Color Scheme of Things
before and after
The twenty-four inch casket, precarious,
promised to topple into the unnatural hole;
empty platitudes fell like rain.
I never knew pink and indigo clashed
until I saw rosebuds and purple storm clouds
gathered, solemn, over your vault
or the way dead blood settled in your skin.
Color Scheme
The twenty-four inch casket, precarious,
promised to topple into the unnatural hole;
platitudes fell, meaningless, like the rain
I never knew pink and indigo clashed
until I saw rosebuds and purple storm clouds
gathered, solemn, over your vault
or the way dead blood settled in your ears.
Poetry
Very eloquent-with a sting in the tail.
ReplyDeletebest wishes
M
God, what a first line. Grief is not pretty. Sometimes nothing can be said or done to help and listening, silent compassion is best.
ReplyDeleteand maybe saying I understand.
ReplyDeletevery powerful. The ending lines read better although I'm still trying to imagine that picture. I don't think it is something I really want to see.
ReplyDeletehi e / hope this day is a bit better for you / / seems so long since we've talked / not much to say
ReplyDeletesadness is pervasive / don't you think?
love
~jx
I preferred the 'ears' line- its meaning was immediately obvious to me and such a strong image.
ReplyDeleteIf I was to be picky, I'd look at "empty platitudes fell like rain", which is nearly brilliant- I would drop the 'empty' as redundant, leaving the clean 'platitudes fell like rain', and possibly add an adjective to qualify the rain??
it's a shame that something so miserable can fuel a poem this beautiful, but it is in its grotesque way--
ReplyDelete*hug*
~me
I'm finding it impossible to be objective with this one. I feel like a teenage boy fumbling with his first bra. Fumble fucked and clueless as to what to do.
ReplyDeleteIt got sent in this way, I hope she chooses it, and rips it a new asshole to lend me some insight. I'm just too close to see it myself.
Erin, it's hard to say that a work such as this is beautiful. It is, though. I have to agree that I liked the original final line with "your ears." It was a much stronger and haunting visual. So haunting that it actually left me reeling and unable to comment at all.
ReplyDeleteThe skin line feels a little more distant. We all know that dead blood settles under skin, but only a mother sees the little things, like the purple of an ear.
I'm sorry, I know you're way too close to this to be objective, and I feel like a total unfeeling putz to even be offering any sort of critique on something so intimately part of you.
no no no please DO offer some crit, BECAUSE it's so intimate! I can't see the forest for the trees or some such thing. You join the consensus with the "ears" bit, and I'll most likely change it back.
ReplyDeleteBack to Martin's comments: Empty was once balanced with a line about the fullness of the coffin, that line being dropped makes empty feel a bit off balance. I'm trying to think of an appropriate modifier for rain, coming up with nothing - I'll play with it a bit.
I almost think I could drop the first three lines altogether.
ReplyDeleteYes, but then you'd have to make the title more specific.
ReplyDeleteLike rain, the platitudes fell, meaningless ?
(the inversion of word order seems appropriate to the solemn tone)
M
I want to end L3 on rain so that it leads more smoothly into the stom clouds I mention in S2, though I do like the inversion and the tone it creates.
ReplyDeleteThis title is still very open to change, so that's not a problem - I'm just not sure it doesn't begin TOO abruptly w/o the first strophe. I think it would be too much without the setting up of the situation. The first 3 lines stay lol.
I haven't been this befuddled about one of my own pieces in quite a while!
How can you detach form a piece this close to you? Could you do it if she had just died and you were greiving and had just written it?
ReplyDeleteLol Ginger, I couldn't write my own name right after she died, and that's no exaggeration. Of course I couldn't have written this, let alone detached from it enough to weigh poetic values.
ReplyDeleteI did write quite a lot of poetry after the first year went by, and even then I knew it was poor poetry, but still couldn't "craft" it any more cogently.
Now, 4 years later, I want to write something with the value she deserved - and yes, I'm still having a lot of trouble detaching and weighing my poetic decisions. I'm just in a different place now, to a certain extent, and more willing and motivated to keep trying.
Maybe I just need to let it sit for a few days, or more likely, a month. With the anniversary of her deth in 9 days, I doubt I'll be feeling any less emotional or more objective any time soon.
Not to diminish in any way what you are trying to accomplish with this piece, I see your Weeping Willow piece to be her tribute. I know how hard you worked on that one as well. I don't know how to help you with this piece.
ReplyDeleteOh, V, I don't mean for this piece to be a tribute to her. I just meant to say that I'd like this to be of higher quality than the Willow No Longer Weeps.
ReplyDeleteThat piece was ok for where I was then - had I been where I am now when I wrote that, it would have been through about 50 more revisions.
I'm not big on the word zephyr...