photons, excite!

look at me and rejoice!
see my hair, how it sparkles in the sun
and transforms into spindles of gold for you.
and look! when you touch my cheek with
the back of your hand,
can't you feel soft rosy petals pressed
against your flesh?
remember me like this, i pray, and don't let
my driver's license fool you.
my hair is not brown and my skin is not white.
how could it be? listen!
in darkness, i was nothing,
but then God said, "let there be light!"
and i tumbled from my mother's womb and
blinked.

when you see me now, what you see is
not me but a billion photons dancing
with my molecules.
i am in God and God is in me--
even my sweater with the holey sleeve
throbs with the pulse of raging electrons,
all in the tune of God's song.



(and when i kiss you, God laughs and
a thousand and one stars twinkle.)

Oh my lordy, snoink, this was beautiful.
I absolutely loved these lines

when you see me now, what you see is

not me but a billion photons dancing

with my molecules.

The only thing I can think of is the lack of capitalization. Wait, now I see that you only capitalized God. Was this meant as a metaphor of his supremacy? Or just a coincidence?

Well no matter because I loved it anyway!

-jade.

This was very good. The construction is unique and the lack of capitalization almost seems to soften the poem (in a positive way). I especially liked that last italisized portion. It's cute and poetic and marvolously charming.

The only problem...I really don't get it. Which I always find is the problem with me and poetry, I never seem to understand.

Silver>> Exactly! ee cummings did something like that too. It was pretty awesome. See, ee cummings usually never writes anything capitalized, so when he wrote God capitalized, it was amazing.

Lily>> I'm glad the uncapitalized thing worked for you! I was afraid it wouldn't. The voice is so strong and commanding that I wasn't sure what to do, so I did that instead in an effort to make it work. That's why the last part is italicized too, lol.

Don't worry about "getting" the poem, especially if you want to know my true intentions, lol. This poem came to me when, after a morning of dense, cold fog, it became sunny and it was just so beautiful that I couldn't help but to smile and walk a little bit taller. But that's not what the poem is about. In fact, I'm not quite sure why the words organized themselves in this particular way for me. So don't worry about reading my mind... I'm afraid my brain is a bit foggy anyway. Instead, try to match the poem with your life and see whether it has truth in it for you. Does it remind you of anything that has happened or that you know about? Can you empathize with the narrator? What do you think the inherent conflict that is being discussed in the poem is about? And this isn't just for my poem, which is admittedly rough... this is for all poems. If you like it, there's a good reason for that. It just "clicks" with you. By analyzing your own feelings, you'll get a better understanding of who you are. And that's why art is totally awesome. ^^

Snoink wrote:i am in God and God is in me--
even my sweater with the holey sleeve

Okay, I love this, is it supposed to be a pun? Because that's just genius. I thought the poem was very e.e cummings like, in a good way. However, the first line didn't really sit as well with me as the rest. Sorry, not a very good crititque, but it really doesn't need much work, it's lovely!

Hurray for Snoink! And hurray for e.e. cummings! (Personally, I adore the lower case style.)
As for the poem: lovely. Normally, exclamation marks should be used sparingly, but this is an exception. The punctuation captures the bubbly, sparkly tone of the narrator. This whole piece has a luscious, rambling quality from its seamless enjambment; the lack of capitalized letters also makes it read faster. Each stanza builds the excitement.

look at me and rejoice!

How cool is that? In a world of my-soul-bleeds-raven-tears poetry, this is alive and refreshing. It's feel good poetry! The speaker's joy is contagious.

can't you feel soft rosy petals pressed
against your flesh

This is my only nitpick. The rose is one of the most overdone symbols in poetry, so this lines seems sadly predictable. Even if you changed "rosy" to some other, unexpected flower, it would work better.

don't let
my driver's license fool you

Love it. So cummings. So unpredictable. So brilliant.
Congratulations on a poem well done.

Ducati>> Haha, it was a pun! But I do have a holey sweater. I'm wearing it now. It's quite comfy! And I think this is the second poem it's been in. XD

Fangala>> Oh dear! Sometimes I wish my middle name AND my saint's name weren't Rose. That's where that reference comes from. There used to be "of my namesake" following "cheek" but I took that out because it was too wordy.

Knowing this, is the poem better? Or would you still recommend changing the flower?

I loved this poem Snoink! But I couldn't tell you exactly what it means though. There's just something about that embodies the morning and night time all at the same time. Newborn babies growing up into people who are judged differently because they are not the babies they used to be. I don't know, that's just what I got from this poem. If I'm wrong, I still love it and would you mine if I clicked gold star?

Favorite lines:

look at me and rejoice!
see my hair, how it sparkles in the sun
and transforms into spindles of gold for you.
and look! when you touch my cheek with
the back of your hand,
can't you feel soft rosy petals pressed
against your flesh?

Ta,

~Angie

Christ I feel under-qualified in critiquing this

Well critique is the wrong word actually. I'd rather just ramble and babble in a complimentary manner, for this poem warrants it. The imagery is sheer beauty, the tone effortless and the concept original. My love of this is probably helped by my recent obsession with light as an image, but nonetheless- wonderful. Thank you for it.

Ramble over

Truly lovely, Snoinkus! I'm jealous. ^^

I love the description of birth; at first, the mention of God made me nervous, as it generally does in poetry (hazard of shaky atheism, that)--that the image was so endearing and subtlely comical that it worked wonderfully, especially when juxtaposed with the beautiful, fanciful images around it.

Bien hecho! ^^

Snoink wrote:look at me and rejoice!
see my hair, how it sparkles in the sun
and transforms into spindles of gold for you

Sounds a little like self-depreciating romance poetry. I don't usually have a problem with this when it's done right, but why must most everybody insist on starting love poems with the template of "I will prostrate myself before your magnamity,"? It begins the poem off with a submissive tone, which I will then subconsciously see in the background lurking behind the rest of your lines. Not a particularly strong opening.

Also, I would imagine that if you were writing such a poem, physical characteristics would not be the first and foremost aspect the narrator would want the subject to admire. Personality? Raw emotion? Light of heaven?

and look! when you touch my cheek with
the back of your hand,
can't you feel soft rosy petals pressed
against your flesh?

Ha. I'm getting an image of a baby breaking out in shingles when I read this, which I'm going to guess isn't your intent. After all, touching a batch of petals would feel...disjointed? Not smooth and silky. Instead of "soft rosy petals", try "a soft rosy petal".

remember me like this, i pray, and don't let
my driver's license fool you.
my hair is not brown and my skin is not white.
how could it be? listen!
in darkness, i was nothing,
but then God said, "let there be light!"
and i tumbled from my mother's womb and
blinked.

Hmm. So this isn't a poem about lust like I thought earlier, although that makes the first lines of the poem that much more out of place. This is a poem about your love for...God? Either way, I don't like most of the content of this stanza because it sounds like you went on a ramble halfway through. You were expanding upon a linear subject frame and suddenly you thought "Hey, this reminds me of...". After "my hair...not white", it starts to go off on a tangent that abruptly, and uncomfortably, pulls itself together in the beginning of the next stanza. Smoothly connect it or don't have it at all.

when you see me now, what you see is
not me but a billion photons dancing
with my molecules.

And that is a good thing? What you're saying is that you want to be seen as an array of biochemical reactions rather than a human being with a soul. How is this consistent with the Romantic style you have written in for most of the poem thus far? Your piece shifts into Realism too brusquely and too late. Keep it in one style, and if you really want to switch between two, then don't cluster them in their seperate stanzas, distant from the others.

i am in God and God is in me--
even my sweater with the holey sleeve
throbs with the pulse of raging electrons,
all in the tune of God's song.

There is an egregious mistake here, and that is using "raging" to refer to the electrons (putting aside the fact that when you start referring to physical mechanics, that takes away from much of the overarching and "universe" spirituality you had going on up until this point). A God that you describe would not make his electrons dance as if they were enraged. What are they so angry about? Life? Your love? It makes no sense and has crippled the whole stanza.

(and when i kiss you, God laughs and
a thousand and one stars twinkle.)

So this isn't a poem about God's love or a mother's love, as I was beginning to believe as I read on; it's just a lust poem. What are the thousand and one stars? Perhaps they are in allusion to some fable as was your gold-hair reference early in the poem...perhaps the thousand stars is an arbitrary number and...you're the star that makes it a thousand and one? This is confusing, which is not a bad thing, but until I understand what this last part is trying to say, I can't critique it so I won't try.

Anyway, good poem in general, but knowing the usual amazing qualities of the poems you write (as judged by the ones I've read from your portfolio), not such a great one. Somehow, I don't think you were expecting this poem to be a masterpiece in its current form anyway.

Hope that helped.

Angel of Death>> That's a cool thought, actually! I had never thought of that. It does delve into light vs. darkness, but I never thought of it being morning vs. evening and then combining that idea with young vs. new. That's a neat thought!

Thriving Fire>> Haha, don't feel underqualified commenting on it. After all, I am just another writer who dabbles in poetry. And feel free to compliment it, even if you babble. I like that. XD

Fand>> Gracias! <3 Your compliment is much appreciated, especially considering that I know how critical you can be.

Galerius>> I'm not quite sure how you read it the way you did, but oh well! Your thoughts are very interesting as well, though I am not sure why your images are so contradicting. After all, how can you think it begins as a love poem and then see the narrator as the baby with shingles? XD But thanks anyway!

Also, I'm a biochemical engineer... science, to me, is one with God and nature, and the fact that our matter is intrinsically combined with packets of energy, aka, photons or "light" with Einstein's famous equation, E = mc^2, is just so awesome to me that I really can't see why we have realism and spirituality simultaneously.

Knowing that "rose" has a special meaning, I say keep it. I wouldn't dare rip personal symbols from a poem.

Oh wow! This line here:

(and when i kiss you, God laughs and

a thousand and one stars twinkle.)

Made me a very, very happy bunny. *laughs* I saw you on the "Most Awesome Person in the World" thread or something so I figured I'd come and check out your stuff. From what I can see here you have quite an original writing style - I like it, it's interesting. If you get something new up, maybe give me a buzz? Cheeky to ask, I know, but I'm currently obsessed with KJ's work and so I'm ripping her library apart.

Anyway. Sorry for the review-that's-not-a-review, but you're poems already been done and it's kinda tedious writing everything all over again if it's been said before. *laughs*

Ja~!

Wow. I truly loved this. It's so sweet and beautiful. I'm guessing since you wrote this about God, you experienced some sort of epiphany of religiousness or something like that? Honestly, I don't know what this poem is about, which is kind of rare for me, but I love it anyway. It made me smile. Totally brightened my day.