Apparently spoiler tags don't work on Lit Works these days. Have a nice in-your-face AN at the top instead!
So, this turned up as part of the NaPoWriMo I totally wasn't doing (until I accidentally wrote 16 poems). I'd appreciate your thoughts - specifically on everything between 'When we rolled' and 'this one basket'. Not that that's really... specific....
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Let’s get smashed, you said,
so we went to find a hammer
with which to break our spun-glass sobriety.
One pitcher in each hand, we
hobbled back from the bar,
a chill upon our spines.
They literally take the clothes off your back!
I’d heard of full-frontal nudity
but I guess this is the reverse.
When we rolled at last outside,
it was raining cats and dogs,
the poor beasts bouncing off the road
(a cacophony of yelps and yowls
filling the air -
or such air there was not already filled with falling pets).
I saw a little kitten
clamber out of a puddle and limp away
undefeated.
It nosed the bins and things with curiosity
until its footing slipped away.
One paw kicked the bucket
and stillness came.
We stumbled onwards, home,
and tumbled into bed,
but not before we remembered the chickens,
you counting them up, while
I gathered the eggs in this one basket.
Silence is golden,
and as we dropped off the edge of consciousness
gold was all around.
I have no idea how to improve this because it makes me laugh too much.
So, instead, I'm gonna point out areas which I think are weaker than the others so you can work your magic. *nods*
Traditionally a joke has three parts:
1. Set up (generate incongruity)
2. Punchline (resolution)
3. Pause for laughter!
As flippant as it seems, the third step is really important. If a comedian immediately ran on into the next joke without allowing the audience to laugh then it would feel wrong. I think your punchlines are happening before the end of stanzas which is dulling the sharpness of the humour. It's up to you whether you want this effect, obviously, but I want to show you that.
The bold part is the punchline and the words in italics are the bit where you state the obvious. As you've got quite a high concentration of humour here I think you can avoid spending words unnecessarily.
As above really. The sentence in italics doesn't really add anything new.
Uuuungh. I'm not sure which direction to nudge you in. "Stillness came" sounds rather typically "poetic" and I'm not sure it adds anything, but if you do like the idea of surrounding the jokes in a protective wrapping then I guess it succeeds at that.
Look! The punchline is at the end of the stanza! Now reread all of them and see which you like best. If you like this feel then you know what to do.
Adjective noun is adjective! Well it's not quite like that, but you do begin the stanza with one idea and finish with the same idea. I can't help but feel like the punchline came first in that case (despite the chickens and eggs being in the previous stanza... shush.)
I like the ideas here, but I don't think you've quite worked out how you want to organise them yet. The structure is nice and you do write stanzas that are nice to read -- that's always helpful.
Catch you later Cadi,
Charlie
What, thinking? I don't think I can do that
This poem kind of reminds me of Ginsberg's Supermarket in California.
I think you started the poem off well with those first two lines. We are introduced immediately to the speaker and to the "You". I'm not so sure about "spun-glass sobriety", it seems like it's trying too hard. I'd consider omitting that whole third line if I were you.
"One pitcher in each hand, we
hobbled back from the bar,"
-From my experience you can get arrested in most places for drinking in public. This might just up the ante a little-bit, so long as your reader is aware of it. You might consider how you can play off that tension. Otherwise you might consider getting rid of the pitchers as it might just distract or confuse the reader. (Keep in mind, I was assuming they were outside at this point.)
a chill upon our spines.
They literally take the clothes off your back!
I think "a chill upon our spines" does enough work here. You don't really need that second line imo.
I’d heard of full-frontal nudity
but I guess this is the reverse.
-I was confused by this one, I don't think it really adds much to the poem.
When we rolled at last outside,
-This line confused me because it made me question the previous stanza. Really though, if you look at the whole cat's and dog stanza, it works perfectly well without this line.
Actually no it doesn't. I get that you're playing with an old cliche and I like that, but I don't think it deserves to take up as much space in the poem as it does. It spans across two stanzas. My suggestion would be to cut some stuff out of both the third and fourth stanzas and then combine them. I highly recommend getting rid of "One paw kicked the bucket". There's only so much readers are willing to tolerate.
We stumbled onwards, home,
and tumbled into bed,
-See there's just a lot of instances in this poem where you have certain clauses getting their own lines that don't really deserve them. Think about what you're doing here, you're using two whole lines to climb into bed. You have to be more economical with your words when it comes to poetry.
Silence is golden,
and as we dropped off the edge of consciousness
gold was all around.
-I've got mixed feelings about this stanza. On the one hand "Silence is golden" made me make an involuntary groan. On the other I really like the image you bring up with falling asleep and "gold was all around."
I think that this is an issue with the entire poem. The humor is definitely there and it has a surreal feel to it, but it seems heavy handed in some parts. I think you probably went about writing this poem by having fun with idioms and cliches, but I think this poem wants to be more than that. The thing that makes you start writing in the first place is what we call "the trigger." But poetry is as much about movement as it is about anything else, by the time the poem reaches its destination there is often not enough room left for the beginning. It's absolutely okay to delete the trigger from the poem.
I'll use this final stanza as an example for what you might want to do with the entire poem. Get rid of the line "Silence is Golden", and let the last to lines do the work. When you create the image of silence and include the attribute of gold, you should trust your readers to make the connection themselves. The ones who get it will likely appreciate the subtle humor. The ones who don't will still appreciate this uniquely bizarre poem.
That's pretty much all I have to say about this poem, I hope it was helpful.
Thanks for your thoughts on the matter. It was certainly an interesting perspective.
I would, though, like to question your assumption that they were outside in the second stanza. I suspect this may be an international translation issue? To me, the place you go to drink is usually a pub, and the bar is the place within there that you get served.
I see now. Where I'm from bar can refer to either the actual counter where drinks are served or to the establishment itself. I guess when my eyes move to a different stanza I'm expecting the speaker to move to a different place. Keep in mind that with poems the way the words are organized on the page can have just as much impact on the readers interpretation as the words themselves. Like my suggestion about combining the cats & dogs stanzas into one, it might be in your best interest to limit yourself to one scene per stanza. At least for this particular poem.
This is NOT a review. Just a comment.
That aside. This is wonderful---ly literal and nonsensical. You should post more of these! We all need a laugh now and then. 
As for critiquing it, I'm afraid I fail too much at poetry to say anything against it, so just consider this a very fluffy comment. And now I shall be quiet and revel in the literality of raining cats and dogs.
(Poor things...)