in retrospect, it was the shortest journey ever:
a violent tiptoe across the earth's proscenium
with no audience. nowadays time ebbs between closing curtains
like it was born there, blind and scriptless—
and frigid, like the paint that grays and thirstily curls
in the corners of the backdrop, too dim for shadows
but not dark enough for warmth—
or breath. behind and beneath the hanging dusty membranes of time's border curtains, huddles of playwrites linger parched and half-sleeping like the decrepit owl enfolded in the upper drapes
that had never tasted youth in its life; "where did the time go,"
a face says staring upward at nothing as silver light ghosts through a slit between the curtains converging like tectonic plates and illuminates not quite everything, not quite the bodies that death was peeling apart
from a distance, or the minds that couldn't ever know that their desolation was self-inflicted.
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137,476 Literary Works • 672,034 Reviews
Hello Kafkaescence,have a good day in review day today! Here is Dark to give review on your amazing poem!
-->But anyway,some words you use here are bit confusing.Just because I don't know the meanings is,so it will ruined your wonderful poem here.Some reader maybe understand about it,but not all people will go searching their own way to get the meaning.I like the message that you bring here. Really makes me think about what exactly the purpose behind it.
#and frigid, like the paint that grays and thirstily curls
in the corners of the backdrop, too dim for shadows -->I like the descriptions here.The simile bring effect to your poem and the readers too!Well done.
It seems you wrote a poem with freestyle/free verse. Each stanza is not bound by the format and you should be careful when forming the external characteristics of your poem.I don't wanna comment about the punctuation nor your non-capitalize etc. because that was your writing style.I enjoyed reading your poem here;the message from the last line really awesome and breathtaking!
#rom a distance, or the minds that couldn't ever know that their desolation was self-inflicted.
Even though the rhythm is a bit off,you still have a strength in your own poem.Keep it up!
Kudos,cheers
~Dark
Knight Dragon, here to bestow another Review Day review!
Well, I liked the broad vocabulary you incorporated into this poem. It had style and flair, and great descriptions. But your formatting threw me off. With the stanza that's captured between the hyphens, why is that separated from the others? It should just be one single poem. The way it is now, it feels like a separate thought, floating all by its lonesome in the middle there. It's a part of the whole, an expansion of the previous line, but without that previous line attached to it it's kind of alone.
And that third stanza, your lines suddenly grew really long. What happened?
"converging like tectonic plates and illuminates not quite everything, not quite the bodies that death was
peeling apart
from a distance, or the minds that couldn't ever know that their desolation was self-inflicted."
I felt like the "peeling apart" should have been with "not quite the bodies that death was", unless you meant it to go with "from a distance..."
Big technical thing. I needed proper capitalization, and maybe just a few punctuation changes. Like the "peeling apart" line. If that was punctuated, then I'd know better what you were trying to say.
Otherwise I liked it. Just break up that third section into shorter lines, fix the minor things I noted, and this should be fine. Hope this helps!
"from a distance, or the minds that couldn't ever know that their desolation was self-inflicted." that is an amazing line to end your poem! I really loved that. One part that kind of threw me for a loop was "the hanging dusty membranes of time's border curtains, huddles of play writes" It doesn't sound right to me. I read it over and over again but I still don't think it makes sense. But for the most part everything is splendid. I really loved this piece.
Hey there! Knight Cailey here on review day to give you a review on this fine piece of work.
Nice job with the description and imagery! I often find myself telling people to add more detail, but I loved your poem and think you did a really good job of adding enough detail and figurative language and such, and I really liked that. I mean, "like the paint that grays and thirstily curls in the corners of the backdrop" I love that line. Thirsty paint? It's awesome imagery!
Your formatting through me off though. I am sure, just because this is so different and unique, that you had a reason for formatting this way. However, it made it really hard to read. I have never liked poems with no capital letters- but I understand that in poetry it's perfectly okay to have all lower case, so I can handle that.
But some of your breaks seemed really spontaneous and forced, like the break between warmth or breath.
I imagine you did have a reason for putting a break there (and I would like to know what it is) but it was really hard to read. I felt like I had to keep stopping and rereading just to understand the poem, and by the end, while part of me loved it because of the imagery, the other part was so frustrated with how hard it was to read.
So see if you can make the formatting a little easier to read, without taking away the unique style you have here.
Also, I love your ending. The way you brought everything back and gave a reason for what you were describing in the poem. The last line is great- and in a way it even brings it back to the reader, in a sort of accusatory- "are you self-inflicting destruction on yourself?"
So nice job over all, I hope this helps, keep writing, happy review day, all that jazz.