[September Contest] The Waiting Room - Poem [Edited]

(I... wasn't going to do this...write a poem off the short story I wrote, which can be found here: topic69490.html. But I got bored and wrote a poem anyway, and so I'm posting it up. I don't think it's any good... actually, lol, but here it is anyway. ^^)

He sheds the biscuit colored shell
that reclines on his black-gloved palm--
Black like being
color-blind.
Except,
when he fissures open
the oatmeal bark,
there appears a verdant pistachio.
We stay in the waiting room,
and the kernel flakes onto his fabric.

He struggles with the beige-tinged shell
that resists his black-gloved fingers--
Black like being
a neutral.
Except,
the hull does not chink open,
and there is no verdurous pistachio.
We stay in the waiting room
and the treat remains closed away.

Hi Hibiscus! Are you kidding? Of course it's good! You can't keep thinking so negatively! Now, I'm going to edit this so you can be confident of your potential chance of winning.

Hibiscus wrote:Biscuit colored shell,
reclining on his black-gloved palm [quote=red]--[/color]
Black like being
color blind;
except,
when he fissures open
that oatmeal bark,
there is a verdant pistachio.
We stay in the waiting room,
and the kernel flakes onto the fabric.
Soon it is just
the nut and the ninja,
and then it is hand to mouth.

Well. I took out that first comma, which I highlighted in blue. You have to understand that any good poetry reader will pause at the end of a line anyway -- that's what the enjambment is for -- so you don't need to place a comma there. I added a bit of punctuation in red, just for the sake of flow.

Overall, I thought the poem was very pretty, though not the sort of thing you would be able to understand without the story. I'm not sure how the poems are going to be judged, but I might work on making a bit more of any independent piece; I mean, you can understand most of Lewis Carrol's poems, even though they are part of either Through the Looking Glass or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

I must say, you used the enjambment very well. I'm not usually fond of poems that don't have much rhyme or reason, as it were, when it comes to line placement, so I applaud you on making it work.

Keep writing, and I hope you place!

- Abigail

Ay, ay, ay. I just wrote a whole long, intricate, helpful review, only to find that Internet Explorer couldn't display the webpage. I hate it when that happens.

So, I guess I'll go through and redo my corrections ...

Hibiscus wrote:Biscuit colored shell,
reclining on his black-gloved palm --
Black like being
color-blind;
except,
when he fissures open
that oatmeal bark,
there is a verdant pistachio.
We stay in the waiting room,
and the kernel flakes onto the fabric.
Soon it is just
the nut and the ninja,
and then it is hand to mouth.

Okay. I highlighted the first comma in blue because any good poetry reader will pause at the end of the line anyway -- that's really the whole purpose of enjambment.

As you can see, I edited some punctuation in red, just to make it flow better. Also, I highlighted the word "is" in red. The word "is" happens to be the most commonly used verb in the English language. (Notice how I just shyed away from using that word?) It lacks description. It merely signifies that something exists. Blah. Try to think of another verb to replace it, and put more description in its wake.

I've found that this poem doesn't really make sense if you haven't read the short story. You may notice that most of Lewis Carrol's poems make sense standing alone, even though they are either a part of Through the Looking Glass or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I might try to make this poem a bit more independent.

I must admit that you've done a very nice job with the enjambment. I'm not usually too fond of poems that have seemingly no rhyme or reason, as it were, when it comes to line placement, so I applaud you for making it work.

Keep writing, and I hope you place!

- Abigail