Hey there Aley. You probably know why I'm here and exactly how I will proceed through this poem, so why did I just waste two lines talking about how you know? I don't know.
I watch you dance among the sunbeams
drifting across your 3D stage.
With the combination of the title and the first set of lines, I didn't really have that many expectations, which is weird because at this point I've normally determined how much I dislike a poem. I guess this is weird in a good way that I'm not immediately repulsed by the brief imagery presented. That being said, it has the possibility to lead the reader down a lot of paths, emphasis on the 'a lot'. I can safely bet that the narrator has some sort of intimate relationship with this subject whether it be friends or romantic, and the title lends a hand in saying it probably went sour.
"Why assume such a thing?" a question not coming from the audience, because I don't have one. But the answer is in the word clarity, and when that's tumbled in with two people that is one of those keywords, where something had to happen in the past for the narrator to come to a realization now.
And I've also just realized how odd I must sound in conversation.
You hang in the light
like I hang in bed.
We are vermin.
Coming in to this work, I'm kinda iffy on the whole thing because it's always best to start out neutral when you're reviewing anything, especially one of friend's works. Using the kindest wording I can imagine, it has a sort of charm to it. That can be taken two ways and you just decide which one that you really want to see. The imagery and wording is kind of wonky, where I can see what it was that you were aiming for, but the final choices kinda kill any effect that you might have been going for.
And now it's even more realization and reflection, which always causing for such a fine time in the narrator's mind. You know I don't like to do this but at this point I wasn't expecting this to go very far.
The House Proud seek to eradicate us,
throw us to the open sky
or trap us with wet, microfiber, bleach, and mops.
I'm not sure why I'm here breaking this down stanza by stanza because judging from the amount of lines, I will soon run out of steam. That aside, the cleansing thing was not half bad, because it started to shift the mood a bit from what I expected out of the piece. I was not expecting this to go full on into Hallmark mode but cruelness and eradication and bleach, that just kinda popped up out of nowhere.
Is this the one about cleaning and dust that you were talking about awhile ago?
*skips down*
Okay well that makes a bit more sense. Let's continue.
I wish to spin and drift as freely as you
upon the currents of the thick air
suspending you amongst your fellows.
You are spindly and blue like the sky,
a fiber broken from your kind to drift
among the toilet paper's dandruff and the lint.
These two stanzas were nestled together and seemed the most in sync out of all of them. I have been feeling a bit of disconnectedness (how is that really a word) between everything so far because there wasn't really a clear idea presented. There's still not but it has started to come together a bit more here and maybe it's like the freedom of the speaker or something. It just gives off a calming vibe, still having that kind of want and reflection mode, but still not being as far one edge as before.
At any other distance, you would be
a wild carnivore on cleanliness,
a morsel twisted and bent upon a finger,
a speck of white,
but as I sit transfixed,
a birdwatcher of your kin, I spy
your rarity, your beauty,
your loneliness.
So definitely some sort of close relationship between these two. I might be relying a bit too much on the vibe of things tonight but I'll just continue on with it because now it's standard. At this point, I wasn't doubting you as much. Before it was sort of hazy and now it's still pretty hazy, but in a drug trip kind of way. Like if I were to try and guess what all the metaphors and everything contained within this piece boils down to, I would say drugs. The narrator is reflecting a rather poor moment in their life and describing things happening to someone they knew, but they're not particularly clear about how it happened, and then enter Sandman.
The lower portion almost does seem like a nightmare recounting in some ways which is the only reason I would torture you with a Metallica reference.
Like you, I am an intruder to this place,
underperforming my life.
You were meant to be clothes,
to cover our shame
bond with millions of your likeness
until you were pilled, pulled, or pruned
into the lint like your companions of the air.
This further supports the whimsical thing I didn't explain near well enough above, where the effect of the wording transports the reader to a different world. And I think that's actually what you were aiming for here, over the drugs thing, just leading me into a spiral of questions over the meaning. Dust in its simplicity could also mean the human race and/or people considered lesser for certain traits. If you're trying to get rid of them that leads into even further and darker implications.
Or maybe you're just writing about some sentient flecks of dirt. Who am I to judge your lyric decisions and wonder about the answers or pick apart every single word? Oh wait. I'm one of your loyal poetry reviewing minions.
Back on track though and giving some actual positive feedback, I really like this line:
"bond with millions of your likeness"
You know on tumblr when occasionally people will describe things and someone else will be like "that's the most metal description of ____ ever". Well that was the kind of reaction I had to this line. Most metal description of sweaters ever. This might have been the other reason I tortured you with a Metallica reference.
But here you are atop the drifter currents
lazily enjoying the sway with cotton puffs and skin.
I too submit to my lazy habits as I stoop
and stare upon your drifting mass, dreaming of the lack,
the allowance, the world of your life.
And now I see the character start to come into some actual realization and that supposed clarity that was mentioned earlier. I guess that the reasoning for daylight is because you can only see dust on top of stuff when the sun shines in at that certain way. Which is now leading me to question even more metaphors that you could possibly be having here or might just be overthinking this. I'll assume that I'm overthinking everything so far and I should have just taken this poem at face value, if there is one.
It is getting to be more dramatic at this point, if it wasn't dramatic enough already.
But we are vermin,
I must eradicate myself.
So I guess we've reached the kind of half way point in this poem where it has to decide which way to go to. Continue along this sort of whimsical, Alice in Wonderland path or go straight to hell, both of which mean the same thing. I'm just hoping that perhaps it'll be a bit more concrete than before, where I couldn't pinpoint anything at all. I'd at least like to get a better grip of the atmosphere.
The self destruction thing continues on which is creepy in some respects and brings about the suicide thing again but nah, I'll just focus on something else for the time being.
I need to learn to be a Productive Member
of this Ancient Clockwork
and claw my way atop my comrades,
an inch-worm searching for the top
of the fisher's can so I am not squished
by my friends and family, my other half.
And I must be pilled, pulled, and pruned,
drugged by the repetitious nonsense they shove
down my throat as sugar, caffeine, and anti-inflammatories.
Okay so you did manage to send this spiraling into hell. I'm proud of you. Now let's think about all of the implications of that fact and how I'm actually starting to enjoy this poem. I do honestly try and remain neutral and not make final opinions until the final line, but for like the past 5 paragraphs of critique, I was really disliking this poem. Then you won me back over with the last line here, which is again just something I did not think I would find appealing in the work. It's one of those cases where the wording and connections just seem so simple but in fact they hold a deeper connection that somehow pieces itself together in your mind. In other words, I have no words.
You have started laying on some repetition in some attempt to go full circle on this and for the first time in a long time, I haven't had to complain about repetition. Maybe that's why I often like your poems, I don't pick at trivial things to critique because the reviewers below me have already spotted them, if they ever existed.
If only there was more time I would fly leisurely between
my destinations. I could drift from place to place, land
and jump up again as the wind chose me from thousands.
I would not be pulled by traffic, lights, and priority,
just a drifter again in our world.
We're nearing the end and you're desperately trying to land that plane. (joke entirely intended, you know that) It's heavy with all that reflection and being logical and caring about many aspects of life like a rational being while also having day dreams. No this doesn't scream depressed office worker at all.
Really though, it got realistic. It no longer felt like I was reading about a train ride from a person hopped up on some substance. That feeling might have led to my comments about it being disconnected and nothing really concrete. Concrete is a good word here because it has the relation to permanent, legit set in stone like substance. This as a daydream of sorts is so much more innocent than what I guessed at above, though basically the same bottomline, so I'll just keep that as my top possibility.
Either that or you could view it as someone slightly deranged by their work dreaming of a way out and they have no one in a lonely apartment, so the relate it to some dust bunnies and their cat. I really don't know at this point and I think that's the real reason why I'm liking this poem.
I would not pluck my feathers, bleed myself,
scratch my itches like an impatient dog
who can't wait for the fly to drift back
into oblivion, where he belongs.
I see we've moved on to the much classier imagery of relating stresses through what certain animals do under the pressure of stress. I'll give you a point here for accuracy and making sure that the reader is actually still paying attention after reading through so many thing. It kinda slaps you back into focus if you were stepping too far into the whimsical world, and starts to bring you back into the real world.
Overall:
I'm gonna skip right over the last two stanzas because you don't need to hear my perspective twice. My overall position on the simple decision of like versus dislike, is like. You saw that. I gave you a like on this poem awhile ago and I was sort of surprised that it didn't get more likes, considering how popular your poems mostly are. I don't read them but I see them pop up on the front page all the time. Just from the things you say, I do see how this one must have been different from your standard reader, where it got more serious than you normally would have expected for the presentation.
And I think I'm gonna pop out now. You know I'm on discord if there was by some small possibility, something I managed to leave out of this review.
Happy Friday
~liz <3
Points: 650
Reviews: 766
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