He left his bones in the desert
along with his skin, and his heart
That old puppet baked in the sun until
his belly blew up like it wanted to float
and his mind leaked out through his nostrils
☼
When he'd first stepped foot onto that
sore and sunburned land
he didn't see the skeletons, or the way the shadows smiled from the dunes
He didn't see the plump cactus for their poison
or the blushing blooms for their lies
☼
His bones would be scattered, in time
by the spitting coyotes, and red ants
surging like blood
through his spoiled clothes
☼
He'd be buried
in pieces
over years
while his parched soul perched on the mesa,
melancholy, and cramped
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125,027 Literary Works • 672,773 Reviews
Hi there! You reviewed one of my poems recently so here I am returning the favor.
So I had to look up the word "creosote" and I'm not too science-y but I guess it's some sort of tar.
I love the progression you have in the first 2 lines - from bones, to skin, to heart. The description of "that old puppet" is a jarring follow, because immediately I have sympathy for the character from the first two lines, but then "old puppet" has a sort of "goofy, gullible" connotation.
Third line in 2nd stanza runs a bit long. Again though I love the mixed descriptors you use, "sore and sunburned" again is excellent. It makes the desert read as not just a physical place but an emotional location. The "plump cactus for their poison" seems like a bit too much all put together. I would just put "cactus for their poison" and I have a little bit of a hard time picturing the "ants surging like blood" in the same context as the bones scattered -- is the person already dead by the time the ants come?
The ending is very interesting at the end; "parched soul perched on the mesa / melancholy, and cramped" -- I love the odd juxtaposition of "cramped" to having the bones spread around - it's a contradiction but it works.
One issue I had with this poem, is that by the end I'm really unclear what this metaphor is actually talking about, there's so much emotional language here. The person enters a place without reading all the warning signs, he leaves his heart behind (so maybe this is a relationship, or just a bad job, or a dream that didn't work) and he can't recover all the pieces left behind, he's just tar or creosote. Still though, I'm not sure what the catalyst that left him here is, and as a reader I'd love to know.
Overall it's a really intriguing poem, you take a concept "creosote" that I wouldn't automatically put poetic value to, and you make it absolutely poetic and give character and emotion throughout. Well done! I look forward to reading more of your work in the future - please let me know if you had any questions about my review.
~alliyah
Hi it’s IvoryRose returning the favor with a review. I interpreted the poem as a man that committed murder and was now lost in a desert. He’s dying in the desert and remembers what he did. He is haunted by it and sees images related to it in his own death. I know he’s lost, but feel he’s regretting something big. I feel like it could have been longer. Like maybe you could have added more details of his death. You gave the poem a strong dramatic impact and it was good.