Part of the Cassie series, I guess. Someone once told me my poetry makes them uncomfortable >_>
We sleep, little children, side by side in the bed,
our limbs like paperclips thrown about in the nooks,
her face against the wall and my elbow in the bureau.
When morning touches the lace curtains I roll over,
and we tell sleepy thoughts; the bed is too small for two.
Our knowing of each other was split into chapters,
for we dreamed our lives as automatic memoirs, and
we were bestselling effortlessly.
Recollect chapter one, when I fell in love with you,
you sitting in my front yard in the flimsy chair, wrapped up,
the last to leave my birthday. And maybe chapter fifty-three
is fine too; fifteen, our feet sticking out the window to touch Spring
and music like a pillow behind us, somewhere we can’t see.
Where are we now, chapter one-hundred-sixty-four?
Limbs curl around the bodies of men and dip below,
seeing each other on holidays, no longer in the same book.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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125,015 Literary Works • 672,845 Reviews
Clo -
Simply unbelievable. This poem effortlessly glides over the eyes and the tongue and has a killer closing line. The concept is wonderful, the style is simple and tasteful, and the word choice is careful. Quite possibly one of the best poems I've read on YWS to date.
At first I was kind of iffy on the whole 'our lives are books' idea and the dryness of relating real-life experiences to best-selling and memoirs. I got this impression from these lines:
You used a lot of boring words here (ie: Automatic, Effortlessly, Split, Best-selling). The poem is still fantastic regardless of this, but maybe consider spicing up the verbage in this particular stanza, especially the last two of these lines.
I'm not quite sure why you chose to structure the poem the way you did. I see no purpose to indenting the last three lines of both stanzas, but I'm sure it's am aesthetic choice, rather than a meaningful one. Still, I've found that it's good to cut the things in a poem that mean nothing and the structure is possibly one of them.
Anyway, great job. Send it into a magazine.
-Kylan
We sleep, little children, side by side in the bed, This line isn't quite clear as to whether you're addressing little children, or you're saying you were little children. Maybe instead "like little children".
Awwww.our limbs like paperclips thrown about in the nooks, I wonder if maybe here it would work to use dashes in place of the commas. The first time I read through it I expected the second line to be the end of the sentence, just because it seemed to fit the rhythm. It’s amazing how much punctuation can do, especially in poetry, isn’t it? Anyway, I wondered if maybe if there was a more distinct separate between the middle part of the sentence, and the beginning and the end, that it would help with that little interruption in the flow and rhythm here.
her face against the wall and my elbow in the bureau.
When morning touches the lace curtains I roll over,
and we tell sleepy thoughts; the bed is too small for two. This line I think should be just about a syllable shorter. A changes as simple as ‘the bed’s too small for two
Our knowing of each other was split into chapters,
for we dreamed our lives as automatic memoirs, and I would actually move this ‘and’ down to the next line, because ‘chapters’ and ‘memoirs’ work so very well together, just barely not a rhyme. Or, if you think it’s effective to leave the last line the way it is, I wouldn’t see any problem with just getting rid of ‘and’ altogether, if you wanted, while obviously changing the punctuation there of course.
we were bestselling effortlessly. The meaning of this line isn’t quite clear. At first I didn’t really notice, I just assumed it was one thing. But now I can’t be sure whether you meant that they were bestselling, or that they were selling something. Kind of. If the first, I’d suggest a comma after ‘bestselling’.
Recollect chapter one, when I fell in love with you,
you sitting in my front yard in the flimsy chair, wrapped up, I was able to read this in a way that made this line flow with the first, but I had to work at it.
the last to leave my birthday. And maybe chapter fifty-three ‘The last to leave on their birthday’?
is fine too; fifteen, our feet sticking out the window to touch Spring I’d cut this line somewhere, trim it just a little bit shorter, a syllable or two, I would.
and music like a pillow behind us, somewhere we can’t see.
Where are we now, chapter one-hundred-sixty-four? For whatever the reason may be, I really like this line because of the number. I like that exact number being there.
Limbs curl around the bodies of men and dip below, Honestly, I don’t get this line. I mean, in the next line the reference to a book sounds like the rest of the poem, but I couldn’t make heads or tails out of this part of the sentence, if you wanted to clear it up for me.
seeing each other on holidays, no longer in the same book.
The flow of this piece was pushing it's limits a little bit, but you still pulled it off. There's just that one line I mentioned.
I really like the imagery in this, especially the metaphor with the book.
Favorite line:
Keep up the lovely work.
-Adna