Song of Chief
After seeing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Laughter is written on the windows—insanity
drunk and swinging at night—ornaments
on a sad tree—liquor
in the hearts of he who bites his lower lip—good
morning—waking
up smiling and finding a broken piece of glass in the hand of a boy—and blood on his dead neck—
She deserved to suffocate in McMurphy’s hands.
Chief! I watch your face as news comes—Mac?
Did he run?
It’s night now and the door opens—in
comes McMurphy, dead in his head,
like the way he came in months ago
after electroshock therapy—
like before he winked his eye last time—
like him before he broke your chains.
Chief! McMurphy belongs to you, now—
anything he was went out of the twin scars on his head—
“At least I tried,” he said, after trying to pull
the faucet block from the bath room—You tried,
too, and you succeeded.
You smother him and run
and I’m running with you.
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Canary word: Present
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I like them...it's all style, Xantham. It's not too common in...the poetry that is written by ordinary poets these days, but there have been times when they were pretty common as hell, and they can definitely be used well, and I think he does that here. You say tomato, I say SHUT THE HELL UP.
j/k.
wanker.
your poetry is good, and i agree completely with PsyLynx, so i'm not going to rewrite that all, as that'd be a waste of time.
i just beg you to stop using dashes. i mean, don't stop - i favor them as well, and they can be well placed at times. (see previous sentance) but using them at the end of linebreaks, in most cases, is just...too line-y. hah.
I love the first and last stanzas, absolutely. The second two...are necessary to the story, I do think, and there's nothing wrong with them at all. No, nothing really at all. But there isn't any language in them that came out and grabbed me. Was in the first two. I'm not really giving any advice...I don't know what to change, or if anything needs it; I like it.
Another issue is...how many people will understand it who haven't seen the movie... when I first started reading the poem, I had skipped over the bit that explained it was after seeing the movie, and so at first I was lost. I still really thought the first stanza was good...but then you used these names...it didn't take too long for me to start thinking about the movie, of course, and then to see the title and go, "uh. Uh huh. Uh." Except that I want the "uh" to sound different, but I don't know how to write it right. Uh.