The Moon Calls off the Intervention

Hello germs and dams, I have a confession to make before you read this. This, save for String Theory, is my first serious submission on this site. As in, I spent time on this and refined it and had others read it and then wrote different drafts and then revised it more; rather than you know, just writing it in 5 minutes or less and just tossing it up! (clearly you have to just eviscerate my work now, right?)

So please, please review this and tell me what you think this is about, amongst all other normal things in a review. I don't care how you go about doing it, please do it if you feel so compelled to review! Formatting was especially important to this poem, so it's a file attachment. I will remove this attachment at a later time, so keep that in mind.

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written 2/18/2011
reposted4/16/2011

Hey Mr. Mustard.

Normally I'd precede this review with a disclaimer, but it's not necessary this time.

This went completely over my head. I'm not an expert on poetry, so all I can do is comment on what made sense to me. Which, admittedly, was not a whole lot.

homefriendsdreamsgrasscarcash

Loved this. It rolls off the tongue amazingly well, even when read silently to oneself.

I only caught a couple references in there, such as the end of the last ice age at 10,000 BCE, but was unable to link them to an overall message. I'm not sure if that is a testament to the complexity and depth of your poetry or a knock against it. I would very much like to offer you come sort of constructive criticism, but since I have failed to find the meaning in the poem, I am unable to do so.

Thanks for the opportunity to read it, however. If you'd be willing to give me a second chance to give some criticism another time, I'd love to do so.

--D

Thanks Bus, we already communicated in messages so I haven't got much in response.

I appreciate your efforts and welcome as many opinions, approaches, whatever as you like.

Hi MMM, I really enjoyed this. You've chosen your words with enough care and injected the piece with enough individuality that I had a terrible time find real criticisms to offer, so most (all) of this will just be my interpretation of the poem.

Your beginning lines suggest an interplay between dual dual natures (friend/fiend, better half/worse half). This creates a very interesting situation, as the absence of the narrator's "better half" can be taken in both positive and negative light. My interpretation was that the worsening of the narrator's character actually allowed him to confront his alcoholism in a way that wouldn't have been possible with his better half around.

I also find the use of "dance" in the second line intriguing. Fist-fighting was the first thing that came to mind for me, but the musical aspect of dance suggests an elegance, as if the narrator is interacting with this demons in a way that has become well-rehearsed over the years. This idea is into the section in parentheses that follows, showing that his demons have been trying to tell the narrator something, but rather than taking note, he pushes that information away. The fact that these messages are "packed away neatly" smacks of procrastination, a promise that someday they will be needed, just not quite yet.

The references to a scarred and angry liver are the first direct hints at the narrator's history of alcoholism. He seems to push all of the responsibility to external forces (even though they are inside him (read: liver and demons)) by claiming that his problems stem from the hate of his liver and the hate of his live stems from the demons in control of him.

The next bit seems to go into a butterfly-effect type of idea, which transitions nicely into the following section. In the same way that the rending of the rock of a mountain creates the destructive cascade of an avalanche, the referenced murder seems to have sent the narrator's reason crashing down, which in turn led to the same fate for his sanity. The recurring "$" signs lead me to believe that the events leading to the downfall of the narrator's sanity were deeply rooted in the pursuit of money.

And with this avalanche of sanity and reason comes the narrators ultimate surrender to the "Lord of the Flies". He offers to give up his dearest possessions, an action bathed in irony, as his pursuit of those possessions is what led him to the misery and surrender in the first place. I also appreciate that you left family out of the list of things he offers, meaning that he either doesn't have a family or he doesn't value the one he has. This fits with the personality he has displayed and explains how self-focused the narrator seems to be.

With "languagethickwithdefeatandfailure" the narrator recognizes exactly what he's doing and presses on. This is another reminder of his deepening depression and decaying sanity. Not only does he know that he's failing, he chooses to fail, which he hopes will allow him to shrug off all of the things which have been fighting and burdening him.

The narrator proceeds to run into a glaring flaw in his plan. He believes that drinking will make his questions disappear, but realizes that even if drinking is a way for him to escape, he is still left without answers as to exactly what/where he's escaping to. I interpret the nonsense syllables and punctuation that follows as a release of his frustration at the realization that he is still left searching even in his drunken state.

However, being firmly committed to his own downfall, he pushes on through his disappointment and offers up his liver as a sacrifice to his demons. He seems to have put alcohol in the place of a deity, offering it sacrifice in the hopes that it will make him happy.

"Heaven's Best Concoctionsince10000BCE" is another intriguing point. Thanks to Buscador, I interpreted this as a reference to the end of the last ice age. The ending of that ice age was the start of a new era in human history, and this line suggests that alcohol is such a powerful force that it has been swaying humans for all of modern history. The narrator seems to recognize this force as something greater than himself, which would explain why liquor has essentially become his god.

The poem ends with the words "makemenumbtwistmefree". This seems to be a final plea for the perceived mercy of the removal of the narrator's tortures. Just as the removal of the cap would empty the overturned bottle of its contents, the narrator wants to be drained of the emotion and turmoil that fills him. This entire poem seems to be a drunken prayer for the release that is failure. The narrator simultaneously recognizes alcohol as the creator of his problems, but also as his savior from those problems. (What a good f(r)iend)

I'm sorry that I didn't actually offer any criticism. Hopefully you will still be able to gather some meaningful information out of the review. This is tremendous, Mustard. The piece has a depth that I haven't seen in any other poem on the site, and you've arranged each individual component of the poem in a manner which both illuminates and pull the reader deeper. Great work.