Young Writers Society

sanctuary

my body is an ivory cage
where all is chrysalis-bound;
no butterflies of words so sage
can on my tongue be found

and every clever thought is swallowed
to feed my lizard kings
who live inside the bones they've hollowed
and make me dance on puppet strings.

but a tiger guards the gem i keep
beating slowly in bird-feather nest;
ragged and worn, almost asleep
and locked up in a treasure chest.

a guardian menagerie lives inside this skin
and i'll be safe forever where nothing can get in.

MARS.

I love sonnets so much, and I love Marses even more, so this is quite the treat, I have to say!

First stanza: I love the imagery, everything sounds extremely beautiful. I was a little bothered by the rhythm here, because the second line is the longest in this stanza, while its counterpart, the fourth one, is the shortest. In order to make it good, you kind of have to read with a certain emphasis, which I'm not sure a lot of people manage to do at the first try. I couldn't. It might sound a bit better if you replaced "everything" with "all", or then rephrased the last line so it'd be a bit more syllables.

Second stanza: The prettiness goes on. Actually, the only significant thing I can say about this is that I'm not quite satisfied with the rhyme swallowed-hollowed. It's a bit too non-rhyme-like (although you could've made it much worse), and while I wouldn't normally look down on it, I feel like in sonnets the rhymes have to be extra tight.

Third stanza: the word "rib-bird" makes the second line like a traffic jam. Also, I'm not sure if I like the alliteration on the fourth line -- "almost" is almost (heh) too inhibiting and well, it's hard to explain, but I'd prefer it if it were replaced by "nearly". It would somehow make it smoother.

All in all, though, I love this a lot. I relish all the beauty in this sonnet, the words and my interpretation and everything. I'm so glad to see a sonnet, there aren't nearly enough of them, although I haven't been very active on the literary forums lately. I also want to shout WHERE THE HECK HAVE YOU BEEN. I've missed you! So I really hope you'll stick around, even though I've seen you lurking every now and then...

Love!

Demeter
x

Mars wrote:my body is an ivory cage
where all is chrysalis-bound; Splendid imagery in these first two lines.
no butterflies of words so sage Instead of "sage," how about aiming for a word with a meaning more along the lines of "beautiful?"
can on my tongue be found.

and every clever thought is swallowed
to feed my lizard kings Instead of "lizard," it may create more vivid imagery to say "reptilian."
who live inside the bones they've hollowed Nice.
and make me dance on puppet strings. "Make" is pretty dull compared to the rest of the stanza.

but a tiger guards the gem I keep
beating slowly in bird-feather nest; I really just don't like this line. It could be that you leave out the necessary "a" or "the," or it could be because "bird-feather nest" sounds a bit forced.
ragged and worn, almost asleep I have no doubt that you have a better way of saying "almost asleep."
and locked up in a treasure chest.

a guardian menagerie lives inside this skin Perfecto, muy bien.
and I'll be safe forever where nothing can get in. Long line.

This is an amazing poem. I absolutely loved reading it. You have a real knack for creating beautiful imagery using words, and it was this that made the poem so incredible. Excellent work.

-Kafka

Hey, Mars!

This is a great piece with crisp imagery and wonderful descriptions. The capitalization here is off, but for some reason I get the feeling that you've done it intentionally. If that's your style then it's understandable. The overall rhyming seems smooth but in just a few place, it seemed forced. Mostly in the last two stanzas, I felt.

I like this piece a lot and you've got a way with words. Keep the ink flowing!

Murtuza