I can taste the moments
that God took to create the world.
My teeth close on them, my tongue
runs across them in a gentle rhythm,
one and two and three and four ;
I swallow years and decades somehow,
choking for a moment on all the things
considered inconsequential:
"You’ll be pretty, you’ll be kind,
you’ll be somethingsomething,”
and it goes like that —
I am 20 years old,
small handed, narrow shouldered,
inconsistent in how I see myself.
Not altogether pretty, not altogether kind,
somethingsomething, running my tongue
over the old words given me.
Sanctity. Modesty, servility.
My seven days are spent
taking apart cities with my hands,
lengthening my fingers into long,
spindly tired things as they stretch
and curl around the sidewalks.
I cannot lift another brick,
cannot pluck the time
from my mouth and all of these words
are turning sour in the back of my throat,
and I feel like lying down
and dying.
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139,524 Literary Works • 672,598 Reviews
Back for a little more from you, Persy. Hope I can be helpful.
It seems like tonight I am all about the viscerality in poetry: bringing out physical (maybe subconscious) reactions in your readers with the words you choose. It's like the little things that remind you that you're breathing and then you do it manually until you forget about it again -- that kind of writing that brings a reader into awareness of their body. I'm really into that. Which makes me love your first stanza:
You mention the tongue and the teeth and we immediately become aware. With your verb -- run across -- we even get the memory of a motion if we don't go so far as to actually perform the action and get reminded of the feeling immediately and in our own reality. It's fabulous, and paired with the abstraction of the moments God took to create the world, we're already deep in thought.
Which is why I'm disappointed when the rest of the poem doesn't continue that. Looking over the poem, I don't see any obvious weak spots, so I think the issue is in your transitions. For example, you close the first stanza with a mention of rhythm, which is then picked up again at the END of stanza two instead of the beginning. Maybe if you flipped the order of stanzas two and three so that the rhythm pieces
( and )
serve to keep the flow. If you invert the second, it puts the rhythm sections together like a bridge. Putting rhythm at the front of the third also creates a repetition in form from the second stanza which links them together.
I'm not quite sure about the last stanza. I think buried in there the mention of the words turning sour in the back of the throat is definitely related, but it's so far separated from the tongue in the beginning that it seems to be off topic. I'd maybe take out the mention of the seven days (it doesn't really reference anything except religion in general) and again invert: I can't pluck the time and the sour taste from my mouth, I feel like dying. I cannot life another brick.
That feels like a nicer ending. Okay, so it might need the mention of taking apart cities, but that would still need a transition, too.
Anyways, lovely. Remember to PM me if you want to talk about questions you maybe have.
Love you!
This somehow reminds me of Father Time, and how he takes things away quietly. (Aka, demolish)
This was greatly formatted and the style was intriguing. I don't do poetry much, but this is fantastic! Great job. I could care less if you made any grammar mistakes. I hope that you write more in the future and I look forward to them.
With All Do Respect
Whole Some Reader
I like this poem. It has a nice flow and great descriptions.
If I had to point out something wrong with this poem it would be the paragraph beginning with "I am 20 years old,". I just don't understand what its trying to say.
I am 20 years old,
small handed, narrow shouldered,
inconsistent in how I see myself.
Not altogether pretty, not altogether kind,
somethingsomething, running my tongue
over the old words given me.
Sanctity. Modesty, servility.
Besides that one paragraph its awesome. I really like the word choice and the emotion.
The second paragraph is my favourite.
I swallow years and decades somehow,
choking for a moment on all the things
considered inconsequential:
"You’ll be pretty, you’ll be kind,
you’ll be somethingsomething,”
and it goes like that —
Oh Persy, you never fail to deliver. Every time I see one of your poems, I always go into reading it with such high expectations, and you always exceed and surpass them.
I really like this poem. It is worded so beautifully and it very emotional. The pictures that you create for the readers are so unique and special, which makes this piece unforgettable.
There is hardly anything to critique here, so i will just tell you what I liked.
I swallow years and decades somehow,
choking for a moment on all the things
considered inconsequential:
"You’ll be pretty, you’ll be kind,
you’ll be somethingsomething,”
and it goes like that —
I love this stanza sooo much. When I read it, it reminded me so much of myself.
I have a hard time understanding the last stanza, but maybe i am missing something.
In the end, this was awesome. I hope you continue the good work. Keep on writing !
Wow. This has such an effortless flow. It was genuinely enjoyable to read.
The poem really reads as a whole piece, with a nice connectedness between all the stanzas.
The whole concept is amazing. Your portrayal of yourself as a larger-than-life kind of entity is really captivating, and I like the contrast of the taste of the moments made to create the world, and your destruction of the world that is so tiring.
My only criticism is that the breaking of the lines in the final stanza reads a little awkwardly. That is of course up to your own personal tastes, but in my opinion it is disjointed and it doesn't flow like the rest of the poem. It's almost like the sentences are all broken in half, with the exception of the last two lines,
"and I feel like lying down
and dying."
This has a nice emphasis and finality.
I'm a big fan, your work is awesome, write more!