Replying to a comment on:

“16 Monks in Procession-Bagan Myanmar” – by Pier Poretti (Free verse) by Sunny

Revision #3: I would greatly appreciate any of your minute or longger commentary you might care to give on this piece...it's coming from a brilliant photophraph, found on the below listed link, & I want to really represent this "beyong-me" brilliant anrtist the utltimate that I can because this pictue is just so increbibly striking. I did go out on the limb, using imagery, my own personal touches & even personification to get a feel/ grasp of the theme I am trying very hardly to supply to the reader....All the help I can get & will make a note to comment on each on of your's upcoming as well :) Looking forward to it (Dovina & Ranger!) Here goes,... I advise looking up the photograph: http://www.picassomio.com/art/28160/ en/ Black and white shyly set behind Shaka’s devotions in fuchsia robes, inside smoldering smog, mocking their light-plan. Temples penetrate the background, gauntly grey, in purpose to exaggerate the tree that other elements bend for, fanned rivers of twig and branch. Aged temple, vain by inevitable showcase, vain and perfectly centered. Whatever the make, the ground appears as wet concrete or planar dirt leveled and splayed by rain. Monks scourge the air of sly whispers, as the light-lovers purge through in the their cloaks and unfolded fans that align in mustard for forecasted showers: denying fog, lugging fog from the only colors that stand alone – brave soldiers in this mist… the stone that pierces the fog’s indifference.

Ranger 6-May-06/2:57 AM
The beauty of this piece is that it keeps bringing me back to reread and look for more meanings. 'Align in mustard/for forecasted showers' caught my eye this time round. It has a fantastic ambiguity to it, conjuing both the image of mustard plants awaiting rain for sustenance, but also of the monks sheltering beneath leaf-like canopies to escape the storm. So (as I think I said before), the showers are prophecies, but whether they are favourable or not is down to the reader to decide (I like that sort of ambiguity, by the way!)
I didn't mention earlier that I thought your contrast of nature and structure was very good - you have the elements, the river, the tree; all life-bringers. Then you have the concrete threatening to smother them. And, of course, you have the temple in the backgroud which is a harmony of both nature and human construction.
I'm still not sure about 'scourge' in here - I think it works grammatically, but it feels wrong, somehow. 'Scour' would sit more easily in my opinion, although it's somewhat strong for the gentle nature of monks (it could reflect the 'struggle' theme though, I guess) so maybe 'wash' would be more appropriately - and fit with 'rain'.
Similarly, 'purge' just isn't working for me yet. I think I can see what you're getting at by using it but this is a case of you needing to decide whether thematic word choice is more important than the 'feel' of the individual sentences. To be fair, I think I've run into similar obstacles in my most recent submission, I'd be interested to see what you think to it.




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