He Lusts For Imperfections Even Now: a sestina.

He Lusts For Imperfection Even Now

I would have you speak of unkind truths, please:
not sunshine on the window-glass and soft
gloved hands to guide me thus and so, and songs
sung badly by the young in backward streets
stories below this apartment of mine,
this gift you were so very quick to give;

but rather speak to me of what won't give:
the walls behind that woman's measured “Please”,
her asking for the things that once were mine,
when I knew other lives and other soft
humble marvels sold like sweets on the streets,
when I gathered paste-glass jewels and bought songs.

Tell me she is my daughter, that the songs
she hums she chose not for the joy they give
but for the impression that they lend: street-
smart fashionable lawyer who can please
herself in bright, empty rooms with no soft
edge: tempered steel, glass. My daughter. Mine.

Tell of what else about this place is mine,
the scum on the sill, the horrid wet songs
of cheap plumbing, of the grease-shine on soft
sour food the doctors ordered to give
my intestines an easy way out. Please,
if you would be my senses, recall streets

have cracked pavement in this district, that streets
are shit-stained. The city's no love of mine,
I've no wish to imagine the view. Please,
recall that I am old, cold, deaf to songs
that deny the bitterness of age. Give
me back my eyes and ears with your strange soft

words, if you would; but do not paint with soft
brush-strokes what is ugly both in the streets
and here between white-washed walls. Rather give
me the universe that should remain mine:
the world I can trust, detached from old songs,
the world I can hold in my dry hands. Please?

Describe to me a world to please my soft
fatty heart that longs for new songs, street songs.
Give me what's mine: the honest taste of dust.

First of all, I just feel the pressing need to congratulate you for going through with such a challenging structure and managing to pick the right mix of words. You kept some meaningful words {songs, streets} and mixed them with some empty words {please, give}, and pulled it off by keeping the meaningful words with the theme of the poem.

Also, though I didn't get every facet of the narrative that you were trying to tell with this piece, I think that the mood came across, especially towards the end of the poem, which is really what matters first and foremost anyways. It's too late at night for me to try to dig into it and find out the plot, now, but I will comment on what I have.

when I gathered paste-glass jewels and bought songs.

Here was one point where I didn't really get what you were saying. What are 'paste-glass' jewels? The image I get, if you're working only from image, was one of clouded glass jewels. Which definitely keeps with the tone of the piece. So, even if it's not what you meant, I'd consider keeping it. n_n

Please,

if you would be my senses, recall streets



have cracked pavement in this district, that streets

are shit-stained.

Okay, just looking at this piece of the poem as if it were a sentence, I can't understand the second part. 'Recall streets have cracked pavement in this district' is the problem area. I can't help but think that it needs another word. Recall /that/ streets have or /which/ streets, or something like that. n_n

Describe to me a world to please my soft

fatty heart that longs for new songs, street songs.

Give me what's mine: the honest taste of dust.

I love this last tercet as well. The description of her heart as 'fatty' does well to add to the rotting, fading mood. I don't like the phrase 'street songs' though. I feel it glorifies the life of the street to a point that the narrator would not have appreciated, as she wants honest recollection.

Overall, I think you did a good job with this.

PM me if you have questions or would like me to review anything else you post!

-Hannah-

Good job! You did two reviews before posting your work!

Nice attempt at such a complicated structure of poetry, bravo! *claps*

I liked it, but they were a lack of stylistic devices (alliteration, metaphors, simile, Homeric similes, parallel structure, etc...). I think that's all I can think of at the moment; I'm brain-dead and tired.

Oh, I've wanted to do a sestina for so long but they never turn out. this is great.

The only parts I had probl;ems with was the discription of a "fatty" heart and this verse:

have cracked pavement in this district, that streets

are shit-stained. The city's no love of mine,

I've no wish to imagine the view. Please,

recall that I am old, cold, deaf to songs

that deny the bitterness of age. Give

me back my eyes and ears with your strange soft

It didn't have the same lyracisim as the rest. But other than that, its great!

Hannah wrote:

when I gathered paste-glass jewels and bought songs.

Here was one point where I didn't really get what you were saying. What are 'paste-glass' jewels? The image I get, if you're working only from image, was one of clouded glass jewels. Which definitely keeps with the tone of the piece. So, even if it's not what you meant, I'd consider keeping it. n_n

=) Paste glass jewels are imitation jewels made with, well, paste glass; they are much cheaper than real jewels, of course, and often are rather shoddy looking, so I think that works.

Please,

if you would be my senses, recall streets



have cracked pavement in this district, that streets

are shit-stained.

Okay, just looking at this piece of the poem as if it were a sentence, I can't understand the second part. 'Recall streets have cracked pavement in this district' is the problem area. I can't help but think that it needs another word. Recall /that/ streets have or /which/ streets, or something like that. n_n

It originally had a 'that' for clarification. Technically, 'recall streets have cracked pavement in this district' is correct, but it's certainly kind of ambiguous. I cheated it to make it fit the meter, mostly. *hangs head in shame* Uh. I might change it to 'recall that streets have cracked pavement in this town' although the rhythm there is a little wonky.

Describe to me a world to please my soft

fatty heart that longs for new songs, street songs.

Give me what's mine: the honest taste of dust.

I love this last tercet as well. The description of her heart as 'fatty' does well to add to the rotting, fading mood. I don't like the phrase 'street songs' though. I feel it glorifies the life of the street to a point that the narrator would not have appreciated, as she wants honest recollection.

Overall, I think you did a good job with this.

PM me if you have questions or would like me to review anything else you post!

-Hannah-

I agree. 'Street songs' was merely to get the word street in. I'll have to think about alternatives a little: I like 'new songs' for the symmetry with the aforesaid 'old songs', but street songs is definitely a weaker phrase.

Glad you (mostly) approved! :XD

@chasingcolts21: I actually cheated. *shuffles feet* I posted in my haste and then, reading the rules more carefully, ran to fix it before anyone noticed.

Also, re: literary devices. Um. I had, um... imagery? Haha. I know what you mean, but on the one hand I kind of felt that elaborate language (I mean, where exactly do you bring in wine-dark sea, here? XD) wouldn't fit the speaker and, too, most of the ones that came to mind just wouldn't fit. D: Might go over in the interests of replacing some of the more prosaic lines with such things, though.

@Ck Lynn: Those parts are definitely the least poetic; I'm not sure I want to change that, however, since I think it parallels the overarching story of the poem nicely. On the other hand, if you think it ruins the flow too much, I'll see what I can do!

Thank you all for your kind comments and suggestions. =]

A beautiful piece; stylistically accomplished and thematically unique. You did very well with the sestina (to the best of my limited knowledge, anyway) and I absolutely love some of the language - "when I gathered paste-glass jewels and bought songs." for example, and the entire third stanza.

My one real complaint (or at least, the only one that hasn't really been raised already) is that I did find it a little repetitive towards the end, in terms of content - the last two stanzas did not really seem to add much to the overall picture, and strained the lyricism a bit. That aside, however, it really was very well done. Kudos!

Cheers,
~bubbles

Hai! I can happily say that this is lovely and I am not at all disapointed. Your wit and character carry through into the form of poetry very well. I can't offer more than a vague comment that you perhaps speak of streets and songs just a little too often but the tone and flow of the piece are both so very beautiful and its content is generally very well thought through. If you did think to alter a few lines to remove some of the repetition, I'd suggest you replace that with more thoughts of the 'he' in your title, the listener to her words. I'd love to know a little more of the imperfections that he searches for. I might be reading too much into it but it seems to me that there's another woman he's lusting after and well, I like a poem that each can read their own meaning into.

Keep writing, I might have more to criticise about your next pieces

Heather xx

A beautiful piece; stylistically accomplished and thematically unique. You did very well with the sestina (to the best of my limited knowledge, anyway) and I absolutely love some of the language - "when I gathered paste-glass jewels and bought songs." for example, and the entire third stanza.

My one real complaint (or at least, the only one that hasn't really been raised already) is that I did find it a little repetitive towards the end, in terms of content - the last two stanzas did not really seem to add much to the overall picture, and strained the lyricism a bit. That aside, however, it really was very well done. Kudos!

Cheers,
~bubbles

I'm thinking that the solution the repetitiveness of the last two stanzas is to replace the second to last stanza with one focusing more on the 'you', the listener, as Kitty puts it. Glad you enjoyed reading! =)

Hai! I can happily say that this is lovely and I am not at all disapointed. Your wit and character carry through into the form of poetry very well. I can't offer more than a vague comment that you perhaps speak of streets and songs just a little too often but the tone and flow of the piece are both so very beautiful and its content is generally very well thought through. If you did think to alter a few lines to remove some of the repetition, I'd suggest you replace that with more thoughts of the 'he' in your title, the listener to her words. I'd love to know a little more of the imperfections that he searches for. I might be reading too much into it but it seems to me that there's another woman he's lusting after and well, I like a poem that each can read their own meaning into.

Keep writing, I might have more to criticise about your next pieces Wink

Heather xx

I would hate to disappoint your not-at-all-threatening self. =D The nature of the sestina is, of course, repetitive; the trick is keeping it in hand while still using the words over and over according to the pattern. However, since I think it is generally agreed that the last two stanzas are particularly reiterative, I am probably going to nick your suggestion of talking more about the listener.

Haii

I read the first two stanzas before I noticed what was going on... (I had no idea what a sestina is) so that is impressive in itself.. to carry a strict repetition through without making it seem repetitive takes a great deal of versatility.

After I did notice though, it kind of ruined the poem for me... my fault: I kept checking to see if you had followed the structure and by doing that it made the repitition seem well, more repetitive lol, and I lost track of the path the words were leading me. But that is by no fault of your own... more the structure itself, that or my perfectionism.(its a word now alright!!) :-p

As for the style: I loved it It had a very T.S Elliot feel.. very distant and contemplative.. and beautiful of course.

As for criticisms I have few: I didn't like when you rhymed streets with sweets in one line... it made it sound a tad gimmicky, and I know it'd be difficult to change but I also didn't like the way you started the penultimate stanza with 'words'... it kind of wrecked the rhythm. And I didn't like the profanity in shit-stained.. change shit to something more fitting I think.

And I don't know if this needed to be there or not, but the last stanza seemed forced... like you were only doing it because you had to (except the last line which was my favourite)

But yeah wow, really brave structure and you grappled it without losing much of the story... Nice work

I loved this!

Your poem had great rhythm and I could follow it easily and understnad what you were trying to say the whole way through it!

I'm probably just repeating what everyone else has said but I have to say it all over because I really did love your poem!

I'm really not good when it comes to grammar but as I read your poem I couldn't make out any clear grammar mistakes which is a great plus.

I especially loved the way you closed the poem. The last line fitted extremely well with the rest of the poem so that helped with the flow of it. The flow of your poem was also, obviously, amazing! It helped me read it with ease.

To be honest it feelt like I was actually in the poem and I love it when a poem or a story has that effect on me!

Everything seems to work so naturaly as well which in my opinion is the most important thing when writing a poem. Your rhythm, the flow, the atmosphere of the poem. Everything just seemed so perfect!

Overall I adored your poem. It was dramatic, effective and extremely well written. I love your writing style and I can't wait to read some more of your work!

Keep writing!

Meg x-x

He Lusts For Imperfection Even Now

I would have you speak of unkind truths, please:
not sunshine on the window-glass and soft
gloved hands to guide me thus and so, and songs
sung badly by the young in backward streets
stories below this apartment of mine,
this gift you were so very quick to give;

but rather speak to me of what won't give:
the walls behind that woman's measured “Please”,
her asking for the things that once were mine,
when I knew other lives and other soft
humble marvels sold like sweets on the streets,
when I gathered paste-glass jewels and bought songs.

Tell me she is my daughter, that the songs
she hums she chose not for the joy they give
but for the impression that they lend: street-
smart fashionable lawyer who can please
herself in bright, empty rooms with no soft
edge: tempered steel, glass. My daughter. Mine.

Tell of what else about this place is mine,
the scum on the sill, the horrid wet songs
of cheap plumbing, of the grease-shine on soft
sour food the doctors ordered to give
my intestines an easy way out. Please,
if you would be my senses, recall streets

have cracked pavement in this district, that streets
are shit-stained. The city's no love of mine,
I've no wish to imagine the view. Please,
recall that I am old, cold, deaf to songs
that deny the bitterness of age. Give
me back my eyes and ears with your strange soft

words, if you would; but do not paint with soft
brush-strokes what is ugly both in the streets
and here between white-washed walls. Rather give
me the universe that should remain mine:
the world I can trust, detached from old songs,
the world I can hold in my dry hands. Please?

Describe to me a world to please my soft
fatty heart that longs for new songs, street songs.
Give me what's mine: the honest taste of dust.

I can truly find no technical way to fault you; I've no opinion on any of that. So I've decided to look at the meaning and lend my thoughts and responses.

I read this once, and I'm sure I didn't get it. I almost went to read other critiques, but paused, clicked Post Reply, and read it thrice more, just soaking it in. I don't think the delayed understanding at all detracts from the piece's beauty--rather, it sharpens it. When one must read more than once to get the image, the end result is clearer than it might have been, the impression three times burnt and interconnected in our minds.

That said, I like it. I enjoy poetry that forces my gears to grind. And that's a rarity. Not all flowers and sunshine and teenage angst. Ironically, that somewhat reflects the theme of your piece.

I believe you may be asking us, all us poets, to recount not the dull, brightness of days, but the dark and clammy truths to life which you can no longer hide from. No longer can the dirt of the earth be hidden by an imaginary veil of emerald grass; all that is is new, fresher, better, without that guise.

And I like that. It's a message not oft see. In these days poems are all about the same things. One-dimensional feelings put forth under one-dimensional gazes, connections shallow so even the freshest scholar of literature may come to it, and in a single reading unmask all the meaning laid into it. You have a sort of vagueness and ambiguity that is defined by its amazing sharpness and focus if you look at it exactly the right way. Like turning a piece of metal from its width to its depth, so thin, that it acts as a laser to the meaning, of only you can get it perfectly aligned. It's a puzzle, of sorts. A poem and a challenge; find the truth. there would be nothing learned if we knew what was meant immediately; then it is simply a restatement of what one already knows. Thoughts so different and so well-expressed require more than one viewing to impress an image faithfully to memory. And that's good.

In short, I like it.

Thanks,
Tanner John Evans

Post Scriptum: Also, I didn't at all notice the repetition of anything but please. It all seemed to fit. Perhaps because I was reading for understanding, and the concepts seemed to notch right into the greater work.

I greatly enjoyed the sense of repetition in this piece - (of course, that's naturally how a sestina is,) but I think the way you strung everything together; i.e. building the phrases upon each other to paint the picture and drive the meter was quite good - it worked well, and I enjoyed the imagery.

The only thing I can say that got me a bit was the jumping between thoughts. Of course, I won't expect you to take that seriously at all, since I am only writing from a sleep-deprived state at 3:39 a.m.

Overall I think it's quite wonderful, and I really enjoyed reading this piece. I will keep an eye out for anything else you might post. Thank you.

I... wow, guys. It's really gratifying to get this much response (if a little bemusing, given the timegap. XD) Thank you all so much; I will try to edit this and give it a proper rehaul as soon as I resurface from the Land of AP testing.