Nephilim

Spoiler

Kaitlin's and my entry for the poetry pairs contest.

I used to think we’d reach
heaven when we died.
I trusted the stained-glass myths about
cathedrals and golden clouds and
(god)—but myths are nothing but
dressed up lies, and now
you are my god and I’m nailed to the
earth, burning in the brightness of your
glory.

Sometimes, when the fire
licks too close at my lips, I fly to the city
and crouch at the top of the Williams Tower.
I like to slide my toes over the edge
so I can see the imprint of your footsteps on the sidewalk below.
I savor the moment when I let my foot slip;
and then it’s only the flash of incandescent windows
rising ever higher beside me. Those seconds
before my wings catch, when I’ve let myself
believe I’m dying, are the only ones when I feel
human again.

But I’ll always come home for you, my dear,
even though I can’t help but whisper "liar" and "slut"
into your ear when you sleep with your arm
around his waist. I like to imagine my voice
reverberating through your hollow skull
until you dreams become an endless blur of falling;
I float just out of reach, my eyes closed
against your screams for help,
his kiss still bleeding from your lips.

I know you don’t understand.
You tell your friends I’d want you to be with him,
but maybe you don’t remember how
every Tuesday, I’d come home early and watch
as you made your pies, molding the dough into
something simple-sweet that you could love;
and maybe you don’t remember how you told me
that I could never be replaced. What a lie,
darling—I’ve seen the way he touches you.

Sometimes, when he’s gone out,
when you’re alone and I’m alone with you,
I sit on the edge of the kitchen sink and watch you peel apples,
golden skins glowing in the morning light.
In those moments I forget that the space between us
can’t be measured in tablespoons or quarts,
and when I ask about your day your hands don’t even
pause in the movements you’ve refined and perfected
through years of delicate crusts and sugared fillings.

And when I bend to kiss the sugar from your lips and
all I find is cold glass,
I realize that in my rush to get to heaven
I lost my only chance at tasting God.

Dear Nightshade and Kaitlin,

You make me vomit.

Love, Lumi

I really think you were after my own heart with this with the bible references and the death and the angst and--oh God I just drooled. I'll give you a full review soon, when I'm not crying over finals.

-Lumilad

Expect to be maimed cruelly, brutally, and without notice of your well being. All for the benefit of both of you. I promise I'll get to this EVENTUALLY. And I'll be nice and detailed. : )

You guys are made of loveliness and joy and poetries.

Wow guys... This is truly spectacular. Poetry is such a hard thing to nail down, but you've done it perfectly. There was nowhere that it didn't flow or used any awkward wording. What an amazing poem. Well done.

until you dreams become an endless blur of falling;

You should be your. Only nitpick I could find.

Stunning, touching poem I absolutely loved it

~^~Chelsea~^~

OK, so the title is fantastic! At first I thought, "OK, the Nephies were giants resulting from angels and men in Genesis." The poem is obviously not about that, so I figured you were going for a myth title with heavy religious connotation since myths and god are themes in the poem. THEN I decided to google it and from wikipedia I got the etymology:

"Nephilim" (נְפִילִים) probably derives from the Hebrew root npl (נָפַל), "to fall" which also includes "to cause to fall" and "to kill, to ruin". The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon gives the meaning as "giants"[1] Robert Baker Girdlestone[2] argued the word comes from the Hiphil causative stem. Adam Clarke took it as passive, "fallen", "apostates". Ronald Hendel states that it is a passive form "ones who have fallen", equivalent grammatically to paqid "one who is appointed" (i.e. overseer), asir, "one who is bound", (i.e. prisoner) etc.[3][4]

Then it hit me, and I think this really serves for a spot on title.

Nightshade wrote:

Spoiler

Kaitlin's and my entry for the poetry pairs contest.

I used to think we’d reach
heaven when we died.
I trusted the stained-glass myths about
cathedrals and golden clouds and
(god)—but myths are nothing but I love the way you understate god in this, it reveals a lot about the narrator and comes back like a boomerang for the end.
dressed up lies, and now
you are my god and I’m nailed to the
earth, burning in the brightness of your
glory.

Perfect opening to the poem, sets the tone, doesn't leave me clueless, and created sympathy for me personally.

Sometimes, when the fire
licks too close at my lips, I fly to the city
and crouch at the top of the Williams Tower.
I like to slide my toes over the edge
so I can see the imprint of your footsteps on the sidewalk below.
I savor the moment when I let my foot slip; I like the tone here, really dark.
and then it’s only the flash of incandescent windows
rising ever higher beside me. Those seconds
before my wings catch, when I’ve let myself
believe I’m dying, are the only ones when I feel
human again.

Some of this was a little puzzling at first, but I think that worked out in this poem because it added suspense and emphasized it more when I realized what is meant later.

But I’ll always come home for you, my dear,
even though I can’t help but whisper "liar" and "slut"
into your ear when you sleep with your arm
around his waist. I like to imagine my voice
reverberating through your hollow skull
until you dreams become an endless blur of falling; Change to "your."
I float just out of reach, my eyes closed
against your screams for help,
his kiss still bleeding from your lips.

I know you don’t understand.
You tell your friends I’d want you to be with him,
but maybe you don’t remember how
every Tuesday, I’d come home early and watch
as you made your pies, molding the dough into
something simple-sweet that you could love;
and maybe you don’t remember how you told me
that I could never be replaced. What a lie,
darling—I’ve seen the way he touches you.

I love the way these last two stanzas progress towards a very bitter and spiteful perspective. I started to really get in the narrator's head and question things.

Sometimes, when he’s gone out,
when you’re alone and I’m alone with you,
I sit on the edge of the kitchen sink and watch you peel apples,
golden skins glowing in the morning light.
In those moments I forget that the space between us
can’t be measured in tablespoons or quarts, Very cool two lines
and when I ask about your day your hands don’t even
pause in the movements you’ve refined and perfected
through years of delicate crusts and sugared fillings.

And when I bend to kiss the sugar from your lips and
all I find is cold glass,
I realize that in my rush to get to heaven
I lost my only chance at tasting God.

Last stanza is a bombshell of a conclusion. Really dramatic and meaningful at the same time.

Fornicating brilliant poem! I'm glad the homepage suggested it to me.

Wow that was harsh...i wonder what drove you to write this piece? Sounds very interesting and i liked reading it...it's fillled with hate mixed with adoration. Very unique.

*laughs shakily* my chest is aching really bad now. You two did really really great. I hope u guys win something, because it deserves nothing less.

You were obviously in a very dark mind frame when you layed down those words,frankly if your words were a painting in an art gallery,the only people praising would be death mental fanatics and me,but yo your writing is ill(ustrative) i could really learn tonnes from you.CUDOS!

I really liked this! Dark, seductive, and intriguing, it grasped my attention from the first stanza. Can't wait to read more
Always-Writer

I have the time to leave a quick opinion.

The problem with this poem lies in a simple concept we all struggle with "show, don't tell", and really a better way KISS, "keep it simple stupid".

As this poem is, you tell a story which if adjusted, could be prose instead. The images, which are erratic amongst the abundant speaking voice, are redundant and obvious. Cliche if you will, making the revelation of the ending quite a chore to get to. As for the following

"stained glass myths" and "incandescent windows"

by themselves could be powerful, but you use them as elaborations with...clouds and cathedrals. How is that interesting? Basically this poem becomes an inner diffusion of "woe, woe, woe the world is not as I thought, now I'll get naughty and fret a little over what I lost" and it gets lost in this dialogue between characters that are simply means to an end of making a voice, but what else of them?

There's a gamut of "I/he/she/you/" in this poem that becomes a crutch to the point the poetic aspects are almost not-present. Take the fourth stanza, where the progression is started, carried, and ended not on sensory details and imagery, but in this near dialogue that is dotted by an image or two.

Don't think this should be discarded entirely, the idea tackled here and completed is impressive enough. But I see discord in the poetic and the prosaic coming together. Hope this helps.

Lad and Kaitlin,

Crit will be here, sometime soon

Lad and Kaitlin, I promised this ages ago and I think I still owe Kaitlin a review. So, I thought I'd drop in on this. I didn't chew up my words for you lovelies, as requested. So let us get started, shall we?

Okay, so I was really disappointed by this coming out of you two, who each have shown the capacity of being pretty good poets on your own. With a developped sense of style, but combined together, this piece is a washout to me.

It's smothered and pushed down and goes to some dependancy on generically worded ideas.
This poem has no idea what it's saying, where it's going or what it's doing to get there.

Not only that, you took the care to carefully and pain stakingly carve the outer shell of this poem that the insides spilt onto the floor and dried out while waiting, completely forgotten. The thing is, the design isn't that great.

It really bothers me actually, the fact I know you two can do far far better but you lost yourselves in mindless rambing length, generic imagery and words, as well as a voice that's flat and unchanging, droning on some low note that isn't pleasant to listen too.
Yea, the idea is there, nephilim, cool. It's the execution of the idea you guys had that is the down fall, because it's a good idea, lots of ways to work off of it. Because, at this point, all I'm getting is pretention and mild angst backed by religious references.

Some parts work, some parts kind of flow well together but cumatively it's white on white, it doesn't have any feet to stand on whatsoever.
One thing, that I thought was the weakest was the fact this is a poem that should have been approached subtly, cautiously to avoid stereotypes and write a piece anyone would like yes? But instead:

I used to think we’d reach
heaven when we died.
I trusted the stained-glass myths about
cathedrals and golden clouds and
(god)—but myths are nothing but
dressed up lies, and now
you are my god and I’m nailed to the
earth, burning in the brightness of your
glory.

Shoving the religious references down our throats isn't going to get us to appreciate it all the more. Not at all, it's like someone openly and obnoxiously advocating that their religion is better then so and so's religion so you should come and appreciate it. In the poem's case, may as well have attached a big flashy sign to it. Next thing about this stanza - It's ever so bland. Yes you use words, powerful ones, like burning and brightness and golden and nailed etc. And majestic settings, cathedrals with stain-glassed windows, earth, the clouds. But clumped together without much purpose or description makes it one note. It's like where you're constantly yelling how glorious and big something is before running to the next and your reader is left in the courtyard. Without any sort of supporting imagery, we don't get that sense, the words are forgotten as soon as the poem is over. Why? Because you haven't given me the chance to savour every word, the picture that you're supposed to paint in my head is made of my own splotchy attempts at creating the picture you had clear in your head. What's the point of giving a dog a never-ending leash? Reign us in, show us what you want us to see, before letting us loose.

All together, yes, I think people will like this poem because of the images everyone is such a fan of, but it doesn't disregard the fact that it's pretty unsteady, tilting and ready to fall, but let me not be discouraging, you guys have on your way to something eventually. I'm sure you'll do well in the contest, to which I wish you two the best of luck.

Kamas

I just loved loved loved loved this work ! It was fantastically amazing ! I love the metaphors you used in the poem..the way the mystery slowly unravels that the narrator must have died (?)...also, i loved the end =) Just wonderful ! Keep writing !