Names are carved into brick walls
(stained with the swollen black blood of trains)
like graphite voices from wooden slats and steel rails, oxidized
with loose feet and creased carpet bags.
Smudged ticket stubs in hand, veiny shoes
disembark from iron steps saturated with whistles
like throat singing.
Hurried voices, precipitate voices, serenade industriousness
in chorus with the gasping train, lying slumped
at the depot with parched lips and cracking skin
drawing rattling, soot laced breaths like a withered hospital patient
hooked up to a respirator,
dying as weary conductors and wheezing porters
whisper last rites like priests in
company cassocks.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
140,911 Literary Works • 673,730 Reviews
Okay, nice title much? (compliment! I swear!) ^_^ Kylan, there's train blood (sweet image), and soot, and all the things a grimy train station should have. This is lovely
the hospital patient image might have been a little too wordy. I'd say to take out the respirator part, but it fits well with all the other breathing imagery around. Then again, the breaths it helps are soot-laced, so maybe it could be spared.
Maybe change to "Hurried, precipitate voices serenade industriousness" to keep things all together and concise. But as is, there does seem to be an almost build-up of said voices, so just take a look and see.
Disembodied feet! Only the shoes get off the train, yet they hold ticket stubs? I know what you mean, of course, it just seems slightly awkward. If you re-evaluate this, look more to "smudged ticket stubs in hand" than to "veiny shoes disembark" because the latter leads very well into the rest of the stanza.
Thank you very much for taking a look at this Cassandra. I glad you enjoyed it to some extent.
I have grammatically structured this as I intended. One of the great things about poetry is that grammar doesn't have the same chokehold on it. Regardless of that, I believe I structured this properly anyway. There are just a few mid-sentence stanza breaks that may have thrown you off.
Again, thanks for the crit.
-Kylan
Wow. This is a very vivid, descriptive poem. I felt like I could see everything happening.
I don't quite understand the placement of 'oxidised', after a comma on the first line but seeming to belong more on the second. I think you should clarify this, the comma probably isn't that neccesary.
Also, remember to put capital letters where they are required. Grammatical errors are distracting from such an emotive poem.
I'm not going to pretend to completely understand this poem, but perhaps that's what you wanted. To leave interpretation up to the reader. This is common in poetry, so it's not a big issue.
All in all, I enjoyed reading this =D