A/N: 'Tis free-verse. Yet again.
***
I slide my fingers across the ivory corpse
of the old grand piano
that is hunched by my bedstead.
And the tears trickle so freely,
they feel like molten rivers
grazing my face.
These melodies are ice-bergs, swift and sharp.
They pierce me open; an axe through my heart.
I'm losing rhythm, you can hear it sway
and shatter like the glassy serenades
that sweep through my open windows.
My fingers feel so numb.
These sour notes scorn me.
My music is playing me
into a despairing tidal wave.
And I crash onto a shore
of blackened soot.
My hopes flying away into the rubble
and the wreckage of the sand.
Black and white notes on even bleaker paper.
Another square on the chessboard, another wrong move.
Stark definitions, prim and plastic.
I tire of Beethoven so easily;
I don't think I can look Mozart
in the face anymore.
The night's orchestra is calling to me,
but I do not stop playing out of fear.
Music may mock me but an empty soul --
oh, the thought of silence fills me with dread.
So I claw away, unerringly,
at the mass of ivory I Ioved
but have now grown to hate.
Slam down
onto the keys.
Slam down
even harder.
Wipe the tears away; these laments
are fading into a drowsy song.
The soprano of the sky-light leaves me shivering,
The tenor just confuses me.
The stars streak through
and if I close my eyes,
I can see the octaves dancing
through the scenic symphony.
And every single note is on fire,
like tears of diffused oxygen
have gathered in their wake.
Comets pirouette and paint the keyboard
a shattered scarlet; a topaz gold
that sings my frustration to sleep.
I rip down the wallpaper, tear up the tempo.
And my wings sear again as I
extemporise.
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137,724 Literary Works • 672,065 Reviews
Hello! Retro here for a review.
First of i'm just going to do a few nitpicks then i'll talk about what I liked, okay?
Now, this might just be author's choice and what not but I feel as though you should get rid of the italics in the piece. If not the first set, definitely the second because that is such a beautiful and powerful line as it is and I think the difference in style just takes away from that message. But, again, that could just be personal preference.
'of the old grand piano
that is hunched by my bedstead.'
Now, I'm not sure spatially this image works. And then when I tried to consider it in a metaphoric sense I still couldn't draw a logical conclusion. So i'd reword the last line here because I don't think that it works
'Slam down
onto the keys.
Slam down
even harder.'
I'm going to talk more about this bit in the bits i liked bit section but here I'm not comfortable with the line breaks. It jolts the poem, which sort of works, but at the same time doesn't. I think they'd read better as two complete lines, without the breaks. Because the imagery is powerful but just not as powerful as it could be.
'Comets pirouette and paint the keyboard
a shattered scarlet; a topaz gold'
Again, i'm going to talk about this bit again in a mo. And this is a tiny point, but please put a comma at the end of keyboard. It will make that image of a shattered scarlet so much more poignant and great.
In terms of grammar and spelling you are spot on and I can't see any mistakes.
Right onto what I loved......all of it? You have some of the best imagery that I have ever seen. The slam down harder bit, and the comets pirouette sections which I have afore mentioned are sublime. I love the ideas, the imagery everything. I have a thing about endings of poems so I shall briefly analyze yours.
'I rip down the wallpaper, tear up the tempo.
And my wings sear again as I
extemporise.'
Bravo. Seriously, Bravo. This is superb. For me, the ending of a poem should be a climax, a crux which fully summaries the ideas of the poem and this does this so well. You have excellent imagery here and it is beautiful.
Thank you for this,
you shall get a like from me.
Keep it up,
~Retro
Ladies and gentlemen, she's done it again!
I think this is my favorite poem of yours yet. I found myself holding my breath as the emotion peaked, all the way to the end. It was fabulous! The emotion is so wonderful, you hold onto your central theme all the way through, your imagery is absolutely fantastic! I think the only problem is that it's a little too fantastic. This poem is like a barrage on the senses (that's a good thing, because it fits with your theme), but I think it could be a little bit more pleasing to the reader if you somehow broke it up, or scratched some of it or both. You could have different "movements" within the poem relating to what exactly you're relating the music to and how that affects your mood.
I cannot advise you on what to delete. I love all of it too much. I might even tell you not to delete anything.
The other thing, while I enjoyed how the disjointed images reflected the mood, maybe if you tied them together a little bit smoother, it would read easier?
Keep in mind that you compared music to LOTS of things. Maybe it would be better if you focused on one or three things to focus on, like whether it's hot or cold, etc. But I'm not sure that's a good idea. It might make this much less awesome than it is. I dunno. xD
Quick nit-pick:
"Ioved" should be "loved"
I'm also kind of confused about what exactly is going on. Again, this adds to your tone, but maybe by seeing what may not fit, you can decide if you want to delete something.
So this is referring to the narrator crying. While I love this image, I think you convey her sadness thoroughly in the rest of the poem. This image is just the *itty-bittiest* bit cliche, and the reader automatically (or at least I tend to do this) builds up a wall against the strong emotion right at the front. (It's kind of like when you eat something new, if it has a strong flavor that just blasts you with its unfamiliarity, you might not want to try more. The best way to eat that is to nibble on it until you're comfortable with the taste. It's similar to this situation.)
There are other examples of this kind of thing. If you have decided to try to delete stuff, just delete the parts that are questionable, and don't trim too much! This poem was great!
I love the lines where you "slam down/ onto the keys." The way you formatted that just went so well with the poem.
All of these are just suggestions. You can absolutely keep this the way it was, but I wanted to give a good review for this amazing poem!
Great job, Keep writing!
~fortis
interesting poem that inspires plenty of wonderful imagery. the semantic field of imagery is a good idea to take on as music and poetry perfectly fit hand in hand. this theme carries on throughout which is enjoyable. you embrace the idea of being at one with the music bravely and i think it pays off. regardless of what others say in terms of grammar and capitalisation, i would ignore as this is really petty faults in an otherwise really good poem.
my reason for criticising the grammar police here is because i have been told a few times to capitalise just because it has been done before, even though the canonical poet e.e cummings never used capitalisation in any of his poems. so in your case i flip it on its head and say go along with whatever you want to capitalise.
Wow. This is amazing. I loved it. The only thing that I'd like to point is the capitalization of the word SLAM. It's like an eye- sore in the otherwise lovely poem. The piece is beautifully, beautifully written. Every emotion is so well expressed. You create an atmosphere, right from the very start, and hold it till the end. Reading it was an absolute pleasure.
Great work!
Hoping to read more from you,
TheSybarite
Okey Dokey, Rhia here to review!
This is really beautiful. There is so much wonderful imagery here, and its quite unique. One thing I really want to commend you on here is your ability to ground your poem in a way that it's understandable to the reader, yet still use so much figurative language. You, rather than having only really abstract concepts that make sense to you and you alone, have things in here that allow the reader to gather a point of reference to establish what's going on. References to a piano, which stands near a bed, and fingers, these are all things that everyone can form an image of, and THEN you build up the imagery. You did something really hard to do, and you did it really well, so great job.
My one thing I don't like is these few lines.
"SLAM
down onto the keys.
SLAM
down even harder."
I would recommend not capitalizing the full word, it will seem much more mature without it. Perhaps, to get the effect of something slamming down, play around with the order of the wording there. Maybe this is an idea of what you might want.
Slam down
onto the keys.
Slam down
even harder.
Something like that forces the reader to stop after "slam down" lets it sink in and really hit them.
The last stanza is definitely themost lovely part. It is just a lovely image seared against my eyes while I read it. I read and reread that part, just because it was such a pleasure to visualize. You mastery of diction is astounding, and is truly exemplified there.
Great job, I loved this poem. It was definitely one with some of the absolutely most beautiful imagery I've read on this site, and I love the topic. Keep it up!