Published January 9, 2007
“Let’s try this one more time with feeling”
A utopia of artists that yearn and ache,
swoon and paint in scarlet hues,
erratic slashes at the dripping canvas.
The poet and the playwright
sit on barstools slopping lust
from wine glasses, jagged fragments
of insincere words lacerate
their eloquence of speech.
Confined to test tubes and
the bevel of our needle points.
Thrill seekers, pill pushers, we ride
the opioidal wave from start to finish
bathing in vasopressin and soaking
in our heaving ocean of oxcytocin.
We pave the neurochemical path
from frenzied mind to yearning heart,
only to meet headlong in this multi-
hormonal pileup.
Pulled out from amidst the wreckage
by reason; we are dazed and confused
to find our heart holding us at gunpoint
but sadly it's us, who inevitably
pull the trigger.
Note: In the second stanza I'm attempting to capture the medical essence of love, but I think it's too cluttered with scientific terms. Suggestions?
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I loved this poem... umm for your problem i would suggest not using so many words that relate to medicine use some more common known and it won't sound so scientific. But otherwise i repeat i loved this poem.
No, I totally got that the second stanza was about the scientific side of love. It's a bit cluttered, but as you edit more, I believe that it will become much more eloquent. Stick in something about pheromones, perhaps? Is that how it's spelled?
I really like the beginning line. I agree with xanthan gum; your first stanza is your strongest. The last stanza provides a great wrap-up ending. I also agree with xanthan about pulling out the "tis". This is because it doesn't fit with the language you use in the rest of poem.
Yes, this is your best stanza, but it has a lot of words in it. For example "erratic slashes at the dripping canvas". It's just a little too much for a reader to digest in one line. Take out one of those adjectives - I'd nix "erratic" if I were you.
Fragment! Just stick "We are" before "confined" and it's easily fixed, but of course you may reword it any way you wish.
Great beginning you have here, though. Some of these phrases are fantastic!
Colleen
P.S. Thanks for commenting on my haiku!
Leave the terms, it's all beautiful.
Ditch "tis".
Otherwise - loved it. Your first stanza is your strongest.