Prince

First of all, I'd like to say a thank you to those of you who critiqued the last poem that I posted, Woe. Your comments were much appreciated and I hope that this poem takes into consideration all that you have said. Also, my apologies for not thanking you sooner.

Prince

Thousands of faces and millions of hands,
Clogged the buildings of my metropolis.
My strongly furrowed brow would not move them,
My dry and chapped tongue would not cow them.

Slavishly they lay there, disobedient
As pretentiously I stood there, weakened.
The steeples of my churches and the silos
Of my failing factories were unmoved.

Through my city the cold air rustled
As the hard ground beneath it sagged;
The thousands were swallowed
And I left Prince of Nothing.

Wow. That was deep (I think) I had to read it twice to understand what you were talking about but like I said wow. I love this part:

Through my city the cold air rustled
As the hard ground beneath it sagged;
The thousands were swallowed
And I left Prince of Nothing.

Overall brilliant but what do you mean by cow them?
My dry and chapped tongue would not cow them.
I don't know what yopu mean by cow.

Charlotte

Mad,


What is this?

Let's not kid ourselves here. Poetry is not a story with awkward linebreaks; at present, that's all I can manage through the rubble of this hopeless fog.

You might have a metaphor of a Prince, but to what end - and why should I care?


Best,
Brad

I thought that this poem was, perhaps, a lot of confusing blur for a message of relative simplicity. It seemed to me that the underlying meaning really had to be weeded out from all the indistinct metaphor. I did, however, appreciate the relative definitiveness of the last line. I'm not exactly sure as to what else to say. It just seemed like the poem was mixed together with too many complex allusions that didn't really build on the poem. If you know what I'm saying?

Through my city the cold air rustled
As the hard ground beneath it sagged;
The thousands were swallowed
And I left Prince of Nothing.

I liked the rhythm of this last stanza. However, I was left empty, devoid of emotion, at the end, as if there should have been something else. You've set it up, but I wish things had connected a little more. I think stanza two is a bit unnecessary to the overall point, even though it seems to provide background.

I'm going to have to agree with Brad here. You have a lot of images here, a lot of words, but I'm still trying to find something more in it. Look through this poem and ask yourself, What am I trying to get through here? Is this phrase necessary? Could I rephrase it so it sounds better or communicates what I'm trying to say better?

My dry and chapped tongue would not cow them.

Tongues don't chap...

And this made very little sense to me.

On the bright side, the rhythm was good. I will admit that my rhythm is always off. So that was a definite plus.


It does make it easier on the reader, though, if they can understand a bit more what's going on.

Cheers!

I think the only reason I'm saying that I didn't like this, is because perhaps I don't have the mental ability to actually, understand it and I'm shamed to say, it went straight over my head.

While I thought some of your imagary and flow was lovely, I thought others were a little drawn out and tedious, mainly because I had to stop and think about that line, before I could continue to read the rest.

I agree with Misty when she says that the rhythm was good and that is one thing that made me want to read on - even though I didn't really understand a word of it. But, I disgaree with Misty when she quotes on the "tounge chapping business". I thought this worked well in my opinion, and think that this should be adapted.

Good work, just think about us dim folk before you post something this technical.

Mad--


Here's a line by line.


Thousands of faces and millions of hands,

-Hyperbole doesn't do much for poetry; in general, it makes whatever narrative there is less than genuine, instead demonstrating a bit of a flare for the sensational.

Clogged the buildings of my metropolis.

-this is fine enough, but "clogged" is an ugly word, bearing no redemptive sonics or syllabic ease. Surely there is a thesaurus you can reference for better selections.

My strongly furrowed brow would not move them

-The idea here is communicable, but not in the way you have it written. it's an old, tired image of trying to will things into existence, but even "will into existence" is more subtle and elegant than what you have written here.
,
My dry and chapped tongue would not cow them.

-"cow" is not a good verb--it brings to mind the connotations of grazing, cud, open range; all of which are very passive activities as opposed to the much more sinister designs you have for your denizens.

Slavishly they lay there, disobedient / As pretentiously I stood there, weakened.

-I'm combining these two because you need to really look at sentence structure. While it's true poetry endows its practitioners with less grammatical stricture, it's also true that what comes flows from your pen should be logical and concise. This demonstrates neither concept very well, e.g. "slavishly," "disobedient," "pretentiously"<--all of these are at least 3 syllable words, and all in two lines! It doesn't roll off the tongue, or the mind, very well.

The steeples of my churches and the silos

-too many plurals here for my tastes. In fact, it's a recurring pathology with this piece. Sure, it's about a wealthy prince blahblahblah, but slapping readers silly with these troglodyte notions of grandeur is absolute doggerel. Just think about what you've presented: buildings of your metropolis, steeples and churches, silos, factories, thousands of faces and millions of hands--none of these things are very interesting or make the N unique. He's just like every other prince.

Of my failing factories were unmoved.

-unmoved by...the unmoving people? What? This makes no sense in conjunction with anything else.

Through my city the cold air rustled
As the hard ground beneath it sagged;

-'it' being the cold air? You might want to elaborate why the ground sags beneath cold air...cold air not having any properties warm air is lacking, other than heat.

The thousands were swallowed
And I left Prince of Nothing.

-swallowed by the sagging ground? Swallowed by what? Where does this come from--a storm, an earthquake, a blizzard? This is where your real poem is: the last four lines, and yet they are the most underdeveloped part of the entire thing.

My suggestion is: kill the lights, don't spare the horses, and try something else.


Best,
Brad