Still Life

This poem is Centre justified in the manuscript version. Please copy and paste into Word to appreciate its intended look before submitting a review. Many thanks for your understanding.

STILL LIFE

One. That’s the day your tears flooded the land
And you fled our sacred temple:
I watched you chase the wind down the street,
Down under the dull rumble
Of the trains painted scabby red. Your magical scent still burns holes in our bed.

Mistakes made; sins forgiven;
Tributes paid; life’s still living.

Two. That’s the blessing of laughter that reverberated
Across the beach that day in the swirling ripples of our minds;
Our imaginary kids pursuing lost kites,
Sketching lines in the sun baked sand.

Mistakes made; sins forgiven;
Tributes paid; life’s still living.

Three. That’s the first magical evening we spent together,
Chasing each other's hearts, holding candles to the fiery red moon.
And then, the moment you conjured the sacred offering
To the deity you held spellbound. We embraced; the world watched,
Powerless to erase the pockmarks of desire within us.

Mistakes made; sins forgiven;
Tributes paid –

One life is still living.

Gahks -

This was good, if not a little predictable and overused. You obviously have a confident grasp on the intracasies of the poetic language. Now, I think, you just need to expand on this competance. Lines like, "Of the trains painted scabby red" and "Chasing each other's hearts, holding candles to the fiery red moon./ And then, the moment you conjured the sacred offering/ To the deity you held spellbound. We embraced; the world watched" are wonderful and extremely well done, but they're muffled by some boring and banal language that you sprinkle throughout. Words like, "sun-baked" and "swirling ripples" and lines like your chorus kind of kill the rest of your poem with unoriginality. What you need to focus on now is using a more abstract and exciting vocabulary. Maybe some more ambiguity would do some good as well. I want every line to challenge my imagination. I want every line to be new and well-matured.

Your [s]magical [/s]scent still burns holes

Ew. Magical is such a horrific word. What's more, you used it twice in this poem. Kill the 'magic'. It's not working. In fact, it's hindering.

-Kylan

Hi, Gahks, I'm Evi!

First of all, I can see why you wanted us to see this in its center-justified layout; something about seeing the evenness (is that a word?) of the poem adds to the overall effect.

My bigest complaint/confusion is the ordering. You start out with one, which involves the person leaving. This seems more like to ending to me. Then you continue to what is supposedly number two, where the couple is happy and peaceful. And it finishes with their first evening together. So, if you're going for backwards in time I suppose it works, but maybe you'd like to change it to count backwards as well? Three...two...one? Sequence of events, you know.

Kylan is absolutely right. I look at the word 'magical' and cringe, and not just here. Unicorns and rainbows immediately enter my mind, and when using it to descibe a scent on a bed, I imagine the matress erupting into fairy dust. Hehe. That could just be me, but the glorious thing about the English language is the number of adjectives we have to work with.

Not many nit-picks, really. In fact! Only two!

One. That’s the day your tears flooded the land

And you fled our sacred temple:

Did you mean 'as' you fled our scared temple? Doesn't really matter, but that's just what I'd put.

And then, the moment you conjured the sacred offering
To the deity you held spellbound.

This could simply be a result of my complete lack in poetry-deciphering skills, but I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I was assuming the narrator is talking about himself being held spellbound by the one conjuring the offering, but then you refer to it as 'deity', and I wonder. Are you calling yourself a deity?

Deity: de⋅i⋅ty

–noun, plural -ties. 1. a god or goddess.
2. divine character or nature, esp. that of the Supreme Being; divinity.

Just to remind myself of the official meaning. So you're calling yourself a god held spellbound?

Hope this was helpful! Despite my comments, I really liked this, especially the repeated sentences, and how you added the 'one' in the last line. You have some beautiful phrases in here, too. Good luck!

~Evi