Pink Jasmine Blossoms

Pink Jasmine blossoms fall
pirouetting with the utmost grace –
like a rigidly trained Russian coryphée, whose toes
bleed after every performance:
the gun shot wounds of dedication and carte blanche
authority.
These Chinese blossoms whose every move
is dictated by a higher power
are slowly wrinkled,
crumpled at the edges (paper-thin rouge tissues)
and hemorrhage their life away
when touched.

It is true you cannot eat freedom.
It is equally true you cannot power machinery with democracy.

But the proletariat blossom
crushed in a hand and being violated -
it’s beauty spent and finished
like an explosive charge too small to be noticed
but too big to exist
is hidden away
where it should be, after all.
In darkness, in hopelessness, smothered
with the pillow of good socialist reason
gasping on the goose feather down
that is control.
A virginity has been preserved, god-willing
The virginity of thought.

The dancer and the flower
waltzing puppets attached to strings held by
governmental gods
in expensive pinstripe suits are dying.
It’s for the good of the world.
It’s for the good of the country.
But the gods in the pinstripe suits
still have bloody
hands.


Pink Jasmine blossoms can only pirouette
behind prison bars.

wow...
descriptive, elegant, complex, absilutely brilliant.
I think it would take to long to fully and understand and appreciate this, let alone write it down. So i'll leave it at that. (I think i also would need to find my dictionary)
You've got a lot of talent. Kudos.

Lovely. Very descrpitive. I love the metaphors. Amazing piece overall. Keep it up!

~Yoyo

Hey Kylan,

I actually really like this. I love the description and the parallels between opposites, it's great. The parallels actually are so vivid, however, that they can be confusing so be careful not to get TOO carried away (and yes, there is such a thing!). I do have a few suggestions though, as expected:

These Chinese blossoms whose every move
is dictated by a higher power
are slowly wrinkled,
crumpled at the edges (paper-thin rouge tissues)
and hemorrhage their life away
when touched.

I would ditch the parentheticals here (and of course, the words between them). It's awkward to the reading and there are no other outtakes such as this through the rest of the poem so it is rather out of place.

Also, most of this stanza is in past tense, "dictated," "wrinkled," "crumpled," and then all of a sudden there is "hemorrhage," which is present tense. I understand why that needs to be present tense rather than past from the next line, but when reading it causes a bit of confusion at first.

It is true you cannot eat freedom.
It is equally true you cannot power machinery with democracy.

At first I wanted to yell about it being "machinery with democracy" instead of "democracy with machinery", but now it's kind of growing on me.

But the proletariat blossom
crushed in a hand and being violated -

"crushed" but "being" violated...unless meant in the past tense way, is another confusion.

The dancer and the flower
waltzing puppets attached to strings held by
governmental gods

double spacing between "waltzing" and "puppets", just a typo! Also there is no connector word for the dancer/flower to the puppets?

in expensive pinstripe suits are dying.
It’s for the good of the world.
It’s for the good of the county.

County or Country? I'm thinking you meant Country, which would make more sense.

The rest is great

All in all, like I said before, it's a great poem!

-V

I liked this but.. I would have liked it more had I knew the words that pertained to government and their meaning... I didn't pay attention in government class, and just as well, I could look them up, but it would take too much effort on my part. It's one of those things where you either grasp the meaning, or don't, and I don't know enough to grasp it...

But I can guess that it has a lot of meaning behind it, and that is good. I was hoping you had meaning in it. I loved all of the beginning, the metaphor to the ballet dancer, the red of blood. It's a very pretty poem. For some reason I thought it was kind of long. I think you could pick it apart, and get to your meaning quicker without being so wordy. I thought the last stanza, though beautiful, wasn't really needed.

I would suggest you italicize your French terms in the beginning, most people do that when they have foreign terms in an English piece.

I'm not sure my words were all that helpful, sorry!

I really love this poem. Very deep and full.

Kylan said:
But the proletariat blossom
crushed in a hand and being violated -
it’s beauty spent and finished

I love this part! It is so true and I feel the exact way when I see a flower or something beautiful get crushed...

Great Work!

Genevieve
xxx

That was really beautiful. I don't really know what to say, except that I loved it and can't find anything wrong with it.

I generally agree with Via and Suz.

This is a good start, but you mostly need to work on making it smooth. Right now you have a lot of ideas and strong emotions coming out, but the transition between each thought is poorly done, and the poem's message is overwhelming. Try to focus more on one thing, and only speak in broad terms when you have too. I felt like there was a pattern of "Compare flower to this thing, speak in broad terms about oppression and government, compare flower to this thing," etc.

One way to get yourself to make the poem a little more polished is to shorten it. I think you could have an equally good, if not better, poem, if you set a line limit. I do this for my own poetry sometimes; it really makes you think about what's important and you'll be forced to cut weaker lines or replace them with more concise, stronger lines.

Pink Jasmine blossoms fall
pirouetting with the utmost grace –
like a rigidly trained Russian coryphée, whose toes
bleed after every performance:
the gun shot wounds of dedication and carte blanche
authority.

Strong beginning, but it has its shaky parts. I originally got a bad impression because poems about falling petals and dancers are awfully flowery and goo-goo and you know what I mean! But I think by describing the dancers as a "rigidly trained Russian coryphee, whose toes bleed..." you've saved it.
I think "gun shot" could go, and you can just say "the wounds of dedication..."

These Chinese blossoms whose every move
is dictated by a higher power
are slowly wrinkled,
crumpled at the edges (paper-thin rouge tissues)
and hemorrhage their life away
when touched.

But again with transition. I think the first part and this follow-up don't quite go together. In fact, I think this part is unnecessary, or close to it. I didn't get quite the same feeling or sense of meaning that I did from the opening sentence.

But the proletariat blossom
crushed in a hand and being violated -
it’s beauty spent and finished
like an explosive charge too small to be noticed
but too big to exist
is hidden away
where it should be, after all.
In darkness, in hopelessness, smothered
with the pillow of good socialist reason
gasping on the goose feather down
that is control.
A virginity has been preserved, god-willing
The virginity of thought.

This entire stanza is very openly and very obviously a social and political commentary, right from the word "proletariat." I think you could have pulled this off without making your message quite so blatant.

The dancer and the flower
waltzing puppets attached to strings held by
governmental gods
in expensive pinstripe suits are dying.
It’s for the good of the world.
It’s for the good of the country.
But the gods in the pinstripe suits
still have bloody
hands.

Ahh, even more blatant screaming message! By now, the poem seems careless, as though you were more intent on getting the message through than on the merit of the poetry itself. The first stanza was much better, much more controlled, and much more appealing as poetry. This is outraged almost to the point of cliche (which may actually have been reached with "bloody hands") and you've really abandoned that initial flower metaphor. I liked that, and you need to carry it through the whole poem!
By here, you've also gone much more into the abstract and vague. The first stanza contained strong images--the petals falling, the dancer's feet bleeding. I find the images increasingly bizarre or difficult to visualize as the poem progresses. Keep them concrete and accessible--they can be strong and emotional, but creating complex extended metaphors will only annoy your reader.

As for the last line, ditch it and I will be happy. That line really is getting too carried away, and it's awfully melodramatic...you could definitely end on a better note.

If you have any other questions or requests, feel free to PM! Good stuff here, keep working on it.

-Colly