-i-
a candle falls from the sky and sets your world on fire, singes it
to its very bones and marks it with an x in bright blazing ink. you perch
on a handmade pedestal,
in your self-built moorlands in white paint.
you sing
of mosques,
of cathedrals
of warfires
of Cordoba, Syria and Rome.
she listens to your heartache echo over the valley
and sends SOS signals to you from a window that is too far away,
handkerchiefs and candles and curtains catching ablaze
and fluttering like black moths, like dead leaves in the middle of
December.
you never see the turrets when they are aflame, and you never see
that she weeps for you--for your sake, will you listen?--and sets the fire out every night.
-ii-
the waves of the sky are rolling against your cheek
and the clouds have acquired frequency
and your smile slips on
and off
and on and off and on and off like a crystal vial throws off light.
you wonder where you went wrong with the world; you wonder
when you bit down on your tongue so hard that it bled and for the first time
you could taste it, taste the world and it was bittersweet and heartbreaking
and got bitter the longer you kept it under your tongue.
you can taste the world, and it tastes of scarlet, and the candles
taste of scarlet, and the sky is breathing.
she feels the sky breathing. she feels it echo, resound, pirouette
and claw you from the ribs down because you don't understand.
she yells at you every night, to take the sky's hand, to tame it,
but your demons are running too fast for you to catch up
and the horses in your chest are racing; these days,
you tire easily, and she asks you who you think you are and the wind
asks you who you are and the moon
resounds and you--you ask yourself
what you have become.
'there is nothing to me,' you write on your walls, 'but drudgery and sin.'
-iii-
she sits in the parlour playing the blues and making rain
and piling windwork against the walls.
her radio crackles, there is a storm incoming.
so she stands with a bucket underneath your window
to collect tears, to extinguish the fires she knows will rage tonight.
she wonders why you have never seen her.
she wonders if you have heard her name.
she wonders if you have seen the burning tower.
she wonders
and she leaves.
-iv-
at night, you tuck your heart carefully in your rib-cage, swing
the window open,
and wipe your face against the moon's baleful gaze.
a song plays on the mountaintop--hidden,
snug beneath the coverlets of a smile.
a song, from a parlour, from a heart entrenched with fire.
for the first time in years, you listen.
for the first time in years, your eyes and your ears and your heart--widen,
your palms--upturned--to the sky
in vain fruitless efforts to catch--anything, anything--
that could keep this feeling inside you, keep it
from flying away and leaving you once more
waxen and covered with welts.
she sits in her parlour until morning, strumming 'til her heart
quietens, until your demons
fall asleep.
-v-
sometimes her fire escapes her tower and walks
to your front door, swirling past her fingers and crawling
along your walls. you have taken
to listening carefully, and refusing to fill
her bucket with tears.
you invite her in to play the blues.
some nights, your heart swings out of your ribcage
and melts every bruise from your waxen structure,
so your heartache lights up the wick and she
watches, afraid--watches,
mesmerised.
you offer her a handmade pedestal to sit on in the evenings.
you watch candles fall from the sky.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,797 Reviews
okay.
wow. wow. wow.
This is beautiful and I loved every second of it. It was sad, it was ethereal, it was everything I could have hoped for in a poem. This poem was something I could only dream of writing. Your metaphors, your personification, your imagery blew just about every poem I have ever read out of the water. Not even blew, shotgun blasted. The usage of the word tears, wax, candles, and fire was genius. Unless I'm missing it, I can't find anything that could be fixed or reworded. Your poem kind of makes me think of Steven universe backgrounds, especially the statues.
When I clicked on this poem, I expected just something I had to grudgingly review so I could get points, but instead I was met with a punch in the face.
One million hats off to you.
Hey! Cello here!
Wow
liker seriously wow
Okay, this was greta for quite a few reasons
Language-
You used amazing language. All the words felt so comfortable, perfect, and every word held meaning beyond it's definition.
Flow-
Everything rolled smoothly, calmly. There wasn't a single moment where I had to hesitate and reread, which is rare, I get caught on things very easily.
Story-
Just perfect. The story was beautiful, meaningful and a joy to read.
What good's a review with nothing but praise though-
This is the only line I didn't like. The poem was very poetic, very smooth and relaxed. 'Acquired frequency' though? It felt a bit out of place, forced maybe. Not sure what to change it to, sorry I'm not a ton of help, but you're tremendously skilled and I'm sure you'll come up with something.
I always love your work- Keep writing!
-ChocolateCello
You have a good, eye-catching title. It's a little wordy, but I'm not complaining. It definitely made me interested in the piece. I couldn't help but wonder how those two ideas were connected.
Your wording and separation are beautiful and I wouldn't change a thing. Your writing is lovely and full of emotions. The only lines that felt weird to me were
"she sits in her parlour until morning, strumming 'til her heart
quietens, until your demons
fall asleep."
The sentiment behind these lines are great, but something about the choice of the word "quietens" seems to stick out strangely to me. It may partially be where it's placed, but I think there's probably a better synonym that could fit there. That's just me, though.
Altogether, this feels very melancholy yet beautiful. I am very glad that I paused to read it. Keep it up!
Hey Pomp!
Okay wow. Some things I really love about this are your voice that really shines through in this, the flow is also very excellent, and as always, your imagery and word choice are spot on and unique. I love reading your poems because so few of the images are cliche, I rarely if ever have heard or read any of them before. You possess a remarkable imagination.
Okay, let's go by number.
First off, before I go there, I honestly think this might be better off as separate poems of the same project, you know, like cantos. This is pretty lengthy, and I think each of these parts could stand alone enough (though connected) to be their own separate poem as a part of a series. For example, my "7 ways to reach the moon" series.
So, despite this idea of mine, I'm still crazy enough to give you what should be 5 separate reviews in one.
okay.
What is in white paint? The pedestal? The moorlands? The "you" character?
So I like this fire imagery. However, I feel like it goes from fire to not fire back to fire. Like, when you first mention the pedestal, it's like the whole burning earth goes away for a moment. I think you should bring a little bit of this fire into the moorlands and pedestal, you know what I mean?
I really, really love your fiery curtains etc. like the moths like the dead leaves in december. That strikes me as a very perfect image. And the way you have it formatted is also perfect for what it is.
I find it strange that this "she" character listens to the 'you" character's heartbreak and SHE is the one sending out an SOS. That part feels a bit inconsistent to me.
The flow is really nice in this part, and the images are loverly.
So this one is pretty great too. One thing that I think could be improved is this part:
Somewhere in here it becomes a labyrinth and I miss what's being said. One thing I think is a little strange is the "you wonder when you bit down on your tongue." like, I think it would work fine without the "you wonder" part. I'm wondering why it's there.
I 100% always think of candles tasting like wax. Maybe this is only a strange sensory detail to me, but I can't think of a candle tasting like anything other than wax.
I like the train of thought thing with the who do you think you ares. I feel like you could have punctuated or line-breaked it better somehow to make each separate thing stand out just a little bit more.
This part reads as a little... almost cliche? maybe just over-dramatic? I don't know, I was expecting something more unique and... better. Downright better. I wish there were something else in that, to make the ending strong. the rest of that sentence is perfectly fine, but it builds up to something bigger than what it is now.
So she's feeling the sky claw YOU? how does that work? Some empathy link?
But really, this part is also pretty fabulous and would be just fine the way it is now.
ugh. perfect. I don't really have much to say on this. We finally get to the part with the blues. I'm still waiting for the scars part. The way you have it formatted is perfect.
One thing I thought was strange was the beneath your window/tears part. For one, the tears seem a little cliche, but I still like them because it's like a storm of tears, so many you can fill a bucket. It took me a while to decide that she was standing beneath the window because you was going to cry out the window and the tears would fall into the bucket, and it would seem like a storm. It felt a little stretched to me, but it was still almost perfection.
I am curious as to what instrument she is playing the blues with.
So here I have two problems.
1) What window? the window in your ribcage, or the window on the wall? After contemplating, I'm led to believe it is the second, but I totally thought it was a window in your body somewhere.
2) "Wipe" just always reminds me of bathroom deeds. Unless it's wiping down the table or wiping the windows, something that is very well known for wiping. tbh I just hate that word. It's up there with moist. And if you say "moist wipes" I will just explode. Ugh. it hurt just to write those words. Anyway, I feel like "wipe" is a weird verb to use here anyway. maybe you could think of something else so I can stop thinking about toilet paper...
This gave me little shivers. You know, those shivers of recognition? Of everything falling into place? I just with it mentioned that the song was a blues song. And that the heart was hers, and not "yours" because we already know that "you" has a heart on fire, but I like the revelation that she does too. I just wish that that connection was a little clearer so I could be sure about it.
This part seems to be missing the same... rich imagery and perfection that the rest of the poem has. It seems a little... meh.
I like this last stanza, and now we hear that it's a strumming instrument. I've been imagining a trumpet or a saxophone or maybe a piano up until now. Also, again here is another good time to mention the blues again. I like the sensory detail we hear when you say the blues. We all hear our own song. Though I can't imagine blues played on a strumming instrument tbh. I've heard too much brass blues.
again, this is a very lovely part. Me gusta mucho.
This is perfect, though I wonder why the "you" character refuses to cry for her to put her out?
Also, I thought that the "you" character was the one on fire, hence my confusion at the beginning of the last part's review.
This part flows so well and ties up so many strings.
In all:
I really like the repeated imagery you're using here. The formatting is lovely. I'm still missing the scars though. I was hoping for some lovely images and insights onto that.
Umm... this review is long enough. I hope it helped! I really liked this poem. c:
Let me know if you have any questions, and keep writing!
~fortis
Very poetic with just the right touch of darkness