It's enough to make bread but to be lost, too? Who is the god I talk to
about replenishing my flour & the hot groves in my olive oil?
Who's pulling who out of the ice anyway!?
The oven could be so warm right now—or at least I could get the gist of meat,
this two-ply stuff that cries for gestalt & gore.
I am wealthy to have at least longing & benadryl & a hell of a lot
of sugar. What my mom called mercy
I now call lunch without lovers. I slam the door
& around the world cakes fall. In France, the most famous place
for bread, what's dead is battered
in egg & cinnamon & sold in the street.
In the plaza that's always dark, I'm busy memorizing
the crucial parts of the arch, so I can say yes god I know all about
how to build a goddamn kingdom! My brother & I bake madeleines together.
They are white & in love & truthful like us.
We dance & our tambourine is flour—aren't we all just catching treats?
There are so many fields of which I wasn't aware! But my brother knows what's
wheat & what's white & what's what. He tells me the first known burn—
the mouth—doesn't quit opening. He tells me all at once,
Lover, there's no loss until there's some light.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
Eli!
I don't believe we've met - I would definitely recognize this style if we had. Either way, I'm Lumi, and this is a review at 3 in the morning, so just...stick with me.
I'll start with a statement of opinion:
Stanza one is very weak until "In France...in the street."
I say it's weak because you keep building to these ideas, references, allegories, but never get to see them through before a stylistic pitfall strikes first. Your first lines are spent in questions, and I'm skeptical as to how much thought they provoke. The exception to this is line 3/4: "The oven could...gestalt & gore." Beautiful phrasing and syntax.
Despite your bread and meat and lunch without lovers (which I am not a fan of - it's clunky and irrelevant, and possibly villainized because it follows a phrase including "Mom," which doesn't resonate with the mature syntax of the remainder of the piece. That entire sentence just feels juvenile to me, and that is a cardinal No in my book.
Stanza two, however, is quite a different story. The mixture of imagery and lyricism and personal sentiment - it's just very welcoming and well-woven. In this regard, I wish stanza one would act more like its brother. I will retain the fact that this stanza is glorified by
It's just wonderful poetry to me.
That said, I'd focus your editing on stanza one, on maturing the context of ideas and how they resonate through the whole of the piece. If this is a God poem, then be more subtle. If it's supposed to be a brother encroaching on a god complex, then it's done beautifully. (that being the concept that our love(rs)(ed ones) provide light, life, breath, sustenance, etc. in the same regard early theologians hailed God)
Keep writing. Hit me up if you want to discuss this more.
-Lumi