Free verse № 140452
Sour Apple
Not for her, this place of shining silence;
she is haste and neon hues,
a mouth stretched smile-wide with gleaming malice,
a din,
a bruise.
For her: a glassed demesne,
a churning in the flows,
a copse of beeches, damascened,
a jagged rose.
Let her stride
where the towers hide the sky,
where the sun fails in cold canyons
and the wind whines.
No, not for her this green and singing solace,
this bird-flashed lake, the silver fall of night.
Caught in a mirror deep, she takes no notice,
enchanted by her own reflected light.
7 comments
With 'a copse of beeches, damascened' is there supposed to be the play on 'damsel' and 'damson' (damsel relating to the fairytale, damson relating to the 'foresty' theme there)? Because I read it that way - aided by a misreading of 'damascened' on first sight. I love the literal use of damascened there as well - nicely original.
8 for now, I feel that stanza 3 is in need of a little surgery to get up to the standard of the rest.
I took liberties with 'damascened' (literally, metal inlayed w/another metal) and the olde-tymey language in the 2nd stanza, but, nope, can't claim that I meant to invoke "damson" and "damsel." Cool that you brought that to it though.
Okay, so what did I write? Oh yes. 'Damascened' works perfectly where it is for both the differing shades of bark on the trees, and also if you imagine the rose in front of a tree - 'jagged' ties it in with the metal theme very nicely. The great effect you get from it is that stanzas 1-3 give a very grey-sky steely colour to the piece - then there's a quick flash of vivid green, suddenly replaced again by the silver-grey mirror. It fits extremely well, particularly given that this place isn't for her - 'she is haste and neon hues' (another great line, by the way!)
'Let her stride' is a good line, although I got the impression of her striding away from this grey land, rather than to it. Also, 'sun fails' and 'wind whines' are pretty worn - you could get away with keeping one of them, but in my opinion you'd do well to change at least one. The idea of towers and canyons brings images of teeth, which again sits nicely alongside 'jagged' - that whole theme is really well done, the jagged metal teeth sound very evil indeed.
And finally - 'bird-flashed lake' is fantastic!
Log in to add a comment.