Yellow

A/N: So I've decided to make a poetry thread for the poems I write, seeing as I write far too many to
be posted individually. You can check up here every week or so; I'm sure I'll have something new. I've
titled this collection in honor of Hannah.

--

granny

pinching fingers –
old sweater with the embroidery.
you smell of pills and dentures,
wearing your best skin
like a funeral suit.

gizzard throat –
the old dusty words, dug up, unearthed:
cracked and mildewed heirlooms and the sunspotty
crinklebacked photographs, dated, summarized on the back.
you come bearing musty rot and tomes of
stomachless stories, as vaguely connected as
constellations.

the yellow piano keys, bedding down
like virgins, playing the same songs
and the sloughing skin – you marry away
your youth like a promised daughter.
your thumbtips are so porous with needlewounds
that you have no need for tinheaded thimbles.

peachfuzz –
godless smile breaks across an onlychild face
you come stirring up potions and gossip like a negress
crooked fingers roosting, the nosing terrier
at your feet, and grandpa at your side, snoozing
and papery, long fingers cogged and meshed.
you smile

and arrange the quilt squares deliberately
sewing up your favorite children,
and the old whitesuited movie stars, and the small, plotted garden.
each stitch is a vengeance.
each stitch tucks away a secret, a bitterness, a complaint
like a sleeping child.

Cantelope

1

dusk settles in like a pilgrim --
dark, planetary face, a marriage
of horizon and constellation.
paddies of stars: we wade through them
like ricefarmers, harvesting.
we pick the sky clean of its dreams,
nits from the hair of god,
and eat them like apes.

2

watermelon juice dribbling off lip, off chin.
sulphuric crack and knuckle of skitter-eyed firecrackers.
trees bend under their fruit like migrants, and we
pick the tomatoes straight off the vine in the skinny garden and eat them,
warm, sundrunk, offered like alms,
we walk hand in hand
barefoot.

summer infests our attics.

3

I take a step back, appraise you,
in the moonlight, your body sickles.
your hair smells of motoroil and rising dough and grass seed,
milky skin, pulled tight like a corset;
we curl under the bony, nibbled night
our eyes downcast, nervous, your face hidden
by the compartmentalized night like a priest in a confessional.
we whisper – visitors under painted ceilings.

the night is full of cast-off computations and dead
literature – leftovers. we breath easy, finally
our fingertips touch, transmitting, broadcasting
and we orbit around the obvious
like abandoned satellites.

4

the creeping hayfever, perishing sun
shades the sky after a thunderstorm the color of canteloupe.

You seem mainly to be writing about sensation, the look and feel of different things.

Story wise...there is none, beyond an in the moment theme your using to keep the whole thing in relevance.

You have some great images in it dont get me wrong, but really its all along the same lines as far as content goes.

I like how you handled all this however, but I'd rather you go on to fully develop a story, not a situation.

Hi Kylan! June here!

This is a wonderful idea. I'll definitely keep an eye on this thread to look out for updates.

For this first poem, granny, I really enjoyed the familiar voice and tone that you used. I do agree with Eric; you write mainly based on sensation to create an entire picture-- I think you do it excellently. You always seem to show us at least a fragment of a story in your work.

In the first stanza of granny, I think that the word the can be eliminated before embroidery. Using the makes us expect more information and details [about the sweater] to come after, but without it, we're not expecting much, if that makes any sense?

I found that this poem is quite like Josephsdotter in some indirect ways, such as family memories and heirlooms.

The closing of the poem is excellent. In the previous stanzas when you describe, you seem to be spanning further to catch everything that is needed to describe what you are saying; here, I feel that you didn't reach as far; almost as if you were staying in a close range, pulling the pieces together. (Which by the way, the reaching and not reaching that I just mentioned translate into awesome sauce) You've done a beautiful job on this.


- - -

For Cantelope, the first thing I want to raise is your title's spelling? I understand that a misspelling can be used for style, local color and such, but I'm not sure if that was intentional? I can't help but mention that the melon is spelled Cantaloupe.

For this one, my favorite stanza is the first; it is beautiful, and though your poem shares the same unique, descriptive style of imagery that is used in the following stanzas, I think the first one comes off most beautifully.


That being said, I love the poem as a whole. I absolutely love the way you have captured summer. It's seemingly a very personal interpretation of the season (if that makes any sense?) and it has an extremely wonderful effect on the audience.

I could look at this poem and say that it's complex, but at the same time, I think it's very, very simple. Beautiful job with that. This joins list of my favorite Kylan poems.


Keep writing! Your work is amazing.

June

Also, I hope I made sense.

Kylan,

I've been meaning to critique this for a while. Well, ever since I saw that you posted it. Mainly because I'm kindaalittleokmaybealot in love with your poetry. So, yesterday, I began to critique it, wrote up the whole thing, pressed submit, and my computer crashed. So. I was quite angry and didn't want to come back to critique this anymore. So, I'm sorry if I don't make this one as long as my other one. It's not my fault. ^_^

GRANNY

pinching fingers –

old sweater with the embroidery.

you smell of pills and dentures,

wearing your best skin

like a funeral suit.

Like prose, poetry should have this great, fantastic hook at the beginning. After all, if I'm not compelled to read this poem to the end, I won't. I'd read the first stanza and probably quit with this beginning. Pinching fingers. To me, that doesn't describe a granny very much. I don't know. It sounds more like your Aunt Betty, except that would be pinching cheeks. Snoink wrote up this article for me a couple days ago, and I've been relentlessly studying it. If you haven't read it already, I really advise you to do it. It's absolutely fantastic.

In some of the poems she quotes, they all have these wonderful opening lines. Here are a few:

Robert Frost wrote:He saw her from the bottom of the stairs.

It grabs your attention right away, doesn't it?

Susan Wood wrote:Morning broke like an egg

Ann Standford wrote:The first blow caught me sideways, my jaw

And my personal favorite:

John Donne wrote:FOR God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love;

I love these lines because they instantly hook you. Right? Pinching cheeks doesn't quite hook me.

and the old whitesuited movie stars

Interesting line. I like the whietsuited, but wouldn't it be better if it were "blackandwhite suited"? I don't know. Just a suggestion.

Granny was pretty well. It was a mellow poem. Nothing too brilliant about it. It's a nice read, but not one that I'd like to reread all over again. It's simple and nice. Other than the beginning line, I didn't have any problems with it. It flowed nicely, and worked out good.

-

CANTELOPE

Why is firefox saying that cantelope isn't a word?? That's really weird. Anyway.

dusk settles in like a pilgrim,
dark, planetary face, a marriage
of horizon and constellation,
paddies of stars, we wade through them
like ricefarmers, harvesting.
we pick the sky clean of its dreams,
nits from the hair of god
and eat them like apes.

Here you have an excellent opening sentence. Nothing wrong with this stanza. I really enjoyed the line, "we pick the sky clean of its dreams".

watermelon juice dribbling off lip, off chin
sulphuric crack and knuckle of skitter-eyed firecrackers
trees bend under their fruit like migrants, and we
pick the tomatoes straight off the vine in the skinny garden and eat them,
warm, sundrunk, offered like alms,
we walk hand in hand
barefoot,

summer infests our attics.

That bolded line is quite a mouthful. Seriously. It's also very hard to say, and sounds quite atrocious. There's too many hard sounds in there. "Phur" in sulpuric, "ck" in knuckle, and "sk" in skitter-eyed and the "ck" in firecrackers. Those are hard sounds, and when you put a whole bunch of them together like you've one here, it's kinda hard to say and read.

I take a step back, appraise you,
in the moonlight, your body sickles.
your hair smells of motoroil and rising dough and grass seed,
milky skin, pulled tight like a sepulcher;
we curl under the bony, nibbled night
our eyes downcast, nervous, your face hidden
by the compartmentalized night like a priest in a confessional.
we whisper – mortals under celestial butresses, painted ceilings.

the night is full of cast-off computations and dead
literature – leftovers. we breath easy, finally
our fingertips touch, transmitting, broadcasting
and we orbit around the obvious
like abandoned satellites

This is nice. There isn't anything that I see that's too wrong with this. There are some nice images here that I enjoyed.

the creeping hayfever, perishing sun
coloring the sky after the thunderstorm like cantelope.

I love cantelope. It's sort of delicious.

Is there a reason that this is broken up into four groups? Seriously. I don't think it did anything for the poem, other than slow me down when I got to the end of a section. I don't think it improved the poem at all, or helped it out. Unless there's a reason that they are they, they should probably go. It doesn't make your work look anymore sophisticated with the numbers. And if I'm wrong, go ahead and leave them there.

Overall, this is a pretty nice poem. Very pretty.

-Jared

EDIT:

June wrote:For Cantelope, the first thing I want to raise is your title's spelling? I understand that a misspelling can be used for style, local color and such, but I'm not sure if that was intentional? Razz I can't help but mention that the melon is spelled Cantaloupe.

Ah. That's why firefox doesn't like how we spell cantelope. I didn't know that.

-Jared

-gigglefits- Yellow!! ! ! ! ! !!! <333 Why was I not even notified of the existence of this thread? I have just found my new home. xD I was stalking around in your 'see all Kylan's posts' and saw this 'Yellow' and I was like 'teehee, must go!' So here I am~

Alright.

I. Granny

wearing your best skin

like a funeral suit.

I think this is a strong, beautiful image to start the poem with. In fact, this first stanza is strong, because it brings forward all the traditional imagery associated with old people {for lack of a better term}. Sagging skin, pills, dentures, and their needly hobbies. You have it all and wrap it up with the appropriate ending -- they're going to die soon. In any case, this stanza is strong, but I can't help feeling like you've grouped everything traditional into one and left the rest for your own, more original descriptions.

On one hand, I'd think that mixing these in would even out the accessibility to most readers, but on the other hand, I think it works well by giving the readers what they're comfortable with, then exploring ideas they may not even have considered. You should consider which path will be most beneficial for you in hooking the readers. Some might get lost after the first stanza or two and not stick around for the final words.

the old dusty words, dug up, unearthed:

So, digging something up and unearthing it seem basically the same thing. Ditch one of them and find another action that fits with what you're trying to convey in the poem. Something like rinsed off, wiped clean, buffed. Something maybe involving a rag instead of a shovel. Or, I don't know, categorized? Organized? ^_^ Which ever fits the essence you want the words to have.

and the sloughing skin – you marry away

your youth like a promised daughter.

Oooh. So, this was the first line where the lack of some punctuation tripped me up. I noticed that it comes again in later stanzas, but it didn't stick out in earlier ones, if it was present at all. In any case, this image, for me, is kind of missing an action, unless it is in fact linked to the line about the piano {yay, yellow piano keys, by the way. missing their ivory or just soiled? either way. <3}. How is the grandmother accomplishing this loss of youth? I don't... I don't know. I might just be missing something.

you come stirring up potions and gossip like a negress

I don't know. For me, this kind of hit the image that you had consistent in the poem from the side and sent it spinning out of control, off of the path you'd laid for yourself. Potions and gossip? What happened to the soft, familiar, old things? Potions are intense and gossip, especially when in the same sentence as potions {and negress, for that matter}, seems malicious. Where'd my nice granny go?

and the old whitesuited movie stars, and the small, plotted garden.

each stitch is a vengeance.

each stitch tucks away a secret, a bitterness, a complaint

like a sleeping child.

God, Kylan. This is love. The movie stars. The garden. The sleeping child. The only little problem I had is, again, the hint at something rougher. If this is something you intended to keep in the poem, maybe hint at it earlier so it doesn't seem like something that just evolved from writing and wasn't intended when you began, because the rest of the poem is so solid. <3

Over all, when you go back to edit this, look at the poem as a message and find out how you have to rearrange words or images to get that message across to the reader in the best way. =D I love this poem, though, especially the lovely little nuggets before the dashes. Peachfuzz for sure.

II. Cantelope

Ho. Ly. Crap. That first section? Absolutely incredible. Your imagery in that section is superb. It might be because I'm biased and any mention of rice paddies or anything vaguely Asian makes me super happy, but I can /see/ the images in my mind /very/ clearly. EXCELLENT.

I also can't help but love the second part. Where the first was vast and dark like the sky, the second brought it in to the story, the people, and the specific, beautiful actions of summer. It's lovely that I can hear the tree frogs off in the distance as I read this poem, too, because right now, I am living this poem. I am interested to see if the same familiarity would strike me if this poem were read in winter.

Now... the third section I do not love so much. Actually, the second stanza in it is quite beautiful, because of the soft staticky imagery of transmission. The first line in there, though, has the same problem that the first stanza does. It feels forced to me and full of clunky vocabulary words that are elegant and poetic in and of themselves, but they don't feel the same to me as the first two sections did. Looking at the last section, too, I see that the soft, understated poetry carried through there, and the only place you lost it was in the third section.

I don't quite understand why or how this happened, though. The long words suffocate the imagery, and the only part I'm really partial to is this line:

your hair smells of motoroil and rising dough and grass seed,

It's beautiful. It's your usual fantastic, sensational imagery, because it brings us directly to the feeling. How can the reader feel something when faced with the word 'buttresses'? Celestial, yes, but tell us about the simple summer stars. We don't need built up walls of big words and winding sentences. Stick with the tone of the subject. Summer is too hot to get all wrapped up in words like 'sepulcher' and 'compartmentalized'.

The taste of romance that the last part of the second stanza in the third part, though, is enough to let me know that you must keep the intent of the third section. You should still describe the interaction. Just in a lighter way. Once you've done that, this will be a phenomenal poem, Kylan. I'm in love with it.

PM me if you have any questions or anything! =D

-Hannah-

Edit;

There's too many hard sounds in there. "Phur" in sulpuric, "ck" in knuckle, and "sk" in skitter-eyed and the "ck" in firecrackers. Those are hard sounds, and when you put a whole bunch of them together like you've one here, it's kinda hard to say and read.

I would just like to beg you to keep these sounds. I thought that was the point of the line: to use the sounds that sound harsh like fireworks to reinforce the imagery. However, it's up to you if you choose to keep it for that reason or to smooth it for easier reading. ^_^

rooftop

it is time –
that minefield of freckles
has appeared again across the ridges of your face
and my fingers creep across your cheeks
like timid soldiers.

the smell of cut grass clots in the air
like a cholesterol and the roofshingles dig into our backs
and the dusk moves in noisily (traffic and those last songbirds
clinging to the thin stanzas of sunlight)–
a new, unwelcome neighbor.
stray hair sticks to your face; I peel it away and

you whisper in my ears about the future –
an ugly legend – about the days that lie outside
the summer wombs and for a moment I hate you
and I look away and the novice stars
encrypt themselves into the blue deepening
like binary numbers.

september holds you ransom –
I hold you tight and wish to god that
the crickets and the dillydallying sun
could fossilize you here.

Wow. Like, you don't even understand. This is how I'm feeling. This is what I'm going through right now, twisted a bit, but the emotion is still there. The thing is, though, that it's not strong enough, after reading this through once. I get the shades of sadness, but I don't get that ache of desperation that would warrant the last stanza's message. I don't know where this came from for you, but if it came from this feeling, I know you can bring that out. Maybe it'll take a little more writing. I might just be biased because of my own experiences, but I think that an emotion like that could definitely use a little more description. If you can pull it out, I guess. ^___^ Anyways, other than that general, silly plea, let's get on to what you /do/ have.

that minefield of freckles
has appeared again across the ridges of your face
and my fingers creep across your cheeks
like timid soldiers.

This poem is about the moment and taking everything from the present to try to store it away for later, because you know it's going to end. Kylan, why on earth would you refer to the past? It's about the present. xD In short, I think that 'that minefield of freckles appears again' rather than 'has appeared', because it's more immediate.

The second stanza is my love. I love it. The situation, the setting, it's beautifully set up. That's all you need to set it up.

stray hair sticks to your face; I peel it away and

But here, I don't know. Just reading it through, I feel like it would read better 'stray hairs' and 'peel them away'. It's just some little, insignificant thing, but if you wanted to put meaning behind it, you could imply that the narrator pays attention to every single detail, thinking of each hair as an individual rather than a group. But on the other hand, that might be paying too much attention to little things and not enough to the emotion. Depends on what flavor twist you want to have.

an ugly legend

Definitely. This is a perfect phrase.

and I look away and the novice stars
encrypt themselves into the blue deepening
like binary numbers.

Why do you spend more time on the setting here? I mean, I like it, and it is realistic. I look away because I can't handle it, need to think about something else, but that's not quite obvious here. Maybe, to make this more about emotion than about setting, you could say 'i need to look away', or say something like that. I don't know. This is almost too personal for me to critique very well. <_<;

The last stanza, though, is great. I just wish there were more. This poem is so good. xD

PM me with questions, love~

-Hannah-

at the neville family's hayfarm

skinny shirtless boy whose skin sucks around his ribcage
revealing every line and contour – the ribs stick out like tongues
and his arms are knobbed by elbows. he smiles a hidden smile –
one that speaks of bullfrogs and the handful of unripe plums
and some unspeakable atrocity that has occurred down by the irrigation pond.

frustrated haycart, lumbering and lagging uphill
like a reluctant child and the four grown men sitting atop the bales
the coronated kings – sweat lines and hayseed on their faces
hands gloved and their skin red as sunburnt adobe.
the wife of one of the men in the cab of the close-set pickup truck

yoking the haycart, sits with a baby in the crook of her arm
fat and industrious as a worker bee and the radio turned
to a scratchy remembrance and the low sunlight sneaking in
like a stowaway. we keep walking to the irrigation pond,
which sits flat and green in the hayfield, hoarding the new dusk.

the unripe plums on the overhanging tree are bald as sucked thumbs, sour
and tongue-numbing, and we stand at the perilous banks
and the dog plows into the water which doesn't even go up to his neck.
bloated, soulless bullfrogs plop waterside, grey and warty as old noses –
we listen to their lovesounds and the wildflowers bob tiredly
and i close my eyes for a moment.

Gosh, Kylan! I love your summer poems. They're beautiful and have exactly the taste of summer that I love and want and need and actually miss out on so I need them to read and imagine and feel. AND YOU GOT ME caught in your 'and and and' like the poem.

Which I liked. I loved that. Because with the images you portrayed, the 'and's' seemed appropriate. You just see one thing after the other and describe them as they come. So, I'm sure you already know this, but that was a good choice. =]

Nothing in the poem really stopped me until I got here:

low sunlight sneaking in
like a stowaway.

Here, I just wanted a little extension of this simile. Some more imagery. Like a stowaway creeping in between the piles of hay, fitting between the straw, something. I don't know. I imagined yellow here, then thought of the yellow fog cat from Eliot. I don't know. I wanted a little something here, and when I was reading, I thought it was even more important than reminding me we were all headed towards the pond. I love the thought of 'hoarding the dusk' though. That was beautiful.

bloated, soulless bullfrogs plop waterside, grey and warty as old noses –

I thought this was weird. I was reading this and I didn't want that last comparison. I kind of just wanted you to say they were grey and warty and let me imagine them. The noses didn't really fit. -shrugs- I don't know, it's probably just personal taste, but I would like more of that simplicity as the poem winds down. I mean, the rest of it is perfectly simple too, and I love it.

I really don't have that much to say about this poem. The description is lush and fantastic and I can see it in my head the whole time.

Favorite phrase, though:

the radio turned
to a scratchy remembrance

Ah, you're wonderful.

PM me with questions, as always. I'll get to your fiction posting when I get back from ice cream. I think. xD

-Hannah-

Kyyllaaaan!

rooftop. It's love.

I mean, that poem is just gorgeous in every way. It's so pretty and perfect and wonderful; it's amazing.

It's so sweet and realistic and wonderful and beautiful and I can't offer any sort of anything constructive on it. It's terribly beautiful.

The end of rooftop was beautiful, but it felt as if the narrator's actions by the end were halfhearted, almost as if he(?) still partially hates her(?).

And, at the neville family's farm is so so so wonderful. My favorite part is the second stanza-- I'm not sure why I like it so much, but it's totally wonderful.

These last two are so summer-y and amazing; anyone (who hasn't been confined to the city) can relate to this tone of summer that you write in.

Beautiful job, an absolutely amazing collection here. =)

Juniper

morning over cold tea

the morning is full of dead breath and tactless birdsong
blue teacups squat on the tablecloth,
wide and humorless as winking eyes and
you enter unannounced, frozen and stitch-lipped:
a headhunter's shriveled prize.

you sip your tea and we split down the middle –
a cell in mitosis, amoebic division under a microscope plate,
our unspoken words hang in the air like papal smoke
and we eye each other on and off,
eyelids lowered and raised like rung churchbells.

abalone sunlight, you cup it in your hands like a broken shell
and you scalp the silence with your niceties.
we talk about frivolous, empty things,
words calculated and precise and
simulated.

whatever happened to the fat baby, pink and lovely
as an oyster-tongue, or the handsqueeze under the eaves
on a hot summer nights that would stifle us like ether
or the stolen, horny glances, excited and staticky
as electron orbitals?

the rain sympathizes and the clouds creep in
on their purple bellies, like ashamed dogs.
strange, foreign thoughts knock on our door
dressed in a black, legal suits and carrying
a briefcases filled with agreements and ugly, spinstery signatures.

Hi Kylan!


Kylan doesn't get worse, he only gets better?

In morning over cold tea, I think that the first and third stanzas are my favorite. They're so easy to relate to and understand, so well versed and overall just beautiful.

In the first stanza this

wide and humorless as winking eyes and

brought to mind the image of the mouth of a cup opening and closing like an eye. I love that bit of imagery, but I don't think that winking eyes fits so well, because (it's hard to explain, really. >.>) a winking eye can definitely be humorous. Like, it's hard to explain in words... I have what I want to say in my head, but I can't put it in the text box. <.<

Nevertheless! The closing of this poem was absolutely wonderful; it sustained the whole grave feeling that this poem carried and brought on an effective closing. I love how your poems focus on the main picture, and narrow down to all the trivial things that surround-- I guess that's what makes them so easy to relate to?

Beautiful, beautiful work, Kylan.

June

mourning over cold tea

the fingers snared around the teacup
like button-hooks and the girl sitting pink
and wilted on the capillaried wood, dress spreading
around her like a pandemic.

pale face, moondusted with cosmetics and grace
-ful abalone lips, her eyes downcast, like shillings
in a wishing well. the tea steam winds up –
contortionist, infiltrating like squid-ink.

the squat teapot and the sticks of incense
and the smell of dead fish and ocean.
outside the fishingboats slump and nod
anonymous in the foglight as secret admirers.

the seat across from her is empty and the tea
grows cold, like a loveless heart. he is not coming.
the dock falsely announces his approach a thousand times.
she folds her hand around the teacup

and listens to the sea mourn,
jealous, gray coral
and the taxed
sunlight.

misplaced, he is a fine memory.

Kylan! So, so, so sorry for leaving you in the middle of our conversation. My computer quit and I couldn't get it to work.

So! You get my 750th review, not that it'll say anything worth the review. It's just worth pointing out because it awards me my next star.

To start, I especially love how your two last poems are so similar, and so different. Really amazing touch there, Ky.

I especially like how this poem is built out of fragments. They appear to be full sentences with heavy description, but most of these aren't complete thoughts-- at first that stood out as odd to me, but in the end, when I finally saw the full picture, I found it very appreciative.


This

pale face, moondusted with cosmetics and grace
-ful abalone lips, her eyes downcast, like shillings

Is my favorite part. I love, love, love how you structured this so that the "ful" in graceful covers both graceful and full for the next line. Absolutely wonderful


Such a beautiful, bittersweet picture you've painted her, Kylan. Most definitely a wonderful poem.

Beautiful, Beautiful work.

June