You tell the world
of crows that fly upon stalks of bamboo
and trail crimson fairy-lights through the gravel.
You whisper silent catacombs
into my dusky, velvet heart;
tales of misty spines on which your fingers travel.
These words drop from my trellis,
like star-ships sewn from solitary sandpaper
that cut through us so each fingertip bleeds butterflies
and canvas paper trains.
Inky footsteps etch our faces into stone,
but each word we say has already been spoken
and we are trapped in a prism cage,
where the light glides through us
and we believe we are dreaming.
These walls guide our speech,
our movement, our rhythm,
and every breath we breathe is a recycled tear.
Language cages us, just as it lets us express,
and we only stir up the words we know
for fear that these prism-walls will crash
if we try to move beyond their steely eyes.
Art is free, liberty is caution.
Speak, they tell us, and let thoughts flow free.
But we cannot speak, for freedom is a purple chain.
The flightiest of prose, the blackest of ink;
these inkwells and walls do no more
than imprism me.
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139,524 Literary Works • 672,598 Reviews
Woah. Cool poem here. Here's a review for you, representing team Red Writing Hood this Review Day!
Okay, that. was. awesome. You were right to include the disclaimer though; there was definitely some imagery overload. This was one of those poems where I could that the author had a really definite idea of what they wanted to communicate and how they wanted to communicate it. Your syntax was amazing and your diction flawless. The whole idea of our words and language "caging us" was profoundly interesting. This was especially cool because you employed such sensory overload at the same time you exposed the ways in which language places limits on how we can express ourselves. Very cool dynamic there.
The only constructive criticism I have for you is that I had absolutely no clue what on Earth you were getting at until after the first two stanzas. I know you employed imagery overload on purpose here, but in these first two stanzas, there's just so much imagery that the reader is left without any bearings as to what they mean. I get what you were trying to do, and it certainly worked well for you in the rest of the poem, but for those two stanzas I would suggest going back through and revising them. You can still employ imagery overload here, but I think you need to turn it down a notch to make it more understandable. Other than that, fantastic job here.
I hope this helped ya out! Happy review day and keep writing!
Wow! I am blown away. I'm so glad that you have a grasp of imagery!
Imagery is my favorite aspect of poetry, and can really create a memorable poem. I love your combinations of words and the images they create in my head. Fabulous.
That being said, we must be careful with our images lest they create a conflicting image. You have a few in your poem.
Despite the vivid words and different combination, I couldn't get a clear image of this one. I think it's the wording. Did you mean that there is a crow with wings made out of bamboo, or did you mean that the bamboo is doing the flying? The way this is written, either could be true.
For the first option (if that is the right one (and certainly, it is the more pleasant one to imagine)), I would try writing it like this: "of crows that fly with feathers of bamboo" or "wings" if you don't like feathers.
For the second option, I'd write it as so: "of crows that fly upon stalks of bamboo"
While this has nice alliteration, I am having difficulty producing an image from this line, as well. I don't really have any suggestions on how to make the image clearer. From the second line, I thought more of paper airplanes than anything else. Perhaps you could word it more like this: "like star-ships sewn from sandpaper." This would still give you that nice alliteration, but it would give a clearer image, and also make more sense to be paired with the following line.
I suggest adding more imagery to this line. Also, avoid saying "these" to begin a stanza because you really have only been talking about other things up to this point; that's why you start a new stanza. To start a new subject. Also, I want to know the quality of the walls. If you're referring to the walls in a previous stanza, give us a hint that you're talking about the same walls.
Okay, now here are my favorite lines.
You have beautiful words. Thank you for sharing this poem. I am glad to have read it. Happy poeting!
Wow. This is gorgeous, and I love the title. My favorite part - which left me breathless - was the last stanza. Overall, the imagery is very strange and thought-provoking, and somehow it works really well.
Nitpicks
`
Do you mean "canvas"? It makes more sense that way.
Try putting "on which" (or something like that) in the second blank. You can't travel something, you have to travel ON something. Know what I mean? (I might be wrong)
The first blank - try changing "in" to "into", or maybe put "to" before "silent" if that is your intended meaning.
Change the bolded word to "the" to avoid having "these" repeat twice in a row in that stanza. (or change the other "these" - up to you)
Anyway...
I hope you find this helpful and somewhat logical. Thank you for writing this poem, I truly enjoyed reading and reviewing it
Thank you so much for reviewing! I was appalled at all the nit-picks -- I didn't even notice the "let's" and "canvases" -- so thank you for pointing that out! I made a few edits, and I hope it's better now!
It is