i have no more poetry to give,
to lay upon the altar of your shoulderblades;
beads of words trapped as sweat in the valley of your back.
i have barely enough left - if i am a waterskin in Jerusalem -
to fill the raccoon skull we scraped from the road-tar. i refused
to bleach it. let the pockmarks show, keep those scraps of flesh
burned on by dinosaur suns.
the eyesockets could not have been finer carved
by wind, or god, and there i leave you
these scraps of flesh and hair,
riding on the cheekbone-wings of a thief.
may you find this on a chittering night
that swelters with lake air and tipped garbage.
may you see me every time those tricksters
disappear into the forest's tarmac, leaving sighs
and orange peels all over your driveway, your dog
barking at loneliness' high tide through the trees.
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Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
First of all--I agree with Colleen in that your linebreaks seem a little arbitrary, and at times do the flow no favors. Speak the lines aloud, paying special attention to punctuation and the pauses it gives--does it read right to you? Would it read right to someone who didn't write it?
This is a really strong image to start the poem out--and lovely. The only thing I'm ambivalent about is the "altar" part. Given what comes later, it seems unnecessary, and the flow would be better without it: "I have no more poetry to give, / to lay upon your shoulderblades." Feel how pleasingly smooth the cadence is? Nine syllables, then eight, with a good alternation of stress--lovely. ^^
Same problem as above. Why do you feel the need to overcomplicate images? Before you had poetry as a burden; now you have words as sweat. I love both images. The altar and valley... they don't particularly fit the images, and only trip up the flow, which makes otherwise lovely lines cumbersome. I'd go with, "beads of words trapped as sweat on your back."
Gorgeous. Your line breaks, however, are a little odd. I'd suggest:
Cheekbone-wings? Fascinating image, but again--perhaps overly complex?
Don't change a word. Perfection.
However--I agree that your meaning is a bit abstruse. I really like where you're going; the imagery is gorgeous and vibrant; but what is this barrage of images trying to express? I'm not going to go so far as to say that your poem is what I like to call a "veneer"--pretty, but empty--but whatever substance is underneath it is untouchable by the reader. You want to beguile and entice, perhaps confuse or merely hint--but you want your reader to be able to grasp at something, or they'll walk away unfulfilled and most likely not come back for seconds. ^~
Meaning. I'm going to have to go with Clau here and say I didn't completely understand it. I feel like there's some sort of huge extended metaphor here, but it was made quite clear enough. Bring back the thoughts of the beginning when you get to the end. Go in a circle, sort of...
Imagery. Gorgeous! You have skillz. With a z.
It also reminded me of Georgia O'Keefe...like with the skull and everything...sweet.
Conventions/Structure. What you do with capitalization...I don't care. I'm glad to see a poem nicely punctuated though, so good job...
The problem I see here is (and oh boy, do I have this problem too) is too many long, complicated sentences. The only nice short one is "i refused to bleach it." Mix it up. Throw in a short one here and there.
You might also consider breaking this into two or three stanzas. The line breaks seem a little random to me, so seriously consider what this poem should look and feel like.
Colleen
What were you trying to write about? Because, perhaps I didn't understand the poem, but it started and I thought: Oh, this is a poem about writing a poem, in metaphor. And then it started spinning in different directions and I see no point, no meaning, no 'theme', I suppose. What were you trying to say? Basically.
Capitalize the pronoun 'I', I realize you can slack off punctuation for artistic reasons but... I saw no benefits in this one.
I think if you thought more about what you were trying to express, and made it more available to the reader through your word choice and everything, it might clean up. Also, the title only being the first line of the poem, it doesn't really help to reflect he poem. A wisely chosen title can help guide your writer into know what you are writing about.