Maelstrom

Spoiler

Having some issues with this one. Chizzeck it, please. CC is welcome. Credit for reminding me of the word, "Maelstrom," goes to Spike.

The impossibility of a horizon is a bleeding nightmare,
a tornado gasping between pillars of fire,
fluctuating, ripping at charred roots
like sinews plucked between a lion’s incisors.
The mind buckles to the cobble, anchors
its self-scarred flesh to all the unshakable truths--
and they slip apart like sand in a sieve.

And there is no life in the storm,
no survivors in the ruins of this old farmhouse
where the blood of lambs is sprayed, steaming,
against the blackwood barn. And you
pray pass over me, angel and
shake with your back against the black wind.
The clouds are so thick, just one skyless mesh
of mire and memory like wildfires in the night.

To the dirt you fall, fingers splayed like knives
in paling flesh, and heave out what you can’t control.
It’s the dead man inside, a hurricane’s heart
so vicious, so desperate for disaster that it refuses
new life. This is a toxin in the vineyard, a fungal
core preparing to spore its decay.
And you pray pass over me, angel and
await the thunder

because you’re in the eye of a great storm,
the finite count of heartbeats before trauma
blares again. And you listen for the shriek
of the wind’s next slice against your face.
The only way out is through the storm,
but the dead man has you anchored,
the mind has you anchored--to no
foundation, to no steady ground.

And, eyes closed, you pray
the sun is my refuge
the light is my safe place
the sun is my refuge
thelightismysafeplace

You stand alone on a single patch of earth;
around you rages purgatory in fire and memory,
and the only way to the sun is through the storm.

"I don't even" made me . XD

The impossibility of a horizon is a bleeding nightmare,
a tornado gasping between pillars of fire,
fluctuating, ripping at charred roots
like sinews plucked between a lion’s incisors.
The mind buckles to the cobble, anchors
its self-scarred flesh to all the unshakable truths--
and they slip apart like sand in a sieve.

This is good-- but what? My mind is having a hard time grasping it.

For instance, why is the horizon an impossibility, and why is it a bleeding nightmare? I'm having difficulty in understanding that.

Also-- sinews plucked between a lion's incisors? I understand the image you're conveying here, but it makes me think of a lion plucking a deer's sinews like harp string. While the deer is still alive. (Because then, the sinews would be taut. And for some reason, the deer in my imagination isn't moving, so it's not the nightmare fuel it sounds like. Honest.)

Other than that........ very poetic.

against the blackwood barn. And you
pray pass over me, angel and
shake with your back against the black wind.

Why did you decide to separate the lines the way you did here? I'm curious.

To the dirt you fall, fingers splayed like knives
in paling flesh, and heave out what you can’t control.

Not quite understanding your imagery. Are the fingers knives that are digging into the dirt, or are they knives digging into the hand they're on, or....?


I think I like the core/spore rhyme.


I like the italic parts: the repetition of "save me, angel" and

the sun is my refuge
the light is my safe place
the sun is my refuge
thelightismysafeplace

I really like how you made the words run together here-- it shows how desperate and frightened the person is becoming. This is something I now full well-- how your thoughts speed up, and you latch on to one comforting thing and repeat it, over and over again.

Overall, this was brilliant! There were just a few spots where I was confused.

One problem with this who poem:
big words. They confuzzle me. And you have a big word in every sentance. I like the idea, I like the content. just, sometimes simple words work better than big words. keep that in mind next time your writing poetry. So just work on that. thats all i saw. good work!

This was haunting. And gorgeous. It was the type of poem that when you're done reading it, it sits there in your mind and you replay what you just read in your mind, trying to comprehend. I thank you for giving me some depth, being in english class has made me want to slam my head into the desk, and you have saved the content of my brain. But I'm getting off track. I see no errors, and your rhyme scheme was brilliant. You're phrasing was on task, and it didn't seem like it was hastily put together. It seemed like you thought it through, improved on it, and then posted it, which is my favorite type of poem to read, because it makes my job as a reviewer very easy. Thanks again, this made my day.
-Riot

LumiLumiLu. Hello thar.

So, as you know, I think that this is quite good. However, I do have to say, I think there's a great deal of excess material that's there for mood setting than anything else. Your language is quite nice, yes, but I think that you could make this poem much more concise than it is already. The second, third, and fifth stanzas don't seem to lend much to me; they have the "pass over me angel" in the second and third stanzas, and the fifth creates a sense of desperation but all in all does not seem necessary to me. However, from a subjective point of view, I really do like the imagery, so I think that if you were to simply remove some of it and maybe tighten up some corners, it would work really well.

There was also a matter of language. Sometimes, I felt like you could you could be more concise; not in the sense that we discussed last night with the removal of pronouns themselves, but the words. There are kind of a lot of them. You could, if you wanted to, probably cut out a lot of the images you have here. They're gorgeous images, don't get me wrong, but they become overwhelming in a different sense than you want them to be. Give us a couple to hang on to and attach ourselves to, and it will become that much more powerful for us.

Conceptual nitpick: your first line makes redemption or sanity absolutely impossible. But, by the end of the poem, an opportunity has presented itself (though it may seem impossible as well, the words themselves suggest otherwise). Just a quick thought.



That's about all I have to say on this one. I really, really like it, especially because I can really relate to it right now-- overall, lu, gorgeous piece.

I really did like this, particularly for two main reasons. First, your command of the english language is pretty impressive, as you were using words that I seldom remeber to extract from my muddled brain while writing. The vocabulary was rich with choice words that could have been simplified, and might have been by a less experienced writer, but thankfully were not. Even the title convays this, as the word Maelstrom has a power to it that storm, or gale simply lacks, and so I applaud you on your many word choices that left me breathless.
The second reason I enjoyed this piece was because of its mood. The mood you display to the people reading this is sufficiently dark and dramatic, which succeeds in keeping them reading exitedly till the end. This was done mostly by your sintax, and your sentence length. How long you make each sentence drastically affects the feel of the poem, and how each sentence is structured also has an effect. In further poems you write, make sure to keep this in mind, so you don't lose what you have going here.
As for what I would change about this piece, it almost seems like you were writing it as it came to you, which can work, but poems are often better if you have a general outline of the structure before you start writing. It is often helpful to the reader for understanding if you make some sort of hook between the paragraphs, because it gets pretty confusing when there is little to no transition. All of your paragraphs have a theme, but it almost seems like the themes do not correspond at all. Try to have them flow better to make it easier to follow.
One thing that confused me was the end.

And, eyes closed, you pray
the sun is my refuge
the light is my safe place
the sun is my refuge
thelightismysafeplace

You stand alone on a single patch of earth;
around you rages purgatory in fire and memory,
and the only way to the sun is through the storm.

the first thing that struck me is that the last line of the first paragraph is condensed into one incredibly long (and painful to read I might add) word. If there is a reason for this, than disregard this advice, but if it was just something you thought would be cool to throw in, I would suggest not doing it. It simply distracted me from what was awesome about the rest of the poem. the other thing was the mention of purgatory at the end. As soon as I saw this I began looking for religious parralels, but found none, and became very confused. Purgatory is sort of a waiting place to purge you of sin before heaven, so I tried to draw some sort of conclusion between that and the storm, but struggled with it. It muddled things up even further that you said "in fire". Purgatory is not often thought of as a firery place, and you might be confusing it with hell. If any of this was intentional, or has a meaning that I'm just missing, than it needs to be made clear to the readers, because I was very lost in the last two paragraphs. other than that, it was very good, and I enjoyed reading it. Happy writing,
---Psudiname

Hello there, Lumisir. Let's begin

This is a mess. A wondrous, beautiful mess, but a mess all the same. You frequently give up coherency and development for the sake of poetic richness. I'll use a comparison to illustrate.

The impossibility of a horizon is a bleeding nightmare,
a tornado gasping between pillars of fire,
fluctuating, ripping at charred roots
like sinews plucked between a lion’s incisors.

In one sentence you have impossible horizons, bleeding nightmares, tornados, pillars of fire, charred roots, and sinew in a lion's teeth. Each of these have tremendous possibility, but when you throw them all together so quickly they end up drowning in each other. The abstractions and metaphors are wonderful, but keep them grounded. Don't be obvious about it, it's fine for you to ask the reader to think, but give them a solid place to start from. Now compare that quoted section to this:

And there is no life in the storm,
no survivors in the ruins of this old farmhouse
where the blood of lambs is sprayed, steaming,
against the blackwood barn. And you
pray pass over me, angel and
shake with your back against the black wind.

Do you see how much more this section pulls the reader in than the opening lines? It's beautiful and rich like your opener, but it's not tripping over itself which makes its depth accessible. Slow down, let your poetry breathe and it will all be gorgeous like this.

The introduction of second person halfway through the second stanza was startling to me. This scene is building and building and suddenly I'm inside it? Where did I come from? This reaction comes from two sources:
1. The character is not mentioned when you're establishing the scene, so it is surprising when all of a sudden there's a person in all of this. Try integrating the character earlier so that they're there all along.
2. In story-type settings, 2nd person often creates discomfort because of the dissonance created by someone being told what they are doing. That's why you never see bestsellers written in 2nd person. In poetry 2nd person is often acceptable because it can be viewed as a conversation between the writer and some other person. This isn't the case with this poem, though, as this poem is telling a story with a character in a scene. For that reason, I suggest playing with it in first or third person instead.

My last issue is that your storm and sun symbols are cliche. You do a wonderful job of transcending that cliche, which you deserve commendation for, but there are a couple places where a little more subtlety is needed. The main place that I noticed was:

You stand alone on a single patch of earth;
around you rages purgatory in fire and memory,
and the only way to the sun is through the storm.

Now for some places I thought were wonderful:
Stanza 2

This is a toxin in the vineyard, a fungal
core preparing to spore its decay.

but the dead man has you anchored,
the mind has you anchored--to no
foundation

You have a good start, and there are lines and ideas here that I absolutely adore. If you do edits, please, please show them to me.

Heyhey, Lumichi.

I'm sorry this is so late, I am a terrible friend. To make my first note, I haven't read any of the other reviews on this poem, I'm always unsure if I'm going to agree so I'd rather just ignore the issue entirely and formulate my own, repetitive opinions. I'm going to be really frank/to the point in this critique because I think you want it, and I think you can handle it. This is not a bad poem, by any means, but it has some serious need of pruning. This need of pruning is something I see a lot in your poems, and that, again, isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is of course and example of what I believe poems should look like, so you should take everything with a healthy grain of salt.

To say I want this pruned back is to say that I think you're taking too much space to say what you're saying. The first two lines, for example, I would cut to "The horizon is a tornado gasping/between pillars of fire". Now, that is a stylistic change, I'm a glutton for melodrama. However, it's also a little more immediate and "punchier" - it also changes the meaning of your initial lines somewhat, which is the largest problem. The question becomes, are you so in love with your meaning that you'd change the poem for it? And conversely, would you be so enamoured with your poem to change the meaning? For me, I'm all about the second, because I don't always (usually) understand my own meanings in poetry, I just love words. For you, however, I think meaning is very important, and I think this poem MEANS something. As such, I'd be wary of any changes which adversely affect the poems core understanding, unless you're willing to break away from it.

I do think, though, that the intent is overwhelming the poem here, we're getting a lot of things and all the things connect. But for me, they're not saying so much as existing? And I think perhaps you're being too complex to start with - this may be me misreading the poem entirely and you should feel free to shut me down because of it. However, I think right now the poem is nice, but it's not... strong? Or, rather, it's strong but it's missing some of the clarity which it needs. We're a little lost in the difference between the strength of the language and the softness of your message (so it seems).

Added to which. Are you being too melodramatic here? I know I mentioned above that I'm a fan of the genre, but perhaps the language you're giving this is also too much for the poem to handle. As you can tell, I'm way more concerned about the poem than about the message, mostly because I'm not totally sure what the poem means beyond "Stick it out, the only way to the sun is through the storm" as your last lines say. But that message - while encapsulated in the poem whole - isn't getting through as clearly, or artfully as I think you intended it to. This has a lot to do with the drama in your images, they're all huge, grand images really - horizon, pillars&fire and the like - and that's dimming the seriousness of your poem in some ways. We're getting more than we bargained for and it's overwhelming us somewhat. It certainly feels like your end strophe is a kind of summary or neat tie up of the earlier lines. A kind of "And this is where we end up" which we really, really don't need, because your poem does (or should) tell us where it's leading anyway. We don't need that resolution there at all.

Are you forgoing the lucidity in favour of the complexity? Or the appearance of complexity, as your message is not a complex one as such. I am also not totally sure how you compose your poems so this may be an issue with not know what you're saying until you get to the end of the poem process, which is something that happens to me ridiculously often (see: always). I think you can bring to it. You can certainly make this poem better. I'd suggest you strip it back as far as you can and re-work it so that you're not saying quite so much so concentrated.

If you want me to come back to this and do more of a line-by-line critique, I can and will. However, I think that if you play with this you’ll find more interesting and appropriate language and imagery to suit your purposes. Basically, I suggest stripping this back to its core and moulding the words from there, considering your intent and meaning. Don’t let the need to give finality force your poem into a narrative structure (or lack of) that it doesn’t necessarily fit. By finality I don’t mean completion, but the feeling that the poem has ended – poems end at all kinds of points and as I’m slowly learning, we should just let them end there, for the most part.

Again, if you want me to come back, I will! I hope that I’ve been helpful and not frustratingly complex or useless for you.

Love.