Young Writers Society

Yes, three parts. You can review one, you can review them all, but I would like some help.

I.
Metal lips on my skin,
Lipstick red pouring out,
Oh why can’t you save me,
Why can’t I play with fire
And shiny halo ridges?
I’ll bleed out Hell,
I’ll bleed out black,
Leave a space for God
To burrow in my flesh.
He’ll fill me with light,
And incandescent,
Luminescent,
He’ll unravel the kite-thread
Of the threnody
Tied tight around my heart.
He’ll at last, at last,
Let me drift on up.


II.
I sat under a gunmetal sky,
Snow soaking into my skin.
Blackbirds skipped along claw-branches,
Shadowy thieves stealing away.
One faltered, looked at me
With snow-pearls melting in inky
Feathers, fading to grey to black.
He looked at me and I looked back,
Expecting the devil to tiptoe over
And sit on my knee, kiss my face,
Like a lazy dog, to weigh me down.
But as its footprints formed crosses,
This pitch-dipped dove spread its wings
And I’d mistaken my God as Satan
(Dear God, please forgive me,
You are the rainbow in the night
Of a sinner’s blackbird feather).

III.
He came to me in the rain,
Swept through the window
To leave a puddle on my floor.
I saw my face in his tears:
Pale, scarred, scared,
All hollows and wasted spaces.
I drank his rain in a cup of tea,
Honey washing me clean.
Shiny and pink,
His Rain-Man’s hands in mine,
We danced in the grass
And his smell played
Up my nostrils to my brain.
I knew him once upon a time.
He kissed the pink dashes,
Left my skin baby-new,
And we dissolved into paint –
Bits of color and glass.
And I watched him save me
From every demon I sketched
Across my skin in rose oil.
He kissed my sharp edges,
Looked through my windows;
I knew I loved him then
When he traced the maps on my hands.

Before I start this review, I must proclaim my love for this poem. It reminds me, in some way, of the psalms King David wrote. Full of his mistakes and his love for God, his thankfulness. If you see something in read, it's either a word or phrase that's in the poem or that I think should be in it.

Metal lips on my skin,
Lipstick red pouring out,
Oh why can’t you save me,
Why can’t I play with fire
And shiny halo ridges?

I love this part, but for some reason, the last line messes with my head. It feels like something's missing. Changing shiny to something that means the same thing but has more syllables would help a long. Something like glistening, lustrous, or something else that I can't think of.

I’ll bleed out Hell,
I’ll bleed out black,
Leave a space for God
To burrow in my flesh.

I absolutely adore this part, it really spoke volumes. The only complaint I'll lodge is that the third line seems to be awkward. Changing leave to leaving would fix that.

He’ll fill me with light,
And incandescent,
Luminescent,

I just wanted to say how I loved your use of an adjective, incandescent, as a noun.

He’ll unravel the kite-thread
Of the threnody
Tied tight around my heart.

I really loved that, like, it make me warm and fuzzy. Referring to a hymn of death being tied around you.

I sat under a gunmetal sky,
With snow-pearls melting in inky
Feathers, fading to grey to black.

The line break between inky and feathers seems really awkward here. Moving feathers up a line would fix that easily without messing with the flow. Also, in this instance, grey needs to be changed to gray. I do that all the time too.

But as its footprints formed crosses,
This pitch-dipped dove spread its wings

This line made me double take for moment and then I realized how powerful it really was, saying that the footprints formed crosses. Great job!

[quote(Dear God, please forgive me,
You are the rainbow in the night
Of a sinner’s blackbird feather).[/quote]

At first I looked at the parenthesis a bit critically but now I like it. It's different from the rest of part two but it's also a part of this part so it fits.

I tried to find something in the third part but I couldn't. O.O I absolutely adored it. You seemed to refer to God as your lover, which made me a bit giddy, to be honest.

I think you know by now that I greatly approve of this piece and I'll have to stop before I rant about it.

God bless, write on,
Lacey

And incandescent,
Luminescent,

Did you mean "incandescent luminescence" or "incandescence, luminescence"?

Of the threnody
Tied tight around my heart.

"Of the funeral song tied tight around my heart." That makes no sense. Coupled with the incandescent/luminescent quoted above, and I'm seriously suspecting a case of "did not look in the dictionary".

So, the first part was about cutting and suicide. To be fair, you started out describing it in an atypical manner, but it was still pretty (and painfully) obvious what the first part was about. And considering how common-to-the-point-of-being-overused the subject is, that isn't a exactly good thing. Add to that the inconsistency of the punctuation, and at best, you've got a mediocre first part.

So, what to do about it?

First things first, make the punctuation more consistent. Note that I didn't say "grammatically correct"; just "consistent". Right now, your punctuation seems to be put in willy-nilly, and it makes following the flow of ideas a pain. Especially at the incandescent/luminescent spot (which I still have no idea what you were trying to say with). I suggest punctuating your poem grammatically to start off with, however, as the main purpose of grammar is to make ideas easier to understand. By having proper grammar at the outset, you'll start off with a base that will be easily understood by the vast majority of your readers. From there, you can more easily develop or otherwise alter the grammar in ways that enhance the meaning of your poem. And if the experiments don't work, well, at least you have a base that most of your readers will understand that you can revert back to.

Secondly, develop your imagery more. You had a pretty good start with referring to the knife as "metal lips", but the further in the stanza you went, the more literal you got, with the bleeding lines just screaming, "Cutting!!! Suicide!!!" So be less literal. Get more creative with your descriptions and allusions. Prettify your poem and make it more interesting to read. The less obvious the subject is, generally the more interesting the poem as it means the poet has employed creative ways of describing the subject, and so the reader has to spend time teasing out the core meaning behind the poem, which can be all sorts of fun.

At the very least, it will make your poetry in general much less cliche.

I may come back and review the other parts. I may not. But hopefully, my review of the first part will be helpful to you.