Published May 28, 2009
Sign Language
Our heat melts words
Into silence undulating on the wind.
You trace your finger across my body,
Inscribing messages the gods shall never know,
Your face lit by the candle of the moon.
The room is still. The curtains flap distractedly
At the window. Your skin wraps around me
And we spiral together, twisting into the night,
The shape of a flame swelling on the wind.
A flare scars the sky, then falls away
Like a question consigned to dumbness.
A howl escapes a wolf whispering
In the distance. We lie there for hours, silent, motionless,
Two syllables carved into a single word.
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Canary word: Present
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Gahks,
There are some enjambment and word choice issues you need to tend to. The first two lines are evidence of this: it's a prosaic sentence, and the second line is way too wordy. "Undulating on the wind" does little for me as an image. Several other spots exhibit this problem, especially the penultimate line which can be cut entirely.
Your strength seems to lie in your descriptions of nature. "A flare scars the sky, then falls away" is memorable, as is the stillness of the room with the flapping curtains. I'm interested in seeing you use images like those to advance your work rather than the more mundane images you have of bodies: fingers tracing words is nothing new to me.
For my tastes, the intimacy described seems stronger between the narrator and his surroundings than the narrator and his partner. The juxtaposition of scene with language is intriguing though could be more effective; if what you hope to evince is the tension between the image and its description, i.e. between image and imagery, you're going to need to make the connection a bit sharper.
Hope this helps,
Brad
Great Job. I can see what you are saying. Try to add some sound though, it will help make it more real. If you can in the posting describe where you got your inspriration from. It helps other become apart and feel the poem. I really like it. Try having a bold ending.
My favorite part!
Ooohoohoo! I loved this! It gave me slight chills, I thought all of it just sounding very sweet and all in all rhymed without being too "rhymney", if you catch my drift. XD Awesome job!