want to start off with saying that I have liked the melancholy tone that is kept throughout the poem. I also got the feeling of what the character is going though or feeling. The problem for me is that the message of the poem was not completely clear to me the first time I read it. After re-reading it I understood it, but I retained the feeling that the poem rather than presenting the resolution (especially the last 3 stanzas) in the powerful and impacting manner became somewhat convoluted with imagery that instead of bringing impact to the poem made it vague and unnecessarily confusing. For example you talk about how, in the dream, all color was taken from the sky and everything was completely dark and yet not only did the character could perceive the buildings but for some reason he wanted to make them more beautiful (since it was his dream I assume that it is what he subconsciously desired). The problem for me arises from the fact that when I read the part preceding this moment and the part where there is total darkness I think that the character shows his hate for the town and wants it to disappear, he is tired of it, he wants to kill himself. All of a sudden he wants it to be more beautiful; for me that change is too sudden. It would have been very helpful to create small hints that while he does hate the town and his life, whatever it may be, there is still some hesitation, just saddle thought or gesture that hints at that. Also, the lines "when I imagined the coal burning a hole through the floor, becoming nothing in a void." I found confusing and still do not understand their purpose and meaning after rereading it a couple of times. In this poem I did not like the use of racing cars as an imagery because it distracts from the cold, dying atmosphere of the town. In my mind they seem inappropriate especially since from the beginning I imagined a town at the time at which cars weren't even created. There were also some inconsistencies in the poem. A small one is that in small towns the things usually are sold to the flee market and not to the general store. Also, it seems odd to have brick roads, if it is a color imagery then its ok as long as the location is somewhere where there is orange/yellow sand. Just on the off note I never seen many white houses together, especially in small towns. In my mind it would be more fitting if they were crude, dying and unpainted. I found it unusual that he would sell a rope since he is planning to hang himself; I realize that he probably has more rope but it diminished the imagery for me a little. I was confused about Silhouettes giving back the weights because in the poem it said that they never accepted them. To me the ending seemed to be a little too weak. Instead of being memorable or thought provoking or beautiful, either lyrically or metaphorically, it was very neutral and something that was very much foreseeable. There were no big grammatical mistakes that I noticed but I would like to point out just one - "too small of stores " . This phrase is confusing and grammatically incorrect. For example it is the same as saying "I have too small of candies". The big thing you have to work on is arranging the lines and knowing when to finish one and start the other. In essence you do not want to break up the ongoing thought, or rather the reader should not be forced to read the second line in order to understand the preceding. Sorry it's tough for me to explain. Here is an example:
"It's a place where brick roads fade into
the sky as I lookdown the street, at the
off color, mostly white houses that only glow"
It would be more appropriate to make the lines as follows:
"It's a place where brick roads fade into the sky
as I lookdown the street, at the off color,
mostly white houses that only glow"
Hopefully this example helped.
It is a good effort. Keep up the work and strive to improve.

Hi, Ed! Sorry that I didn't review this until now

There is little to this stone town,
too small of stores to buy anything useful
and too few to go out of business.
It's a place where brick roads fade into
the sky as I lookdown the street, at the
off color, mostly white houses that only glow
when the sun is setting and dragging the
red roads across the sky.

The ending of this stanza is much stronger than the beginning and the middle which are almost dull. The last two lines are the strongest. I like them a lot. I believe the rest would be more effective with fewer words. Also, be aware of the repetition - you use both "the sky" and "roads" twice.

I'm currently walking to the general store
to sell some rope, iron weights and coal.
They took what could be used, the rope
and the coal. I planned to use these
to burn my house down and then hang myself,
but I've recently concluded that living is worse
than death.

"Currently" and "recently" don't do anything for me except slow the stanza down. They are decent words to use in prose, but I don't think they can do much in poetry. When I imagine reading this without them, it's instantly much smoother and in the moment. Again "rope" and "coal" are repeated, I don't know if that's an intentional effort to create a more effective result, but I'm not warming up to it much.

underneath my pillow and the weights next to me.
I could pay off my dreams and weigh them down.

Again, I'm not sure how to view the weight-weigh thing? You have sort of a pattern here where you repeat certain words, so I'm at least glad it's consistent. I just don't understand the function...

Silhouettes came in clear cars,
racing down main street, they covered
the rough roads and pulled the color from
the sky, making everything black, smooth
and endlessly bound to the distance.

I like this especially "silhouettes came in clear cars". I think this is a neat stanza, even though (or maybe because) it's all one sentence.

They consumed the stores and rearranged them into
houses. I wanted to give them my iron weights
but they said no one else could live with them,
that I needed to wear them like the sun had to wear
the night, when I imagined the coal burning a hole
through the floor, becoming nothing in a void.

This sounds a bit too jammy. There are so many words! And few of them actually carry the story on their shoulders -- that is to say, few of them are truly necessary. See if you could cut them down a little?

They gave me my iron weights back with an inscription:
"There is no pain in healing the unbroken
only pain in breaking and confusion in healing."

Again those "iron weights" :/ Apart from that, I like this bit, the lines inside the quotation marks are nice.

I woke up in darkness,
and perfectly fine with it.

Perfectly fine with what? Waking up in the darkness? This would be quite a strong ending if it weren't for the confusion.

So, overall, I'd say you use some nice imagery, but too many words. You have some great thoughts and ideas there, but they get a bit overshadowed by the extraneous descriptions, if you know at all what I mean. Maybe sometimes you could try writing a poem with lots of meaning but very few words - that might get interesting!


Demeter
x