i have found myself retreating
into the corners of my skull,
fingers tapping against my nerves
as though hoping to find patterns in them--
a constellation, a pathway
for exodus.
i sometimes trick myself into seeing
a sliver of sundance in the wreckage,
in a graveyard of mottled hopes
and tired endeavours at trying to bottle the light.
i have been obscured by rain and fog,
my spinal discs refusing to move
out of orbit,
no matter how hard i try.
i have found myself, and lost myself,
in a dark room filled with heritage
monsters digging into the cleft of my chin,
cardboard hemispheres dangling from
the cusp of my tongue.
this is a strange place
to be in.
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129,428 Literary Works • 671,505 Reviews
Hello Pomp!
I'm here to save this from the dark recesses of the green room. Huzzah!
You have all your beautiful concrete images and flow and pacing and beauty like normal.
There seemed to be a little bit of a "this is my heritage but I'm afraid I will lose who I am as an individual in my heritage, but my heritage still makes up part of who I am as an individual" sort of theme to this. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but that's what I got out of it. However, that theme (or whatever theme you may have been going for) doesn't come out all that strong. The images are there, but they don't quite connect. If this is just a theme of being lost within yourself, the third stanza seems really strangely specific, I dunno.
I like the
out of orbit,
part. The way you formatted it I mean. It looks good.
I always find it really hard to give you advice on your poems. This, like the rest, is really quite impressively polished. I sorta like that this one is a little short than I'm used to, which makes it a little more palatable for casual reading, but it's harder to lose myself in the tumble of your words (or to find more things to talk about in a review).
Anyway, never quit writing poetry Pomp. It's delicious as drinking sunlight.
Keep writing; I hope this helped a bit!
~fortis
edit: also +1 to everything Rydia said.
There is a lot to enjoy in this poem. Your imagery in the first and third stanzas are especially vivid. I really like how you compared the mind to a dark and musty attic. The last two lines are especially powerful. The second stanza seems a bit disjointed, but then again, so is the mind. Well done.
Hullo, thought I'd take a look at this.
Specifics
1. I like the first three lines of this but found the next three a bit too clunky:
I think you could make this sharper, something like:
hoping to find the patterns;
the constellation for exodus.
2. I'm not sure about mottled hopes. It's not something which can be pictured because 'hopes' is one of those vague, formless words and you're already toying with quite fig-mental terms like 'sundance' and 'tired endeavours'. I think you need a solid image to back up the graveyard.
3. To endeavor already means to try so this line feels repetitive.
4. I'm not sure that this is the right image here. I like the idea of spinal discs refusing to move out of orbit, but I don't see how it relates to someone who is obscured by rain and fog or how breaking their own back would somehow allow them to move out from under the bad weather. I also don't like the line 'no matter how hard i try' because it's one of those surplus lines which you're more likely to find in dramatic, teenage poetry. Instead it should be a repetition of the actions or a description of the trying like '...refusing to move/ out of orbit/ no matter how I turn' or 'whichever way I spin' or 'even when I walk backwards for a day'.
5. The ending is pretty but I'm not sure about the imagery there - why cardboard on the tongue? I could imagine someone going through boxes and the cardboard being like an extension of their hands but I don't understand the linking of the facial imagery with the items in the room.
Overall
I like this but it feels a bit disjointed and I'm not sure I understand what it's saying. The imagery is pretty and I love all the reference to space and the cosmic universe, but I can't tie them down to the more concrete image of someone looking through old boxes in an attic which comes at the end. Is that meant to be a metaphor also or is that what the speaker is actually doing as part of this search for themself? I'm really not sure.
I'd like to know though so that's a good start and I think if you could add just a little more clarity and consistency then this poem would be really nice. It's already quite easy to read - it has a nice flow and like I said before strong imagery. I just feel like I don't have much to take away with me in terms of understanding the story or the themes.
All the best,
~Heather
This is so deep and unique!
It has sentences that captured my mind the moment I read it.
"In a graveyard of mottled hope and tired endeavours at trying to bottle the light"
Is simply brilliant.
Good work!