Young Writers Society

Hello, Palantalid! My name's dianne, just so you know.
This poem was very interesting. I didn't understand most of it because it sounded very disjointed. Like the part about the insect?...What? I became very confused, I think I only understood the very last few stanzas. Which were fabulous by the way. The closing was very beautiful and if perfect existed that's what they would be. The first half of the poem seems very incoherent to me, maybe because I just look too much into it or something. Whatever.

The dying mountains and the crumbling hills
shall tell you
that time did not begin with space.
They will tell you that time does not
exist. It is motion that seems like time.

It is by being a part of the flow of things,
the relentless Music,
that we actually think time is passing.

It is by winking that we gain day and night,
second through moment
and seasons passing.

Thank you for the read. It has been a while since I've found myself wanting to concentrate so carefully on the words of a poem. I enjoyed this, there's something very soft but firm in your persona's voice. I'll have to read it a second time before I can give you any more in-depth comments:

There are days when I consider my heartbeats
with a kind of detachedness [This made me pause. Maybe detatchment would be less obtrusive.] that I see
in the eyes of cows and half-sleeping dogs.

I should sleep more than I do. [I love the feel of this line, so simple but lots of emotion behind it.]

In my dreams, I have always remembered
to hide because I rarely dream [I think a pause after hide, maybe even a line break would be more effective.]
and someone does not want me to.

I should sleep lighter than I do.

If I can relate my heart's raging with my life
I would be able to consider it better. [Try not to change tense. Either can should be could or would should be will.]
But my heart is only a red-framed window [I was unsure of red-framed at first, though I loved half-beheaded, but when you have the same image later I loved it and now that I'm reading this again, it feels as if it fits.]
through which I watch my life. I am half-beheaded.

But still, I only consider my heartbeats
on those days when I consider my life.
I try to recall what I see through
those countless red-framed windows.
How many hearts have I discarded? [An interesting line and the best of the stanza. I like the little dribbles of his life that are fitted in his thoughts.]

I should fall asleep a little slower than I do.

-x-x-x-

There is the blank sky that yearns
for the sea's darkness to be projected
on it in thin wispy lines
and blotches. How I yearn to fill
so many skies with clouds
and landscapes and how
I wish this were not just
the empty sky I saw through
the red-framed window. [I'm not sure how I like the change in tone and feeling. This stanza is probably my least favourite. I don't feel like it says much and what it does say could probably be portrayed in three or four lines with the same feel and meaning.]

Things working, unnoticed, notice me
watching them. They are so tired
that I want to help them as they work
beyond that window. I have seen
more past the frames- I have seen
unspeakable things, silence in the middle of night,
exhausting things, clutching on for one's life. [I feel that the last line could be more creative, more dramatic but I really like the one before that, perhaps because the two halves fit together much more smoothly. What an individual experiences at that hour of night really is their own business and nothing to be voiced to others while there could be something more meaningful in that last line. Maybe even the opposite is more true, that it's more exhaustive when you find that you're not trying to hold onto life, you're just hanging there from habit while the mind gets heavier with all the passing days and motions. With every new human suffering.]

They are watching me and I am
trying to work out
what they think. Is that not a
simple thing? Caring for others' thoughts
is burying oneself in care.
There is the clumsiness of the carpenter
and the paint unevenly crimson. [I like the idea of unevenly and the image of the carpenter. I wonder if that's a biblical reference to Jesus? The clumsiness of God's design and the world itself? Maybe I'm just reading in where it isn't but I like it nonetheless.]

A wrong approach.....
a fatal Thought is not passed
by the workers, but they know
that I see the Thought.
The window cannot close.
A spiralling stair......
thunder steps down for the last time
on a seaside city
and then it is buried into the world,
passing itself into the infinite. [I like the fragmented feel you have throughout but I wonder if this stanza perhaps takes that too far?]

-x-x-x-
I should care less than I do.....
no one I know hates me,
except the one who does not want
my dreams to be dreamt,
such dangerous dreams to be dreamt.
That person is in my every 40 winks.
A shared Dream spreads its arms
around us, embracing us close and warm
and we each give an empty arm
to the Thought.

Mouths and features arch into a face
of untold emotions. The Insect
sees in many colours that I cannot
imagine. It sees so many illusions
I cannot even dream of.
And yet, I want to be fooled
many times over, as all of us
seem to be when we wake up. [The use of the insect is lovely. It's very good to feel like we're seeing through the persona's mind and seeing something very unique and different to the way we might think.]

Insect is much bigger than it should be
but it does not grow, it rots in the presence
of tear drops and lily-pads.

Dream is slipping forever
as my hold is weak, my vision low.
Is there something I gain in insecurity? [I like the lines but I have an issue with the format. I don't know what you're attempting to vonvey by this? It doesn't seem to fit.]

Thought that spreads so wide
across the sky, is only a fraction of all
that which I am only beginning to see.

Talking to one another across walls
from one room to another, we think
we see each others eyes, winking
40 times in quick succession, shouting
to be heard.

The wink is the lightning,
the sight is passing thunder.
The eyes close during passage, the most things
happen when you are sinking into a bed in a house
that was built for the weary, the most
distance is travelled, the most sights are seen.
What you see when your eyes are open is only
the afterglow, the resultant sound, the effect.

I should look closer than I do. [I love these last two stanzas and this line. The return tot he earlier phrases is good. I felt the thought track had started to be lost and fizzle out for a moment but now it feels like it has come full circle and is right back on track.]

-x-x-x-

The first wink is only a short wink,
only a single infinitesimal moment
before dawn.

The fortieth wink is the wink
of darkness and empty darkness. It is
the sunset past. [I like the idea of defining the difference between the first and fortieth wink but I'm not sure if these six lines do that effectively. It might be better if it were simpler and briefer, just another passing thought tucked in with his others rather than in a section on its own.]

Have you ever seen something
fall out of the sky? Or out of someone's eyes?
Have you ever run from the old rail station
through the marketplace to the beach down south
before the sun has run that very same course
Have you seen anyone?
Have you seen anyone singing?
Have you seen anyone singing at the docks? [Beautiful. I love the simplicity here, especially those first two lines.]

The dying mountains and the crumbling hills
shall tell you
that time did not begin with space.
They will tell you that time does not
exist. It is motion that seems like time.

It is by being a part of the flow of things,
the relentless Music,
that we actually think time is passing.

It is by winking that we gain day and night,
second through moment
and seasons passing. [Ah, the build up to that first line is nicely done.]

It is by winking that we fuel the universe.
The eye is full of stars and rocks
full of falling things, lights and circles.
It is the wink that turns the wheel. [Perfect close.]

So you don't want painful details? Alright, I'll be broad.

I thought this was a very good poem. A really great analyzing of what happens in the moments before we enter sleep, or so I perceived it - after all, those thoughts are very strange. I think because you place us in a moment that allows such spacey, random thoughts, it's fine that you mention places and ask questions that pertain to something outside of the realm of falling asleep.

There were a few stanzas I don't think fit with the deepness of the poem. This one for instance:

There is the blank sky that yearns
for the sea's darkness to be projected
on it in thin wispy lines
and blotches. How I yearn to fill
so many skies with clouds
and landscapes and how
I wish this were not just
the empty sky I saw through
the red-framed window.

That was EXTREEMLY confusing. Sorry. I'm lost. I'm sure if I could understand it I would totally love it.