Published October 13, 2005
Okay...I'm trying to get back into the site, so I'm reading and critiquing. But I do hope that if I help you with your stuff, you will return the favor when (and if) I decide to post. 
Dying curtains impart their frail pulses
to stale air. The vibraphonist alone with his mallets,
harmonies lifted to a blue guardianship
just below the ceiling. When the building was new,
all the stewardesses lived here, not much
of a draw for him, of course,
shrieks racketing up from the pool, the steep river
of everlasting jets rising from Oakland International Airport.
A Texas boy in late October forging through faded corn,
rattling corn closed as he passes, closed behind him
on house, barn and sheds, on overalls pinned
to the squealing pulley line, on his old dog at the
edge of the road watching for god knows what.
Swollen within its dream of music and young men,
the vibist’s apartment. Once in a great while the dark,
somber student with such a gift that his own
Swollen is a good descriptive word. gives over to it and there is nothing more
he could want than that suspended sound
trembling in expectation of its own repetition.
When the curtains are tied back, his ocean view
includes a long rock wall upon which fleets of pelicans,
patient in the slack draperies of their skins,
stream salt water. He was a thin boy running for the school bus,
watched from every window by thick-petalled, magnolia faces
soured by a finicking contempt for the sweaty, lanky
bumble of himself. On the monthly death
anniversary of a neighbor’s son, a bell jar at the base
of the mailbox fills with fresh flowers. Overhead,
flyways are raucous with sky fish. Silver time strikes
silver keys, in closed rooms curtains stall between
unapologetic sunset and the carpets’ desperate hoarding
of their dust.
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"He was a thin boy running for the school bus,
watched from every window by thick-petalled, magnolia faces
soured by a finicking contempt for the sweaty, lanky
bumble of himself."
This made the poem worth reading. Beautiful. This feels honest and solid.
Otherwise, much of this felt contrived and overwrought.
If a poem requires several readings to be appreciated, you need to make the reader care enough about the voice and message to look closer. It's your job to make us care, not our job to play good students.
You have talent. You are very smart. I'd like to see you create something, rather than hammer it out. I'd like to see you embrace the language rather than use it to show off.
The beauty of poetry is that it is complicated, but emotionally accessible. Give vulnerability a try.
In other words, "Give it to me straight, Doc."
I apologize for the misunderstanding you had. Have you ever heard of a style called "Impresionistic Simplism"? It's fairly new -- not much written on it. This was an experiment in that direction: for instance, the chopping of the lines at seemingly inopportune times -- what better a way to represent the startling, shocking, destructive Real of society? -- is intended to be just that. There is a certain cadence to the words, a certain 'disjoint' in their narrative that the reader is supposed to feel, that something is always amiss, something is always in play...Overall, I would suggest you sit and read this over and over and over again to grasp its full meaning; there are a lot of puns and play-on-words not easily attainable in a second, or even third reading. But you're the judge, and I'm the judged.
Eh, I digress. Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to the piece.
Sentence 1: Good.
Sentence 2: What the heck are you talking about? What are you describing with “blue guardianship just below the ceiling?” It is not clear enough.
Sentence 3: You start off good in stanza one, but why is the sentence split between two stanzas? Is the last sentence in the 1st stanza suppose to be continued to the next stanza? If so, you have lost me. If it is a different idea, even if related to the last idea in the first stanza then use a period and capitol to indicate the switch in thought. I do like the metaphor in “the steep river of everlasting jets…”
Sentence 4: I can picture it, but why is it coupled with the thought before it? It doesn’t seem to flow this way. In the 4th line of the 2nd stanza, maybe use something like, “rattling husks close in as he passes,” instead and polish the next line after it.
Okay, this poem is too frustrating for me to try and decipher and critique further. My overall suggestion to you would be to evaluate the [u][b]purpose [/b][/u]and theme of the poem and then revise it. Your use of vocabulary seems to be for effect more than because those words are the best choice for the poem. Shakespeare used big words too, but not at the expense of compromising his work and he always remembered that he was writing for an intended audience. Your work needs to flow and the words need to “fit” to each other. You also seem to chop your ideas in half with your line breaks and when you begin a new stanza. You finish your original thought from the line or stanza before AND start a new thought within the next line or stanza. This may seem to fall under the category of artistic formatting, but in truth it’s really annoying. It makes the poem more work than it is worth. I think you should recheck your grammar (capitalization and periods), your usage seems absurd at this point. I also have some questions, do you like confusing your readers? Is that the point of your poem, to confuse the readers, or do you strive for it to be a decisive, clear, artistic flow of imagery? Is the poem intended for an audience or just for you? These are points on which I think you need to make some decisions and then proceed accordingly with your work.
-Brooke (BamickAZ)
The first time I read it, I just read it and just kinda just...read through it.
But now it's the third time I've read it and I'm getting attached to it...
The ending really tore me up and well, because of that, I have no critique for this and it's your fault.
Well, I guess it helped...
Thanks Misty. It's the steep river of everlasting jets...that's everlasting. Somehow I don't guess that's going to clarify anything. I very much appreciate your comments. I frequently sink with the weight of my own metaphors and every suggestion is a lifeline. (See what I mean?)