A Lascivious Pursuit

The patient lies in sullied rags,
stained with sweat, that smell of days
discarded in the august heat.

Beating wrists choke the spawn
from Satan’s snake, a fever quakes
the clamp on dank, dishonest flesh.

An epileptic hand shake; seizing, smothering
a rapid breath, a hollow moan grumbling
past the IV tube of throat, past the purifying
burn of antiseptic scrubs.

A sudden gasp, a breathless surge (a euphoric
rush) the venom bursts like sin from cysts.

…guilt, warm as blood, contracts to purge and clot the wound.

I'll be honest--when I think of poetry, this is not what I imagine. But, as we all have different stories to tell, I shall try and critique this poem.

The patient lies in filthy rags,

Take this first line. Whether you intended it or not, it is written in iambic tetrameter. Four pairs of unstressed--stressed syllables. Four "da -Dum"'s. And when I read that, I expected the rest to be similar, but the next line is not. Inconsistent rhythm threw me off.

The patient lies in filthy rags,
stained with sweat; a stench of days discarded
in the august heat.


the fever shakes the clamp on dank, dishonest flesh;

This also confuses me. Why is this setup like this? Why is it broken up? Please if this a typo, fix it. If its on purpose, please clarify it.

Beating wrists strangle out the spawn from Satan’s
snake,

I think that "hands" would be a better word than wrists. Its a more common word, but do you strangle something with your wrists?

Good news for you is that this piece has some very strong visuals. I kinda felt sick reading it. At first glance it seemed to me that it was just, I don't know, nonsense. Then I reread it and found there is a whole wealth of reason and meaning behind each image. But it took me two or three reads to get it, and that might be a problem for you if you want reviews. Lots of readers here are going to be turned off by the whole sickness thing; this is not a pretty poem. I do like it though.

the purifying
burn of antiseptic swabs,

as eyes roll back in a breathless surge (a euphoric
rush) the venom bursts from ripened cysts.

…guilt, warm as blood, contracts to purge and clot the wound

This is the best part. It is visual, and, despite being repulsive, it pretty much sums up what (I think) you are saying--the purging of illness and prehaps an allegory for evil in general.

Well, hope that helps. Happy writing to ya!

The best line, I think, is the last; as AlleyCat says, it's visual and repulsive--and in its repulsiveness lies its attractiveness. For the rest of it: the linebreaks are a bit off, especially in the third stanza (why the two long, one short, one medium pattern?), and there's something about your punctuation that's got me vaguely unsettled, but otherwise--nicely done. ^^

Cameron--


I found the sustained riposte of sexuality and the diseased body delectable, if not perhaps the slightest bit puritanic.

What I might suggest in revisions would consist of (i) grammar, (ii) word choice [of particular note: the word "shake" appears twice in close succession and doesn't roll from the tongue as one might hope], and (iii) sonics. Your sonics are the most important, and towards controlling them I suggest imagining this as a bit of a jingle, and see what words come to mind then.


Keep it up,
Brad

Honestly, I wasn't a great fan of it.

It confused me.
The rhythm was also really off and inconsistent. I found the first paragraph really difficult to read because of this.

However some emotion did hit me. It actually made me feel quite sad and haunted which was really good (:

~Ferris AKA Tara~