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Relief (Ventilation Shaft rewrite) (Free verse) by cyan9 The wicked glared at the glowing drops of steel
That dripped from the scarred charred anvil.
Beads of tempered steel streaked through rimose veins
Into crevice like crimson forks of lightning in the rain.
Stepping back into the wardrobe to retreat from the storm,
The wicked steel beings raped the weakling fawn.
Exercising demons brought a rush to their iron brains,
A relief to those who struggled through each day.
Entangled in a fantasy world where each could go bezerk,
Sodomising talking animals as they lay there in the dirt.
Void of responsibility that let hearts fly free,
Released to do their dark little things in a world,
A world that does not cause us any misery.
Lying in the snow beneath oak and willow
While frost crawled over their burning hearts,
Lying to themselves and lying to their brothers,
Advising people on the problems of each other.
Beauty poured down all day
And they missed it as they played,
Wishing for something real
The alloyed creatures got back to their evil.
Up the ladder:
Victory smokes & black tiger ambrosia
Down the ladder:
Walls so slight
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 6.6666665
Posted: December 8, 2005 2:25 AM PST; Last modified: January 19, 2006 2:06 AM PSTWeighted score: 5.1986713 Overall Rank: 4608 Comments:
Here's my critique:
1. The first two stanzas aren't real sentences. Don't overuse present participle (ie, "-ing") phrases. It weakens your verbs. Not to mention, you'll forget to make it a sentence. 2. You don't actually have something coming from the charcoal sky, only something that's LIKE cool ash. You need to at least drop "as" and have cool ash coming, or say what it is you're comparing to ash. On a similar note, it takes more than half the poem to get that it's the strangler "glaring" at the drops of steel, or almost half a poem too long. 3. The ending may be true enough, but I can tell you know it's going to get you in trouble with almost everybody. Basically you've placed the entire responsibility for "remedying" the situation on your strangler, who should (it's implied) just be able to decide to change and do it. By extension, that diminishes or frivolizes his complaints and disdain when they don't need to be. Whatever Bush and his smug aristocrat cronies prattle on about it, the reality of the situation is not that all these whining disdainful downtrodden should just one day up and decide to fix themselves and stop whining so much. At least, that may be the reality of the situation, but I'm not going to say it even as a joke. Otherwise, it's good writing. Keep on the ball about your grammar, sentence structure, your message, holding your images together (I just noticed, "calming the very soul" is a very weak and off-message thing to say at that point.) I think you can take my word that I got all your subtle metaphors and such. Yet, I'm going to go with wilco. -8-
I meant "I can tell you NOW", not "know".
1. Being short on grammer here, Im not sure quite where they fall apart, I know they dont look right because they are so long. It was the first time I tried writing sentances instead of lines for poems.
2. I think I see, the rain should damp the breathing not the cool ash, since the rain is like cool ash not like cool ash damping breathing. Also 'venting' should become 'that vented', and a comma should go between soft cheese and following. I don't see the issue of the strangler being introduced so late, it is unusual but I dont think it is detrimental (I hope). 3. The strangler is presented as the victim here who draws his own fate. The piece is there to advocate that instead of bitching and moaning about a problem, try to work to a solution, and at that point you lose your anger (until inhibited ...) it is the responibility of those who know how to solve such issues to help provide a pathway and assistance should someone wish to solve their problems. Anybody who disagrees with that is likely to need help, or be some kind of enlightened monk that has never been part of society (tell me if I'm wrong). Bush does not care for American people, his administration is geared towards providing for his Administration and the corporations that affect them, he provides as much social benefit and charity as is required so as to stay in power and not be even more scorned and hated by the interational community and the country he is supposed to serve.
1. Well, it's good that you're writing sentences. Where it falls apart is that it's essentially "Glaring at drops of steel. Striking out. Whipping up. Venting to peace" instead of "He glared at drops of steel. He struck out. He whipped up, venting to peace" and so on. Some good poetry pulls off all -ing nonsentences, but not a lot. And a whole lot of bad poetry tries it and doesn't pull it off. Anyway, it's become a pet peeve of mine lately. Practically speaking, I would try to make sure each sentence in those first two stanzas has an explicit subject, something like:
He glared at the glowing drops of steel As they dripped from the scarred anvil Like beads of tempered rain running Into crevice and crack like red lightning. Forks streaked cross charcoal sky From whence rain came as cool ash Damping breathing, calming the very soul. 2. You've edited this? Or I've slept some finally? Anyway, now it's obvious the rain is like cool ash. 3. Yes, I understand that. But it's (unfortunately) as much the non-downtrodden's responsibility to solve the problems as it is the downtrodden's. The downtrodden can't by themselves. That's why we call them downtrodden, because someone is (we are) crushing them down. At any rate, you can't hold them to our more-priveleged standard. That's what being priveleged means, by the way: that we have the privelege to control and change our lives. And how many priveleged people do you know that have managed to improve THEIR situations?
Oops. Just realized the red lightning forks are streaking. Well, that's too long anyway, and wandering too far from the sentence's first action. In my edit, change "Forks streaked across" to "Its forks streaked across" or some other word for lightning besides "forks" or "lightning".
1. As you stated the red forks are streaking, it is long and thats what I want from these sentances, I like the way it lures you in and then suffocates you with there length, until the relief of it finishing, just like venting anger. Your edit things more coherant.
2. I havn't yet, but I will to include some of the comments on it, + I recommended DancingShamrock richen up the language a bit with a line that I badly want to use myself now (Castigating the meat of my accomplishments) then took a look at this and thought that I could do a bit better than red lightning. How come the lack of sleep??? 3. Point taken, I think, I was coming from the perspective of "You cant help someone who wont help themselves", but if you don't try then they will not know how to help themselves, and so you should take it as your responsibility to make people aware that a route to a solution is available, and to help people to get onto/go along it. If you do not make that awareness of the route available then people will not know to take it, and so they are doing the best that they can, since they know no better.
1. I like your idea about endless sentences (kind of like the verses in the Stones' "Ventilator Blues"?), but these aren't sentences. And they keep changing focus. And I keep changing focus. It's been a long week, folks.
2. 4 days of partying in preparation for leaving the MidEast, then the flight itself. 3. I've spent the last year-and-a-half trying to help people who won't help themselves. It turns out, they're not in any position to help themselves, that's why they need help. At some point you either decide to do it for them, which is nice, or you let them twist, which is probably fine too until they break into your house and kill you for your stereo or halfcocked revolution.
At any rate, it's not kosher to say let the poor help themselves. That's my point.
The last verse seems to abandon the blacksmith metaphor completely. I think you may have missed a great opportunity to carry the symbolism through. What if you'd said something along the lines of "For all his wrath in forging a sword to slay his demons he now saw he had beaten the blade and handle flat and was now facing the cross he bore". I know that's kinda cheesy but it was off the top of my head. You see what I'm trying to say though right?
The blacksmith metaphor starts off well, then switches to a lightning/rain metaphor. Suddenly we see a murder where little stories vent to peace (suggesting the title) and ending with a pleasant scene. Then, in the last verse, he seems to reform.
Just thought you might like to trace my thought patterns as I read it.
I can see your point, the change of focus is causing quite some disturbance for people, and for me when you reflect it. The way I wrote it was just as a stream of thought with usually the next point of focus beginning where the previous one ended, it appears it has not payed off. The pleasant scene by the way is supposed to illustrate an attachment to material pleasures. I am planning a re-write, and I will try to stick to the metallurgy and stormy imagery and focus next time.
Origional
Glaring at the glowing drops of steel As they dripped from the scarred anvil Like beads of tempered rain running Into crevice and crack like red lightning Forks streaking cross charcoal sky From whence rain came as cool ash Damping breathing, calming the very soul. Striking out with intention of murder Whipping up more anger to draw the victim, The strangler who sketched with chalk finger The outlines of bodies and dark little stories Venting to peace and evenings drinking Red wine with soft cheese following Extended visits to the patisserie. Darkness undressed her all scarred and withered, Weaving its storm clouds and pronouncing out loud âAll should kneel then be proudâ to yield to adversity, Any little difficulty could go unsolved so easily Until the day he turned away from all that hate, Turned around and remedied his complaints, his disdain.
Uh... well there's certainly plenty of scenery. I've read this 3 times and i still don't know what it's talking about.
Evil metal dudes invade Narnia and cause havok, maybe its a bit deeper than that in places, but in essence... ...
wow. Thats awesome!
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I got into my car
and took a left at the bar
and went downtown
and bought a new gown.
Then I went home
and fell on the couch
and went on Poemranker
and rhymed love with above.
That's just boring and was written in 2 seconds and is on par with many, many of the posts on here.
The fact of the matter is that a good deep-hidden-meaning poem (like, say, an Eliot) is going to be impressive on a superficial level to start with. I appreciate trying to write a poem that's simple-sounding on a quick read but has great stuff hidden. That's what Shakespeare, for one, is so good at. But if wilco's unimpressed on a superficial read, I don't think it matters what deeper subtext you've got.
And in short: as a general rule, don't assume people aren't getting your subtle meanings just because they don't like your poem. I hate when people do that.