Before this poem a few words: I'm new here, first time poster. been writing poems for four years now, this is one of my favourite. comments welcome.
Les Eurockeennes de Belfort, or: The Five Senses
How alien this scene appears: a gear bag puffs upon the ground like liquorice marshmallow,
Full to the brim it rests against a freezer, sticky and melting still from the memory of heat.
How sweet its tastes upon the tongue of recollection, confectionary pleasures of chocolate
And exclusive self indulgence; the French have always been world leaders in pleasing the senses.
Staring down I can’t help but smile; I dragged that bag halfway across Paris and as far as Belfort; bringing it upstairs almost seems too easy at this final stage of the journey.
The strap burns my arm still, wearing into my shoulder like cotton brushed by coiled piano wires
I hope it burns forever. Skin was fried and pealed away by Ultra Violet laser rays
Rising behind foothills in the Alps, merciless and foreboding. None were spared but no one cared
Because they could endure the suns ferocity, their skin with tensile strength of coiled piano wires.
Meanwhile, I had melted in a liquid copper pool and was cooled by emptying two litres of water over my head – if only for a second.
Mulling over aerial panoramas of the lush and verdant garden where the festival was held
I dispel all words and go where the colours flow into one another and light is captured
By the precise sight of artists who can tell minute diffusing differentiations in the tones
Of two identical blades of grass - the pleasantries, iridescent delinquency of sights supremacy
Where the landscape of Cézanne is actually around me, to reach out and touch me equally, finding the corporeal in substance.
Under the bin where I keep my tin for soap and skins I debate whether weed smells better
Then incense of lavender wafting lazily through meadows of frankincense heather and infinite fragrance,
Fettered amongst fumes of billowing smoke that hangs in expanding heavy air like feathers fluttering
From an emptied pillow. Even a tent can be transformed into a hot box when enough people will
The smoke towards its manifestation, flustered scents of sticky buds, subliminal hit that swells and swims in nasal capillaries.
The journey done, its heroes stunned that six long days could faint outweigh
The weight of steps and countless threads on crumpled grass and bails of hay
For what was left for them to say when words were lost in music’s strains
And sultry sound pervades sine waves detected by the ears and felt with the heart?
There is nowhere to start, for that is the overwhelming force of sound and song
Locking in an interpenetrating harmony of the senses, reverberating with the sound of Creation,
The place where dreams are born in tear drops dripping from a weeping willow
And laughter hears the language of despair in struggles with our earthly cares,
And somewhere when you hear the music stop playing say “I love you”, it is carried on the air to those who need to feel it.
That is what I heard in the screams and chants of thirty thousand people who are privileged
To say that they were there when Daft Punk themselves played that faithful night in France
They were in a trance as they danced to the eternal rhythms and united schism of Peace with Pain
And for a single moment all the bad things in the world went away,
Maintained in a tranquillity whispering the word “excel”. And thus one is purged of regret
And forgets the heart can break, an ancient myth that music can dispel.
That’s what I call a good live set, their talent tall; I guess they must be Human After All.
The festival, when at its end, sent many people far and wide, to where the message now resides
Within the hearts of different folks, where they, in turn, will lend their love to all their friends and often joke with smiles that gleam for things are better than they seem
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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As Amelia said, this poem could definitely do with some better structure. Line breaks and stanzas are as much a part of poetry as the words themselves; have you chosen your structures carefully? Keep in mind that a large block of text can be intimidating to a reader.
Alternately, you could try a prose-poem: structured like prose, sounds like a poem, has poetic ideas.
For me, this poem suffers from an overdose of words and images. While you have some really nice images in here, it was difficult to focus on what was going on or exactly what the speaker was trying to express. Try to really focus your poem, and to clear up the imagery.
Is there a specific object, sight, sound, or scent the reader should focus on? Does that object have a certain significance? Something you might try - give yourself a limit on the number of lines. About half of what you have now, if not fewer.
Try to express what you were saying in the original poem with fewer images, ideas, and adjectives. If the images described are strong, they'll stand on their own; they won't need explanation or extra words to carry them.
Welcome to YWS!
Colleen
One of the first things I'd reccomend would be to space things out a little more. I can see why some lines would be left as full sentences (such as the second line), but others seem to lend themselves to their own lines, especially near the end where the rhyming becomes more prevelent. Another instance where line spacing might be important it in the middle of the first stanza: "I debate whether weed smells better/ Then incense of lavender" I wasn't sure if you intended it to read as weed smells better than lavander, or as weed smells better, and then you smelled lavander. If it's the first, you should change "then" to "than" and if it's the second, maybe try ending the thought at the end of the line just so it's extra clear.
The last few lines in the first stanza ("Even a tent can be transformed into a hot box when enough people will/ The smoke towards its manifestation") confused me at first because I didn't understand what you meant by the word "will" right away. I think it was unclear to me mostly because the next line started with a capitalized "the" and I wasn't sure at first if it was a new sentence or not.
I liked the image of "the tongue of recollection" in the third line because I understood exactly what you meant. I also liked the line in the second stanza that said: "And somewhere when you hear the music stop playing say I love you, it is carried on the air to those who need to feel it.". I liked this mostly because of the idea of resonance of thought, even when there is no music, and because of implication that one doesn't have a choice in this instance whether they want to feel loved or not. I think that's an interesting idea.
I also liked the happy ending of "things are better than they seem"; it's always nice to read something that ends positively once in a while.
Overall, I liked this poem; I don't know if I understood all of it (let me know if I got something completely and utterly wrong). Good luck on future poems!
-Amelia
p.s.: I like your sig line, even if the first sentence spun my mind