Poetry Forum

A house in autumn talks with quiet bliss,
an old and ugly witch, uncaring for
its grim appearance. The ancient dead hiss
of victims lost in time and space anew,
with each glass frame or tile shook by wind,
disturbs a necking kid. A naked sinew
is draped across his girlish lover's toe,
like morbid lace in its buckled embrace.
He screams, she jumps, they look like nervous doe.
She slaps him, hard, across his crippled face,
suspecting some prank. The sinew is gone.
The bleak and dusty room is all that stays.

A house in autumn keeps its moulding lawns,
once gaudy with light, and now black as pawns.

(03-05-2014, 06:51 AM)Heslopian Wrote: [ -> ]A house in autumn talks with quiet bliss, "speaks with" or "talks in"
an old and ugly witch, uncaring for if this refers to the house, it could be referenced as so show that connection. such as "Like an"
its grim appearance. The ancient dead hiss
of victims lost in time and space anew, "anew" sounds off here, but I guess it works. word choice.
with each glass frame or tile shook by wind, the "with" and comma may not be necessary here based on the next line
disturbs a necking kid. A naked sinew it's a couple who's disturbed, but kid is singular.
is draped across his girlish lover's toe, sounds like nudity is draped across her sinew, phrasing could be adjusted
like morbid lace in its buckled embrace.
He screams, she jumps, they look like nervous doe. they both look like a nervous female deer (singular)?
She slaps him, hard, across his crippled face,
suspecting some prank. The sinew is gone.
The bleak and dusty room is all that stays.

A house in autumn keeps its moulding lawns,
once gaudy with light, and now black as pawns. "and" may not be needed

I like the vibe the poem is giving but I struggle to visualize a consistent line of imagery.
The word choice and phrasing does not flow well and with a little rewording this poem could really stand out. It seems as if it's a couple kids getting spooked by an old abandoned house, but this is a basic concept and isn't very clear. If using this poem to create a scene, there could be more of a story added in so that the reader is aware that the house is the focal point with its own story, and the kids are just the most recent victims. Perhaps adding a couple lines that would reference its history, adding more descriptions of it past and current state, or even a line that this isn't the first creepy occurrence. You touch on it in the last line but it ends there. From reading it I get there's an old house and a couple kids and a missing sinew.
I like the direction of this piece but I think it could be bulked up and have a more substantial impact to the reader.

Thank you for your thoughtful and helpful feedback, fresample! I agree with you that bulking up is needed, probably in spades. Thank you for recognising some of the syntactical flaws; I do struggle with meter, though thankfully I'm not as "melt-your-eyes-out" awful as I was when I was 15

Sumptuous.

Not sure about 'nervous doe' or 'crippled face'

Really like 'black as pawns' suggesting the house is in control.

Thank you, jeremyyoung! The original line was "dark as shutters", but then I decided to create a rhyme, so I'm glad you liked it

they look like nervous doe: Isn't doe female?

I'm not sure I really get this. Is there a boy and a girl making out, but then something scares them?

"A naked sinew
is draped across his girlish lover's toe,
like morbid lace in its buckled embrace.
He screams"

Where does the naked sinew come from?
-----------------------------------------------------
Is the he who screams the same person as the "necking kid"?

"The ancient dead hiss
of victims lost in time and space anew,
with each glass frame or tile shook by wind,
disturbs a necking kid."

If so the last part of this "with each glass frame or tile shook by wind, disturbs a necking kid." is off in terms of plural singular agreement, or so it seems to me.
--------------------------------------------
I am having a lot of difficulty figuring out who is who and when, so although this reads nicely in terms of cadence and rhyme, although doe and toe seem forced, what it is trying to say completely eludes/alludes me.


Dale

Thank you for your helpful and thoughtful feedback, Erthona! I take your point about "doe"; the line reads amateurishly to me, anyway. I don't personally see a problem with the pluralities in L3 to 5; whenever a glass frame or tile is shook by wind, it disturbs the lost victims, making them scream. I'll read them again more thoroughly once I've finished this. The poem is about two teenagers making out in a haunted house when the boy sees a bit of gore on his girlfriend's shoe, screams, startles her, then sees that the gore is gone. I'm afraid I inserted no depths beyond that rather cheesy slasher plot

Maybe I characterized that incorrectly: (I will leave out tile for simplicities sake.

"with each glass frame or tile shook by wind,
disturbs a necking kid."

with each glass frame...shook by wind disturb(s)ed a necking kid.

each wind shook glass frame=a disturbed kid?

So every time the wind blows a kid making out is disturbed.

wind blowing is tied to a 1 to 1 equivalency with number of kid(s) disturbed.

Dale

Ahhhh, I see what you mean, thanks for clarifying. I meant he's disturbed just the once, but reading it again that is grammatically nightmarish

The original phrase was "horny lover's", not "girlish", but I felt that that was cliche, somehow. Thank you for your kind and helpful feedback, Mr. Sea, it helps a lot