untitled poem

[proteus24]

There’s this blurred thing
In the distant blackness
Between my worries and boredom,
Within body
And mind—
A denizen,
A permanent
Resident

At the start,
It spurs on so gently—
Like imagine a
Helium filled horse
Streaking swiftly
Across a wild
And beguiled
Field of
No-end-in-sight
Space

It’s always there,
One time in the farthest place,
Now in shape
And this depth that it makes—
No longer mute to that one space

Then it nears my bosom,
I know it—
I can see it:
Its shape I’ve never seen—
Growing and shrinking outta order—
And there’s no color to it,
No texture;
But we’ve known
Time together
Since forever

It’s always there,
One time in the farthest place,
Now in shape
And this depth that it makes—
No longer mute to that one space

Then it flickers this light,
A pearly white diamond bright—
Like that fluorescent
It’ll-kill-you-slowly
Kind of light
Until it’s so damned blistering-
Lee bright,
It lulls you into submission,
No permission needed,
Eagerly and
Malignantly so
As to be
As much one
As one’s self

It’s always there,
One time in the farthest place,
Now in shape
And this depth that it makes—
No longer mute to that one space.

It’s here NOW
To persist and persist
And so I’ll just Exit
To Exist and be
Like all the cool cats that
Strut with their tails up—
Cuz I gotta be
A cool cat too
Cuz that’s the point,
Aint it?

END

I'm sure there are (many) issues with this poem, so please feel free to point them all out! And as is apparent, it's a free-verse poem with my own unique rhythm and flow.

Thanks in advance

[Todd]

Hi, here are a few comments for you:

Without a title, it makes it hard to place the context. I'm going with preexistence and/or transmigration of the soul. That said, it could be a ton of other things too. So, I title could help there.

There’s this blurred thing
In the distant blackness
Between my worries and boredom,
Within body
And mind—
A denizen,
A permanent
     Resident

At the start,
It spurs on so gently—
Like imagine a
Helium filled horse--until we get here I'm really not interested. The language before is terse and cryptic but not in a really engaging way. Maybe drop the Like and start with Imagine a helium filled horse and let imagery drive the poem.
Streaking swiftly
Across a wild
And beguiled
Field of
No-end-in-sight-- I do like these hyphenated flourishes this one and the killing light below.
     Space

It’s always there,
One time in the farthest place,
Now in shape
And this depth that it makes—
No longer mute to that one space

Then it nears my bosom,
I know it—
I can see it:
Its shape I’ve never seen—
Growing and shrinking outta order—
And there’s no color to it,
No texture;
But we’ve known
Time together
 Since forever--When I read portions like this strophe I wonder if you'd be better served cutting savagely like:


"we've known time together since forever" I could get into the line breaks a bit with you but I think leading with imagery and paring it down more minimally is probably a first step.

It’s always there,
One time in the farthest place,
Now in shape
And this depth that it makes—
No longer mute to that one space

Then it flickers this light,
A pearly white diamond bright—
Like that fluorescent--you could cut the like that start your hyphenation after fluorescent and cut the It'll
It’ll-kill-you-slowly
Kind of light
Until it’s so damned blistering-
Lee bright,
It lulls you into submission,
No permission needed,
Eagerly and
Malignantly so
As to be
 As much one
  As one’s self

It’s always there,
One time in the farthest place,
Now in shape
And this depth that it makes—
No longer mute to that one space.

It’s here NOW
To persist and persist
And so I’ll just Exit
To Exist and be
Like all the cool cats that
Strut with their tails up—
Cuz I gotta be
A cool cat too
Cuz that’s the point,
   Aint it?

END

I'm sure there are (many) issues with this poem, so please feel free to point them all out! And as is apparent, it's a free-verse poem with my own unique rhythm and flow.

Thanks in advance

There is probably a good concept behind this but it feels a bit rambling, and purposely vague with all the various uses of it. Let me give you some basic cuts for economy below. I won't do the whole thing just want to point out some paring down you might choose to do, I won't pull the horse up like I suggested just deal with what you have:

There’s this blurred 
distant blackness
Between worries and boredom, 
Within body And mind—
A denizen,
A permanent
Resident

Imagine a 
Helium filled horse
Streaking across
a wild field
of No-end-in-sight
Space 

Always there,
in the farthest place,
Now in shape
And this depth that it makes—
No longer mute

I personally would still cut more, and probably cut important items that you would need to put back in, but I think economy and more imagery would help this.

Well that's probably enough of a pass for the Mild Forum.

Not sure if any of that helped, but hope it did.

Best,

Todd

[proteus24]

Thanks for the input, Todd. Your advice on cutting out certain words such as 'like' and adding a title to eliminate some of the vagueness (although, as you shrewdly deciphered, some of the ambiguity is intentional). I'll surely look over the poem again, implement some of your suggestions, and see how it turns out!

Best,

ak

[ellajam]

Hi, Proteus, welcome to the site, beautiful avatar. First, I'd like to know if you can give me a hand following this. You've chosen to use punctuation marks only sporadically so I'm wondering if losing the automatic capitalization of each line might help guide me through, organize the thoughts a little more clearly. Some notes are below.

There’s this blurred thing
In the distant blackness
Between my worries and boredom, I like thinking about the space between worry and boredom.
Within body
And mind— I'm not sure you need these two lines.
A denizen,
A permanent
     Resident

At the start,
It spurs on so gently—
Like imagine a I think you could lose this line.
Helium filled horse Ah, caught my attention here.
Streaking swiftly
Across a wild
And beguiled
Field of weak break.
No-end-in-sight
     Space

It’s always there,
One time in the farthest place,
Now in shape
And this depth that it makes—
No longer mute to that one space I don't understand this line and it being part of a refrain make it worse. I can't make sense of it, I'll keep trying.

Then it nears my bosom,
I know it—
I can see it:
Its shape I’ve never seen— never seen before?
Growing and shrinking outta order— without order? what would be usual for it to be out of order?
And there’s no color to it,
No texture;
But we’ve known
Time together
 Since forever

It’s always there,
One time in the farthest place,
Now in shape
And this depth that it makes—
No longer mute to that one space

Then it flickers this light,
A pearly white diamond bright—
Like that fluorescent
It’ll-kill-you-slowly
Kind of light
Until it’s so damned blistering-
Lee bright, I don't know what lee bright is, should I?
It lulls you into submission,
No permission needed,
Eagerly and
Malignantly so I'd prefer "so" dropped to the next line.
As to be
 As much one
  As one’s self

It’s always there,
One time in the farthest place,
Now in shape
And this depth that it makes—
No longer mute to that one space.

It’s here NOW
To persist and persist
And so I’ll just Exit
To Exist and be
Like all the cool cats that
Strut with their tails up—
Cuz I gotta be
A cool cat too
Cuz that’s the point,
   Aint it?
I really don't understand this last part. The "it" that's with you always can just be walked away from? To imitate a cool cat, which you know isn't cool? I think you could do better there.
END

I'm sure there are (many) issues with this poem, so please feel free to point them all out! And as is apparent, it's a free-verse poem with my own unique rhythm and flow.

Thanks in advance

Oh, and give it the respect and aid of a title. I suck at them and am always changing them trying to do better, but they're important. If you take a look at the NaPM threads you'll see a bunch of Todd's as an example of good ones.

I think you're on your way to describing something interesting in an interesting way. Hope this helps.