Lessons in Anatomy

This is an old one that I just "dug up" haha...found it in a folder and liked it so figured I'd post it here for polishing.

Lessons in Anatomy

dead flesh on a cold slab, or
dreamers in a morgue are we.
our corpses stare through one another with
cold eyes, while our lips pretend to lifelessness
and the songs of our last fantasies
echo in our minds.

this is
an empty existence,
flat and sterile.
the only colours bloom in
our faded flesh and the remnants
of irises, soon to be interred.

don’t let me die in silence.
cut me open, let
the bright freshness of my blood
submerge the white darkness of
this empty room.
use my bones
to make music
and whistle my soul
to the whole world.
don’t leave me.

the paradox of a shared end
is each dies alone; trapped
in our steel-walled prisons with
vacant deities to preserve our bones.

the living pick the melody -
let theirs be sweet, let the notes
we lived by mingle with their own
and the breath we leave them
linger in the chorus.

The first stanza is wonderful in the imagery it creates. We find ourselves in the morgue along with the heroine, and it's just really creepy, which makes it THAT much more awesome.

Just one thing:

"while our lips pretend to lifelessness"

That doesn't sound right, and I originally read it as "while our lips dead and lifeless." Don't ask. I'm a really bad reader and I have to read poetry several times before I get it somewhat correct.

And... I suppose I should comment on the other stanzas, but I tend to be a fan of a lot more subtle poetry, so my opinion would be useless there. I like the stanzas that have "we" in it though.

Wow. This has the most amazing imagery, dark and beautiful. Especially,

don’t let me die in silence.
cut me open, let
the bright freshness of my blood
submerge the white darkness of
this empty room.

I also love the line:
cold eyes, while our lips pretend to lifelessness

Please don't change it.

our corpses stare through one other with
one another?

Just, wow. This is one of those poems that makes me turn into an embarassing puddle of gushing gooze. But ummm... appreciation is nice?
Awesome work.

that's reeeallly good!

I really like it when I read a poem that doesn't need my big red "cliche" stamp. I liked this quite a bit. I especially liked the way you put the speaker's pleas--"don't let me die in silence" and "don't leave me" in italics. It emphasizes them and really brings out that one voice.

Point of view. Everything but the middle stanza is told by many people--"we," while the middle stanza was just "I" and was flanked by the aforementioned italicized lines. This seems to be intended, but I'm not sure about its role in the poem.
I can't see the middle stanza being changed to plural and I also can't see the others being changed to singular "I". But I think you could do a lot more with this change, perhaps put in more individual feelings in that middle stanza. When I first read the poem, the change in perspective didn't even register, probably because there wasn't enough change in tone. Now I notice it a lot more, almost like a musical interlude or key change in a song. So I'm not sure--it's something to think about.

Description. For the most part, very good. It's very easy to slip into cliche when describing the dead or death, but this was original and precise; I felt as though I was in the morgue.

Diction.

the only colours bloom in
our faded flesh and the remnants
of irises, soon to be interred.

Probably my favorite line; I like the way you used "bloom" to describe the colors. It creates a really interesting contrast because "bloom" usually refers to flowers and by extension life.
You might say "in the remnants of irises". It's kind of confusing right now.

Fluff. Yes, fluff. I felt that this stanza:

we are all of us doomed to the same end
linked by our misfortune
brothers by our spilt blood.
why do we then forget
to see through our steel-walled prisons?

wasn't really that necessary, to be honest. It was well-written, but I felt that the poem could do without it. Of course, you'd still have to find a way to bring up the question answered in the last stanza, but "we are..." to "...spilt blood" could go.

Style. For the most part, I really liked it. What threw me off was the last stanza. I dislike the fragment even though it is an answer to the previously stated question. I also felt that the word "lest" was out-of-place; you used fairly formal, sophisticated language, but "lest"? Too archaic, maybe.

Good stuff!
-Colleen

I'm pretty amazed, seeing as things rarely make me physically shudder when I'm reading them. And I didn't even notice the lack of capitalization (don't worry about that though, it's good enough to stand without that).

^_- great work

--Quippie

woah!
That was brilliant!

don’t let me die in silence.
cut me open, let
the bright freshness of my blood
submerge the white darkness of
this empty room.
use my bones
to make music
and whistle my soul
to the whole world.
don’t leave me.

My favorite stanza! This is my first time reading your work and you impressed me! Maybe I should look for more?

Wow, thanks guys. I've done some editing, mostly to the final stanza(s) -- actually, I replaced them entirely -_- I'm hoping (hopehopehope!) they keep with the original spirit but are less...mm, preachy than the previous verses, and explain what Colleen describes as the "musical interlude" in the middle (where it changes to first person) a little better. Sort of. Um. So yes, critiques are appreciated

You've done it again, Bubble! You're an amazing poet!! This was very original and creative. I've been reading your poetry. They're all fantastic!!

i loved that! it is a really good poem. i doubt mine are that good.

the paradox of a shared end
is each dies alone; trapped
in our steel-walled prisons with
vacant deities to preserve our bones.

This was my favorite stanza. It sounds so lovely with the alone/bones rhyme, plus the line breaks were nicely placed. Also the imagery of "vacant deities to preserve our bones" was just wonderful.

The only quibble I have with this piece is the positioning of the line breaks. Then again, I'm really sensitive to line breaks as they register as a pause roughly equal to a comma for me. Nobody else seems to have had an issue with the linebreaks, so you can just disregard this. XD

Everyone else gushed, so I'm going to be completly honest; I didn't dig it. Maybe because I expected something creepy or different, something PG. To me, it seemed bland, nothing new, the world'sdead, but I don't want to die with it type of thing. But why shouldn't you? You start out with we, and move to I. Now tell me what makes that I better than, or more emotional, less dead, thean the rest of us? Don't leave me. Well with an attitude like that you give us no choice.
"Don't leave me"
Your attitude is whiney instead of assertive, 'I won't let them leave me'- after all they are boring dead peopla anyway.

You have excellent word choice and a profound way of describing things. It is a beautifully written poem of death and the afterlife. Sort of a longing to not be forgotten. I can imagine I'd write it any other way and I won't pretend that I could.

Wow, this is really good. My favorite verse was the third one. it just had this sense of muted pain, and it was wonderful. I like the ideas of music in this poem, as well, since music is usually a hopeful thing and it adds its bit of light to a dark poem. My one suggestion is that the occasional use of captial letters to begin lines may help the flow.

I love the lower-case throughout your piece. Normally when writers attempt to ignore grammatical conventions, they don't seem to have clear reasons to do so, and, thus, just appear pretentious; however, your stylistic choice seems to reinforce the honesty in the piece. Before death, the speaker isn't concerned with sugar-coating anything, as is shown through the syntax. I also like your description in the second stanza, and your reference to irises. Finally, although I'm unable to recognize a consistent meter, I think it's interesting that your poem reads like a song. It supports a theme that's central to your poem. Keep up the excellent work!