curled and dried and curled and dried

I have run out of things to say.

Kissed the river mouth,
drunk the fish and the bottles
and wondered where the hell
my hallucinations were.
Plucked fingers from my hands like
petals from the bouquet that you left
on my doorstep saying
"this time, maybe this time."
The bald stems peel and steal
away any hope I might have had.

And wondered why the trees wilt
when I've given them water, too much water,
creeks and rivers and oceans and floods.
Last sunday I told myself
"to hell with church", instead wept
over grayed roots like mother
crying over bills, but I am not paying,
will not pay, can not pay,
"why wouldn't it matter?"

My teeth shatter because
they've dried and died and curled
into a paralysis and a numb way of dropping leaves:
my mother's hands, too old
for someone that gave birth too young.
Because i am young? I was young--
pushed my youth into the side of my mouth,
hollow of a sidebitten cheek like a jawbreaker
and bit and bit and
harvested out tiny teeth with ashen
caves, nests for years gone by.

Curled and dried,
snapping under the weight of words
like the weight of my feet used to
splinter branches when I went out to prayers.
I would give myself, if I could,
to the sound of breaking.

Space reserved. Points be damned.

This is a really cool poem! The first stanza is so vivid and I absolutely adore your creativity!

I couldn't find anything wrong with the structure, you've built great stanzas! Punctuation was fine and both rythm and flow was impeccable. I didn't find much faults with this part from one grammatic error, or it's probably just a typ but here it is anyhowsss..;

"Because i am young? I was young--" - This "i" should be capitalized

Overall I can't find anything to complain about so this was quite amazing. I'll give you 4/5 icky, sticky spiders!

Good Luck & Keep Writing

// Demoness

Heylo~

Okay, so, um, I see at some places you haven't put any puntuations and that seems kind of intentional, though I don't get why there shouldn't be any there. So, hehe, explain? :3 ^^''

Because i am young? I was young--

Captial 'I' needed, and I think only one hyphen would be enough.

2. At some parts, some stanza's had 7-8 lines, and some parts just 5. The uniformality goes if its so irregular. Try having them all at 7 lines, not only will it be uniformed, but it will look good too! Presentation does it all, eh?

3. I love where you went with this! I write poems alot, and well, now I have no idea what to right. You've shown me that I can make a poem out of a story if I want to, if I tried hard enough that is. So, thank you! *runs off to write a poem*

-Hope this helps!
-JT

Nice poem! I agree with the things that the previous comments said, but other then that, it was awesome. It's not the type of poem I usually like, but this was really good. I loved it!

You asked for a review, you will receive. I could be eating right now, I won't have another chance for the rest of the day, but pah! Shows that I should eat all of my food when I get the chance. But I do get excited~

Who are you? What have you done with Persephoneia? Little miss Ballerina poem? Miss structured poem girl? Who sent me a poem she was ashamed of months ago and has now come this far to rebuild herself?

You have not run out of things to say. You've found new ways to wear an old skin and are about get a new yet again. You are much better than you give yourself credit for, and yes, sometimes growth comes slowly.

Persephoneia wrote:I have run out of things to say.

A strong opening. In 99.9% of poems this would be so strong it would kill the poem. I think you got that 0.1%, and for reasons listed later, I'll show why.

But if I get this "this is garbage" rhetoric you had half a year ago again, ducks will fall.

Now, this is a strong break from your normal stab into imagery, sense, personal voicing; instead you purposely manipulate the rhythm of your voice, of your plight, of the speaker's existence. I'm not always convinced poets know they are and are not their speaker; academics will, not all, insist that poets are detached from writing, but, writing reflects a personality. Just as well as a false and artificial personality becomes glaringly obvious once one reads enough of a writer's work.

Kissed the river mouth,
drunk the fish and the bottles
and wondered where the hell
my hallucinations were.
Plucked fingers from my hands like
petals from the bouquet that you left
on my doorstep saying
"this time, maybe this time."
The bald stems peel and steal
away any hope I might have had.

Quote yourself eh? And what's this, TRANSITION from the first line? Are we getting a full poem Perse? And forget everything you've said about your imagery being too compact and scatterbrained, lines 3-5 cut every single image you're written before to pieces. Entirely. So much so I want to be there WITH THE SPEAKER, experiencing that moment because I have been there, or theoretically say I had not, I could still imagine it in my head.

Now you make a mistake in line six I've never brought up with you, but I want you to be aware of: you introduce the sentence a past tense verb without a clear subject giving me, the reader, a chance to appreciate what this means to anything before. Thankfully your ability to string together a coherent, logical, and emotionally wresting sentence almost, ALMOST makes this admissible; but I want you to push me that much closer to how facking outrageous it is to always be told "this time, maybe this time".

The final two lines I want you to think about for a long time, for two reasons:

1. This is the best stanza and opening line I have ever seen out of you.

2. The second line is so obvious I want to vomit.

You are touching the next step up, getting on your way on the trek to writing more and more, and then you let your speaker become so blunt. CLEARLY hope is dashed. Don't be obvious unless it's ironic, sarcastic, specifically amazing frankness; pretty please?

And wondered why the trees wilt
when I've given them water, too much water,
creeks and rivers and oceans and floods.
Last sunday I told myself
"to hell with church", instead wept
over grayed roots like mother
crying over bills, but I am not paying,
will not pay, can not pay,
"why wouldn't it matter?"

Again, you open without a way to make me see why these trees connect to anything. You're doing stream of consciousness transition in a personally bound poem that is desperately fighting catharsis. You are crying out to be delivered from the evil and stupidity that traps you in this maze, even when you think you've escaped; you are stuck yourself and facing yourself as the greatest obstacle. That's what friends are for here, showing you that a nicely placed pronoun could anchor the line and then help us feel the same paradox as to why trees wilt when watered so much (nice touch, almost too subtle, but it's the right idea in a poem).

And then halfway through the stanza you lose the flow. Ok. Let's gather our thoughts and focus, hand gestures abound and we'll skip and dance and jump across anything and everything. You have a clear break in the poem here. Your voice is so powerful in this poem, which is slowly showing aspects of Slam, I wonder if you need to section the poem up, or have yet another powerful transition like your opening line.

Because now we see the personal furor against society whereas before there was a relationship between each image, each association leading to the next; now we are given a new set of roles and expectations.

I'll talk to you about this privately if you'd like.

My teeth shatter because
they've dried and died and curled
into a paralysis and a numb way of dropping leaves:
my mother's hands, too old
for someone that gave birth too young.
Because i am young? I was young--
pushed my youth into the side of my mouth,
hollow of a sidebitten cheek like a jawbreaker
and bit and bit and
harvested out tiny teeth with ashen
caves, nests for years gone by.

Ah! Resurfacing image of teeth, the mouth, reusing anatomical imagery, and then bringing our title into play.

Alright. It's time we wonder about the order of stanzas here. THis poem is so neatly divided and compact in each stanza, without drowning us, it sings in each stanza. So then, is it essential we keep this order? Could you try another order? I've already talked to you about this stanza before though, and I preferred your edit. Nice job otherwise.

Curled and dried,
snapping under the weight of words
like the weight of my feet used to
splinter branches when I went out to prayers.
I would give myself, if I could,
to the sound of breaking.

Now this, is the right ending. Don't facking touch it or mess with it or even think about it otherwise. These are your main points too, your headlining ideas. You've starting to make everything slowly fall together better and better Perse. You're not forcing it, you're not making contrived and convoluted writing, but learning through yourself and a speaking voice how to use abstraction and then create your own unique style.

The final two lines, a couplet, are splendid; but please make them have to do more with teeth or a mouth. It's what you're after here, after all.

It's a pleasure doing this and I look forward to more and more.

this was a great piece!i could tell it took a lot of time to perfect. it had good imagery but remember to capitalize the first word of the sentence after the quotation mark. keep up the great work!!!