Hi there, illy! This poem has a chaotic atmosphere that makes it distinct. I like the combination of fire and theatre imagery used throughout – I thought that contributed to creating a dramatic, intense tone. At the same time, the speaker’s tone also seems critical of these rivals.
A game of words, the choice is yours.
To hate your nemesis, or to accept the obscure.
From what I gather, especially in the above two lines, is that this poem contrasts antagonism with accepting the reality that there are shades of grey to morality, which is alluded to with the word “obscure”. These lines stood out to me in particular because they’re rhythmic, but also make a strong and bold statement. The narrative of the ‘rivals’ is used to illustrate this statement, though I kind of got the sense that the poem abstracted away from them by the last few lines when the mode of address changes to second person “you”, and then first-person plural “we”.
Language
The theatre imagery seems to suggest that the rivals are playing out a farce, for instance, with the “flames” being a “performance” in the first line. The dramatic language also seems to satirise the performativity of these rivals, which is then emphasised by phrases like “a play with the heart” and ejecting “the songs they are supposed to play”.
“they are looking . . . in the dark” seems to imply that the rivals indulge in their rivalry, rather than truly wanting to be rid of each other. I also read the line “they find something better” as being sarcastic, since the next half of the line after the dash has this ironic image of “blatant” lies that are “hidden”.
Obsession and compulsive love, disordered in nature
I’m not sure if you intended to make an allusion to mental illness here, and this line was a bit confusing for me to read, especially since the rest of the poem seems to be about something rather different and uses different language to describe it.
insecure,
delusional,
abstract and controversial
The list of adjectives here seem to give the poem a more modern feel. I think these are all words you would expect to hear people say nowadays about their ‘enemies’, which caught my eye because of the contrast made with “old movies” right at the end. It also builds up anticipation throughout that part of the poem. I read “a play with the heart” as an anti-climax, which would imply that the rivals’ behaviour is farcical or somehow being condemned by the speaker, but I’m not sure if that was the intended effect.
Structure
Although the line lengths vary a lot in this poem, the occasional slant rhyme gives a nice rhythm and symmetry to certain pairs of lines. For instance, apart/dark and yours/obscure. I also noticed some full rhymes here and there, like delusional/controversial, better/letter and perhaps at the end ‘feed’ is meant to rhyme with ‘indeed’.
they are looking for each other. in the dark.
The full stop here rather than a comma or dash like in other parts of the poem stood out to me. When reading it aloud, it prompted me to take a more abrupt pause than with the commas (which are used in a kind of natural, speech-like manner throughout), which I thought was interesting. It sort of emphasised the “in the dark” part of the line, which again is why I interpreted the line as a whole as indicating the speaker’s critical tone about the rivals.
A chorus ejected from their domain,
which are the songs they are supposed to play.
On my first reading, I might have gotten a bit confused reading these two lines, thinking that the rivals were playing what they were supposed to play, when in fact they had ejected those songs. I think I might have gotten mixed up because of the change to passive voice? I just wonder if there was a purpose to that switch, or if this bit could work just as well in the active voice.
That's all
Overall, this was a piece with nuances to uncover and things that aren’t quite what they seem on a third or fourth reading. I enjoyed the concept of this piece and some of the imagery was really interesting to picture. Feel free to let me know if anything I said here needs more clarification.
Hopefully you find these comments helpful - and keep writing!
Cheers,
-Lim
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