I climbed the stairs, dimmed and faded
light muting edges so that I could not
see the drop beyond the steps which
echoed with the click of my black leather heels,
metronome without a piano.
Walking quickly somehow it
seemed prudent to sneak past
spaces filled with treacherous love
worse than the biting snap
of a loyal dog.
The light grew as I neared, till I
found the trap and stepped through
stubborn, static sense refusing to release me
until I cut the present free
and entered uncoiled.
It was cold, the sunshine puddle masking
rotting floor beneath the lovely carpet
weave as though the warp was
cast from molding yarn. A perfect child with
glossy hair sweeping large curves,
watching an immobile lizard the
only life a fierceness flashing from
its eyes reaching out suddenly
a hand of impossible rapidity,
swatting senseless her prey.
Perfection crumbled, the burn a spreading
stain across pouting lips the
cracking board beneath my shoe an echo of
another strike as I resolutely walk away,
the lizard is not faster than my black leather heels.
Closing door behind me, doors
marked red beyond the limits of
my sight warning never to
be opened again.
6 comments:
I've read this over a few times now because I want to be helpful. There's much that's good in this. Nice imagery for one thing, seems to be a trademark with you, prose or poetry.
I know this is your first try with poetry here, so I'm guessing you probably never spent a lot of time on poetics. :) Don't worry. Not much to it really. The modern poet's bible is a slim one.
I think really there's only two sins for poets and those would be wordiness (that one I should be saying hail Mary's for every night) and weak line breaks. I know it goes against the grain of a true prose writer, but grammar in poetry is somewhat optional.
Some poets have ignored grammar so much that it's almost impossible to glean any meaning from their work, imho. So we play fast and loose with grammar and try most of all to bend the rules to serve our purposes (taking advantage of double meanings is a common ploy especially fun when a words has three or four or more meanings and even fits different parts of speech). Line breaks are an especially good place to hang such words partly because the reader has no idea what's coming next. It's how we build layers of meaning into our work.
The other use for line breaks is to highlight a word. So you would not want a line break on words that carry very little or no meaning if possible. Words like: it, not (except when you are intending to play games with the reader's mind of course), which, from, etc.
The be verbs are usually a must to avoid at the ends of lines too because they simply don't carry enough meaning normally. That's your crash course in poetics. LOL I'd like to see you refine this a bit keeping the line break thing in mind and perhaps putting your piece on some sort of word diet (sometimes words like the and a are really necessary for clarity but mostly we try to eliminate the little empty words). I hope this helps, your imagery always seems potent to me and that's the bear for a lot of poets (either no imagery or very weak imagery). So you've got that bear conquered already. If you do refine this, I would definitely like to read it.
Thanks very much for posting this.
Thanks for the comments pb. My foray into the world of poetry was an extremely interesting experience.
I understand what you've said on poetics, and can see how that would affect the rhythm.
Thanks for taking the time to read 'My First Poem', (Sounds like something that belongs in the children's section at the local B&N.) :)
wow! There's a lot in here. I think the main problem with it is the amount of words- there is just too many words which made me lose my interest as I had nothing to really grab onto.
There are some good images in this - though I suggest that you try to cut down on the word count and go for words that best explain your thoughts. Cheers for this.
ok my reply got posted to the wrong poem. gez. I posted a lengthy reply to The lizard and one of PB's highjacked it! lol will go try to negotiate for it. sorry
This is a meaty piece and I have enjoyed my journey through it and have also enjoyed the spin others have had. I hope you will not be offended with an example using your own poem:
I climbed the stairs, dimmed and faded
light muting edges so that I could not
see the drop beyond the steps which
echoed with the click of my black leather heels,
metronome without a piano.
dimmed and faded light muting-these are too near in imagery also you could cut some words for instance;
I climbed the dimly lit stair,
their edges shadowed echoing the monotone(I think this expresses the sound your looking for better than metronome?)of my black leather heels in a haunting acappella...
purely off the top of my head but as you can see there are ways to tighten without deminishing. The Thesauras is truly the best tool I know to get me past a rough spot. It causes the mind to widen and consider the work in a more illuminating light. Don't give up on this piece. Thanks for sharing.
Eve
Your comments Raging and Eve were helpful, I agree that it is meaty indeed. Something to do, I'm sure with being primarily a prose writer.
Thanks for taking time to comment, lots to think about.
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