speak for the cup in your hands

I really like the title of this!Honestly, I had to "google" what "pipal" meant, but that's not a necessarally a bad thing because I gained some knowledge. I would suggest capitalizing the title, and the word "People" because you capitalized the word "Lies" later in the poem. So, it would be more consistent.

This entire poem has lovely word choice! I love the word ephemeral. I'm not sure I understand what you're writing when you say, "as the unopened bottle fades into the background." The last four lines of the poem are nice. It's really creative to talk about "Condescending music" drowning and in the trees.

I think there should be a few more lines, because I'm having a little bit of a hard time following the whole poem even though I liked thinking about it as I read it. It's just a little difficult to figure out where someone's condescension leads to "Lies". A few more lines could make it clearer. Nice poem and word choice! Keep using interesting words!!!

--Alliyah

Mgmr. <3

I'm chill with the whisperesque feeling you slide into these lines. Everything comes to this very light breathy-ness that just does your emotions an extra favor, so you get much praise for that.

Unlike Bek, I'm a fan of your using "of the pipal"--especially since "of" implies that the trees are the ones whispering, then the correction of people. I've never considered using dialect slips for duality before, but I'm digging it.

I'm not sure I'm satisfied with your line breaks, though! I know I'm not really the authority on line breaks (since the lines get pretty long in my poetry), but I think there's a level of emphatic timing and flow that you're not quite hitting with your current breaks. If you revisit this or get some free time, try experimenting, placing the breaks where there normally would be emphatic breaths--where you can draw attention to words or phrases that need to catch a bit more than they do already.

You can probably mix up "condescending music" to make it better, less generic, but that's really the most specific critique I have for this. I'm quite a fan! Thank you for beautiful poetry. <3

Laaaaava! <3 So, first a lovely comment on my wall, then I see a new poem by you! So no, I couldn't resist

"pipal" - I admit I had to look this up. If you're using this as a tree, do you mean "in the pipal"? Otherwise, I'm not quite sure how to read the line, since "of" doesn't make sense to me. Granted, this could easily be because you have a much better understanding of the tree than I do ^^

Beyond that, mostly just me playing my usual "zomg, too many words!" game, so I'll limit it a bit. 5th line, definitely don't need "like" in there. Also not sure about "people" the line above. Like, I get why you're doing it, but it's a bit jarring, and I'm not sure you want jarring right there. If you do, then you've achieved that, for sure! Also, if you do mean "chatter" figuratively and are personifying "pipal" (or describing what happens within the tree), then you already have the idea of people working its way in to the poem already - at least I think so.

Here, this is sort of how I want to read those lines -

unlike the chatter of the pipal:
Words brushed your lips for one ephemeral pause
(the time between lips touching glass and sipping)
these glasses full with drunken nights

I messed with the punctuation a lot, I know. Something's not quite right, but I'm not sure what it is. Possibly I'm not reading this correctly? I only changed "brimming" because it sounded great in terms of syllables and rhythm, but in terms of meaning not as much - like, I love the image, but I'm not sure - oh, screw it. I like it. My grammar nut inside is yelling at me (though I honestly can't remember why at the moment), but whatever. I like it. I like it all through "the unopened bottle fades into the background" - though the line feels wordy in my mouth.

No idea what to do with "condescending music" - I kind of like the image, but rhythm-wise I don't like it, and it just doesn't work for me.

OH! If you're going to use "new" as you did, I'd recommend setting it apart in some way, so as readers we know that using an adjective as a noun is intentional.

Uh, nix "rising" in the second to last line. The parallel thing I don't like here, especially since you've only done it once before, and it's directly above.

With the lies/lives thing, well. Here, what if those last few lines looked like this? Just a few tweaks.

rising above what I could ever be
toward a patchwork of scintillating li(v)es.

Thoughts?

Anyhoo! Enjoyable stuff! You have some lovely lines in here, so keep it up!

<3Mesh

(and ew, preview is still down, so I hope I didn't miss any typos/mis-typed code!)

AzaleaLexis,

Hi. I'd love to review your poem.

MICRO COMMENTS
>the chatter of the pipal

Honestly, I had to look up the word "pipal," but once I did, the rest of the poem became infinitely more meaningful.

>like the time between the lips touching the glass and sipping

Here, I felt like there were a lot of "the's." To me, the article helps to point to each new object, but I do think the line would be less cluttered without it.

>silkein

I am not sure if this is an intentional misspelling of "silken" or a word I am not familiar with?

>I long to break the emptiness of this new

I was confused by this line, because I'm not used to seeing "new" act as a noun.

MACRO COMMENTS
I had to read this once or twice before I had an "aha" moment, but once I did, it was worth it.

I truly like the layered images of trees and people, rustling leaves and voices. I feel that is a comparison with infinite potential.

I know there are no rules for punctuation with poetry, and the stark punctuation you used here was not an obstacle for me, but in places I felt my reading would have been instructed by a well-placed comma or a hyphen.

Hope this is useful to you.

I really enjoyed this piece, and think I will take a gander at your other work.