Divining Catacombs (Edit: Second Draft)

EDIT: Second draft. All comments, crits, and such welcome.

Divining Catacombs

I. venery

Winged Hermes gave chase but
missed the window of opportunity as
Apollo sigh-slipped into her coffin.

the shrine lit by symmetrical hieroglyph
scarabs adorning, he shadow-whispered
into the dead ear- alchemy; morphing
lead to gold.

O Priestess, that you could surprise me -
I, who have come down from the mountain.

his flesh-mold hand clamped securely
over her dainty-blue mouth, her spasms
quiet as he caressed, spoke with midas touch;
he spurned her naked neck with bootheels, and
cackled loudly when he dropped her
back.

(the pain of woman endured in
apple-marshes.)

she shook and contorted on the cold
stone; as soon as the mad mouthings
passed, he kissed. like the irony of a lover
he disappeared, like vision.

II. goat-weave

at the mercy of a thousand enemy spears
the hero in search of the bough:
a spring entwined branch of
mistletoe and hemlock from the
belly of the killing fields.

With centuries of lore, and fable carved
into his sugar-hands, he came upon the citadel
crowned with strings, mother of pearl clasped
around bronzed ankles -

as a blood relation of the gods he
knelt beside the her, prone at the
claw feet of her coffin.

when the hero spoke it was soft-lyrically -
Oh Vestal, if shades can be returned from
a darkened grasp, so shall I, so shall I.

and he produced his well worn lyre
and plucked out on the strings, dripping
sugar in her hair.

all that green fostered by the water, slide-slipping
off roman nose. dripping sugar in her hair.

haha get back to this. just dropping in to say i'll love it. dont worry, indepth later - just commenting so i know to come back.

I enjoyed your poems, especially this line, which offers a clear cut and simple image:

Apollo sigh-slipped into her coffin.

I do have problems with poems that offer too many allusions for the reader to keep up with. It makes the poem seem more pompous than it needs to be. I look forward to reading more of your work since you are a peer. I am about to post a poem in the narrative section and I'd love to hear what you think.
-Robert

Xan, no problemo dear.

Colier, this certainly needs a lot of work, thank you for commenting on it. (Pssst - go look at some of my others, they are much better.) Hmm, on your comment about too many allusions; well I see this as more of a story poem, and that of Apollo and Cassandra, but I'll look over it again and see if I can trim it down. I'm just now going to go look at that poem of yours.

cheerios kids, CL.

Hmm. Sappho meets Elizabeth Barret Browning on LSD. Perhaps. Or maybe it's another original by CL.

But, to be brutally honest, this poem is not your best. Now, it's not bad, don't get me wrong. In fact, it's deceptively awesome. But there are a few things that you could simply excise or clarify that would turn from a deceptively awesome poem to a simply awesome poem.

Firstly, the allusion to Greek mythology. Allusion is great, but it has a purpose. It draws on a commonly known story, principle, etc., to illustrate a new point. Here we have somewhat of a semi-allusion, because part of it is hinting at a deeper meaning, and part of it is telling the Greek story with the same characters. You need to choose one or the other. I prefer the first. Use the stories to clarify a greater point. (Also, Apollo was a man, but you probably know that, and I kinda liked you used a female pronoun.)

The poem's language is a bit like eating chocolate cake. It's delicious, but because it is so rich, you cannot have too much of it without getting ill. Defintely drop out the foreign phrase there, and try to focus more on the rhythm and flow of the poem than the language. You have a natural gift for language, so let it stand by itself.

Now for the good points. I loved the ending, dripping sugar in her hair. Absolutely brilliant. Not sure if the title was supposed to be Diving Catacombs (which makes slightly more sense) or Divining Catacombs (which sounds way cooler). I liked the images, maybe with the exception of the scarabs. I have a phobia of scarabs since I read Edgar Allen Poe.

It is an interesting attempt at classical verse on mythology. I like it. I will admit shamefaced I got a little lost in some parts. It reminds me of my favorite story on Apollo, "Apollo and Daphne". It makes me want to go read the Aeneid I have stashed under my bed. I have one toss up, though. I am a very literal person, and way too serious for my age.

Apollo sigh-slipped into her coffin

What's Apollo doing in a coffin? What does a coffin have to do with it? Maybe this is one of those "oh duh" moments, but that was where you first lost me... sad... isn't it. You may have lost me, but I stumbled on to the end. The fact that I've got my head in the clouds in no way reflected negatively on the way I viewed your poem. I want more. It is beautifully descriptive, but maybe to the point of cluttering. Try to tone it down just a very little bit. [/quote]

Yes, cause I can type. I already found 3 mistakes.

Oh Tim, can I quote you? Well lets see what a new look on this poem does to it, see if I can clean up my language and flesh out the superfluous stuff. It is funny, I am big into having my poems sound right to the ear, because when I read I read outloud (in my head). Totally missed that, on this, I think I was too focused on the story line. Thank you muchly dear.

Lovekills_period, why thank you. I think it's probably wordage that is part of the confusion. As for coffin, that is my allusion to her temple. It is cloistered, and dark, and she is emotionally dead, something like that. And I like the image of it. The morbid little me inside.

Off to edit.

Ta CL.

Winged Hermes gave chase but
missed the window of opportunity as
Apollo sigh-slipped into her coffin.

This was a jam-packed entrance. I was sort of imtimated...this could be good or bad. It matters on what kind of effect you wanted.

the shrine lit by symmetrical hieroglyph
scarabs adorning, he shadow-whispered
into the dead ear- alchemy; morphing
lead to gold.

Sort of..egyptian? I loved the last line.

O Priestess, that you could surprise me -
I, who have come down from the mountain.

who's talking here? the speaker? apollo?

great imagery in the rest of the section - just one picky thing:

like the irony of a lover
he disappeared, like vision.

the first line's okay, but I'd avoid the "like" in the second. replace it...with something...

at the mercy of a thousand enemy spears
the hero in search of the bough:
a spring entwined branch of
mistletoe and hemlock from the
belly of the killing fields.

don't get caught in riddles. be cautious and alert.

I loved the rest of the poem.

Summary: All in all, this was beautiful. The imagery was full of not only colors, but of a sense of "lighting". I loved how I could taste the apples, the kisses...It was a perfect deception of reality. But sometimes you tended to get caught up in this imagery and riddles and beauty of language that you deviated from the meaning of the poem. And though it did accomplish it's point, it was vague at times - rambling....beautifully, but rambling, nonetheless.

I like it SO much better now that you have a second draft. It's light, and airy, and despite the fact that the story is sad, the poem doesn't strike me as sad. That is good, because it takes a lot to make me happy. Here is my new analysis, if it helps any.

Winged Hermes gave chase but
missed the window of opportunity as
Apollo sigh-slipped into her coffin.

I love this first few lines. Xanthan gum thought it was a bit cluttered. With my writing style, things are always disjointed and cluttered. Let's face it. I like mass entropy. Nothing is better than a little organized chaos.

the shrine lit by symmetrical hieroglyph
scarabs adorning

To be a true mythalogical based poem, hieroglyphics would not be mentioned. They would not be mentioned unless Apollo was in love with Isis or something, of which I have never seen the like of a poem of that subject. I'm a bit of an Ancient Egyptian freak, so it just strikes me as odd that it is the only place in the text scarabs are mentioned, or anything not very classical European is mentioned. If you are going to keep it the same though, I suggest a small rewrite:

In the shrine lit by symmetrical hieroglyph
scarabs, adorning, he shadow-whispered

I love the next line very much. It is an awesome way to talk about sweet nothings.

he shadow-whispered
into the dead ear- alchemy; morphing
lead to gold.

his flesh-mold hand clamped securely
over her dainty-blue mouth, her spasms
quiet as he caressed, spoke with midas touch;
he spurned her naked neck with bootheels, and
cackled loudly when he dropped her
back.

The only part where I am still confused is this part. Is she already dead yet? What about bootheels? They wore lace up sandals. It is the best analogy ever, but:

spoke with Midas' touch

is the correct way to write it, I believe. It should actually be "Midas's" because it is only one person, but correct English aside, it would screw up the flow of the poem.

Anyway, this is probably the longest critique ever. I have been on the newspaper staff for a couple years, and so, that is the way I am used to editing. Too bad I don't have my giant read magical pen. (I'm just joking.) I really like the new version of the poem. It's awesome.

[/quote]