A swaying blade ponders and rears
(reflecting a divine heart-shaped face
a widow’s peak slicing down forehead and
looming over shells of white and blue)
to crudely divide a sliver of rope,
in which splinters of thread
spark out like fireworks
of subtle untangling.
Each rope lies side by side by side,
entrenched in sullen waters and
clay pixie droppings. They measure
the distance between us.
It seems forever glitters with length.
I lay naked upon these ropes
that stitch themselves around
the serene figures of
brick tiles that are now unlatching
from innocence’s grasp.
A net of virginity losing
slab and tether of abstinence
to the salivating lips of temptation.
My fingers quiver and ache to redeem
and grasp the snagged slithers
(that not only measure our distance, but hold my very embodiment),
to prevent them from shimming apart
and wilting upon
calling earth, but I cannot, I am listless and
birthing only sweat that flutters into
hell’s walls in microscopic
parachutes of impurity.
Upon these walls are tears in reality,
the essence-of-color’s shadow children
dance their own ballet, intermingling with
my sin and parading with stealthy
spins and arches and dance numbers,
swinging forth my sweat like
liquidated, salty partners.
If a moment were to burrow beneath my
pores and surge through my body
perhaps I’d stop my pupils from locking
with hers,
because damnation is what swims and bellows
underneath those soaking, porcelain-doll eyes.
I cannot look away, I cannot intertwine my
digits with the fraying martyrs of innocence,
for I am warping within her putrid gaze.
And now the stretched ropes are gone, I dropped into
a tassel of limp strands long ago.
My body is all that remains, a wet flower crowning the nether
depths like a defiled broach,
suspended by lethargy and never to fall.
The wet flower has long decapitated its own roots,
shriveled and worthless,
for innocence was its only waters.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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I wasn't trying to back talk, and I apologize if I came off badly, I'm just not used to such vague critiques and lack of suggestions. And I wasn't talking about my vagina when I said wet flower. And the truth of poetry is, even if you don't want to hear about it, someone's going to write about it. Is there a gross side to poetry? Yes, and there's no reason why it should be censored because you don't want to hear about it.
I agree with Snoink and Misty for the most part. I mean, I liked it, but I think a shorter version might have sufficed. It was a little hard to follow becuase as SNoink said, the metaphor was a bit stretched. It need quite a bit of work, but I think you've got something here.
Ooooohhhh back talk is not good. We do not talk back to Snoinkus, uhh uh. That's a good way to stop getting reviews FAST. And defensiveness is ugly.
Actually this poem was a mess of writhing and temptation and lips and aaahhh quivering and ropes and nakedness, of salivating and innocence and tethering. Altogether it simply didn't work. The prose was nice and the rhythm was lovely but honestly, do I really want to hear about your vagina as a limp stranded flower? No.
You didn't explain to me how I "shoved it" in your faces, so I'd like a clearer understanding. And actually those two things are not what the poem is about, they play a role but are not the story told.
You're trying to hard to stretch the metaphor. Instead of letting us, the lovely readers, decide that the metaphor of the wet flowers and ropes represent a lost virginity, you're just shoving it into our faces by first describing the ropes and then about the lost virginity and... in the end it doesn't work. Don't try to explain everything to the reader. If the poem is good enough, we can come up with our own conclusions about what is really happening. And, if our conclusion is the "wrong" conclusion, the better. After all, poetry should convey a depth of experiences in a succinct fashion, no? So step back and let us read this poem. Don't shove it in our faces.