Electrical Earworms

by Aleta

Published February 6, 2017

In Poetry

Pale fingers inserting 90's film tapes,
static varying like pop rocks, hiss and pop,
black and white, televisions sold with no color.

Skin brushing against vinyl records,
shivering in touch and feel sensations,
electricity and static to shock the world.
Speaking no words, grooving in the living room.

Volume tuned from stereos and speakers,
sliding left to right accross cheap carpet,
brain powered by AAA batteries and megabytes,
hair stood up by friction and electric rush. 

Black shoes gliding by the white fan's slow whirl,
joints and bones powered by red and green wires,
electrical sockets lying on the dirty brown couch.
Voices slip in like earworms, writhing, squirming,
the strain of static overlapping death threats.

Movements of the homo sapiens now mechanical,
motherboards to program the federal agenda,
inhale metal air and savor sour salt flavors
voltages ingested that taste so good. 

Thunder crashes and booms in onomatopoeia,
trembling and convulsing the ground shakes,
drowned out in pleasurable static.

Comments & reviews · 2
User avatar
rosette
Review
rosette wrote a review Review · Feb 13, 2017

Hello Aleta, you got another review here coming in from the chick ( ;
I always use this excuse but I honestly NEVER review poetry, only when I'm rushed and trying to do something real quick. *grimaces* Sorry!

Okay, anyway, moving on...
The whole context of this poem is so... groovy! (I know I'm weird) But seriously, the whole mood and theme is just a huge throwback to the '70s or '80s or whatever you call it, for some reason. I love it! That first stanza, by the way, is complete brilliance, my friend.
But.
Your amount of stanza lines is inconsistent. I understand it in some sense: the first and last both have three lines, but there's an extra 4-line, and one random in the middle with five. Maybe its just me but I thought it lacked a normal... standard form. Did you make it up yourself???

Other than this, I see it as a huge description of something. You don't say what something is. A party, I'm assuming. You express the sounds, action, electricity of it all but there's no real...oh, what do you call it? Depth? I read it and went, "mmmh, good" because it was so satisfying but what's the real point here? I know nothing about the people yet we know they are talking: "Voices slip in like earworms, writhing, squirming,"
What are they saying? What are they doing? You gave us a setting but - that's it.

Yet, that's probably how you intended it to be.

Anyway, I'll leave you at that. Great work Aleta, I hope all your future works are a huge success and keep up the good work! ( :

Adieu,
-TheKid

User avatar
Casanova
Review
Casanova wrote a review Review · Feb 7, 2017

Heya, Aleta! Casanova here to do a review for you! Let's get into this!

I'll be taking this stanza by stanza, so I hope you don't mind!

Pale fingers inserting 90's film tapes,
static varying like pop rocks, hiss and pop,
black and white, televisions sold with no color.
Skin brushing against vinyl records,
shivering in touch and feel sensations,
electricity and static to shock the world.
Speaking no words, grooving in the living room.


Aye, the downfall of many a great piece I've seen on here. You're basically doing a lot of listing. I call this a shopping list. You have what you want, but you aren't doing it in a way that sparks interest. You jot down your thoughts, but that's all they come of as. I don't see any narration in this, which I think might help it out a bit. I would suggest adding narration, and I don't say that often. You have a thousand different things here, but without the narration and proper execution they don't seem to fit together, if that makes any sense. That's all I have to say on this one, so onward.

Volume tuned from stereos and speakers,
sliding left to right accross cheap carpet,
brain powered by AAA batteries and megabytes,
hair stood up by friction and electric rush.
Black shoes gliding by the white fan's slow whirl,
joints and bones powered by red and green wires,
electrical sockets lying on the dirty brown couch.


I think you have really good imagery here, but it still lacks depth and emotion. Imagery only gets you so far. I would suggest focusing on wording and emotion- people tend to forget that whilst wrapped up in imagery. I think it might help you.

My favourite lines out of this would be "inhale metal air and savour sour salt flavors." This really got me. my only point here is that you keep saying actions, yet there's nothing to take those actions. No narration. I tried doing a poem like this one time, and it didn't work out too well until I added narration. Anyway, onward.

Voices slip in like earworms, writhing, squirming,
the strain of static overlapping death threats.
Movements of the homo sapiens now mechanical,
motherboards to program the federal agenda,
inhale metal air and savor sour salt flavors
voltages ingested that taste so good.
Thunder crashes and booms in onomatopoeia,
trembling and convulsing the ground shakes,
drowned out in pleasurable static.


My first question is- slip in what? You haven't established anything. In the room? In someone's/something's head? I'm at a loss on that one.
The next thing is your imagery. Here it's there, but it seems sophisticated and boring, in all honesty. There's nothing to give the reader feels, if you know what I mean, and I would suggest working on that.

I think that's all I have on this one, and I hope it helped.

Keep on doing what you're doing and keep on keeping on.

Sincerely, Matthew Casanova Aaron



Memories, left untranslated, can be disowned; memories untranslatable can become someone else’s story.
— YiYun Li