Rubik's Cube

You puzzle me, You;
Whose mind I can turn every angle,
Caress every corner
And still meet a dead end.

Forever shall I turn your mind in vain,
Turning full circle then halfway,
I turn back--
Only to find another labyrinth.

I can spin and spin away
And still not have a clue,
And still not solve you;
And still not put you together.

Hello. =] I'm here to review, surprisingly.

I think the ending of this poem is the best; the repetition works well, and although the rhythm could do with a little work, the general flow is soft and powerful with a closing line the sums up the poem in verse. The other two stanzas, however, could do with a little more tweaking.

You puzzle me, You;
Whose mind I can turn every angle,
Caress every corner
And still meet a dead end.

Poems are shorter than prose, and as such, your opening line should focus more on its devices than, say, descriptions, satire and character as the reader has less to contend with. However, they must also lead into the poem. Here, although you're referencing Rubik's cubes, the next three lines do not add much. There's a huge void between the initial puzzling introduction and the concluding talk on Rubik's cubes, at which point I'm wondering why it matters. Integrate the cube into this some more, and rely less on imagery that could fit into many another poem.

The three lines after it begins don't make much sense to me. "Whose mind I can turn every angle" refers to the cube, but the word order is strange and made me think before I understood. I'd recommend altering it, as it spreads into the next line and by the end I'm just wondering what's going on.

Forever shall I turn your mind in vain,
Turning full circle then halfway,
I turn back--
Only to find another labyrinth.

This is actually quite effective, but I'm not feeling "labyrinth". Something like "maze" would well, or even puzzle. There's a semi-rhyme involving "vain" and "halfway", which I think would be effective were it to be followed through into the rest of the stanza.

As I said, the ending was excellent. I love this poem, well done! Just remember that in poetry, not every line needs to begin with a capital letter; it's the same as in prose. This was fantastic in portraying character in an innovative way, and I congratulate you for that.

One final suggestion would be to expand this ever so slightly, in perhaps taking examples of character from the personality that the poem is referring to, as it make it more real and relateable, if that made sense.

Blinky

KnightlyAngel09 wrote:You puzzle me; You,
Whose mind I can turn (on?) every angle,
Caress every corner,
And still meet a dead end.

Forever shall I turn your mind in vain,
Turning full circle, then halfway.
I turn back--
Only to find another labyrinth.

I can spin and spin away,
And still not have a clue,
And still not solve you
(Or?)put you together.

Just some minor corrections that (I thought) helped it flow more.

Overall, I really liked this. I loved the message, and the picture that it painted. Still, I would have liked to see the title shown in the poem a bit more. Parts like "angle", "corner", and "turning ful circle... back" kind of give that image, but not really enough to picture a Rubik's Cube. Something about color probably would have done that, but then again, it might change the mood of the poem. Still, I enjoyed reading this.

Can't wait to see what you can do with this!

KnightlyAngel09 wrote:You puzzle me, You;
Whose mind I can turn every angle,
Caress every corner
And still meet a dead end.

Sounds more like a labyrinth than a Rubik's cube. A "dead end", cliched as it is, serves to further worsen this poem by confusing two different types of puzzles together; now, this could have been a flash of brilliance on your part by connecting two of the same general kind, but its' more likely that you were using an overused phrase without thinking. Either way, get rid of it, come up with something original.

Forever shall I turn your mind in vain,
Turning full circle then halfway,
I turn back--
Only to find another labyrinth.

"Forever shall I" could be easily turned into "I shall forever" or "I will forever", so why not do so? Is it because you're appearing to lace the skin of the poem with cardboard antiquity and softened empty words? That is certainly what it seems like to the reader, so make your wording modern in all places or traditional in all places. There's no in-between (of course, there are always exceptions to the rule but you're nowhere near there).

The imagery is dry, like chewing on a bone left in the dust, and not in a good way either. Turn, turning, turn, find. None of those words is in the slightest effective or descriptive, and the repetition only annoys. Re-do this stanza from scratch with imagery backing up theme, not theme backing up theme.

I can spin and spin away
And still not have a clue,
And still not solve you;
And still not put you together.

Now, a poem's ending doesn't have to be drastic but there needs to be rising and falling somewhere throughout the poem or it sounds monotonous and empty the whole way around. It can be done in some intervals, but in your case, you've managed to inject your whole piece with this. The ending is just like the narrator got bored, wrapped up the poem, and left to do something more interesting. There's no punch, no drifting feeling...no feeling at all, really. The repetition, again, does nothing and all this stanza really accomplishes is rehashing what's said before. And not much has been said before except "You are difficult to understand". Since the theme (apparently, as is told) is so shallow, imagery and fluidity alone will save this poem. First of all, don't capitalize the first letter of every line; do it only when grammatically needed. Secondly, you need more showing and less talking in entirety.

Hope that helped.

Hey KnightlyAngel09! I must admit when I saw the title for your poem I had a million ideas about how it could be written, but I didn't think of this perspective. Just a few little things:

Whose mind I can turn every angle,

Mind? I don't get it. An abstract metaphor? A double meaning? Whatever it is, please make this clearer. You also have it somewhere else in your poem.

I turn back--

Only to find another labyrinth.

Similar to my last comment, a labyrinth is a collection of mazes or tunnels, while there's no such things on a Rubik's Cube.

I can spin and spin away

And still not have a clue,

And still not solve you;

And still not put you together.

I have to disagree with the placement of the last three lines. The first two (of the last three) get stronger, but the last line is a very weak ending. Why don't you shove it up as the second line of this stanza? That might help things. Also, why do you use a comma and then a semicolon? It would be mor natural if you used one, and you might want to add a little punctuation on the end of the first line; it just looks bare.

Overall, not bad. I can relate to the subject matter (I have 2 Rubik's Cubes and have yet to solve either). Nice job!

I like the message of it. I have never pictured a annoying cube that way haha. Oh well now I guess I will.