edit 1. trueenigma
Entropy

It's us. Our big pink eyes are scared and dumb.
My brother's rabbit jumps, tumbles, and thumps
His way into the corner. Digs at the rug,
Wisely. Left a jagged, "So long, bub!"
On me bleeding. And my brother, my brother, is numb . . .
Talked to his wife today about the law,
Of all things. Puzzles over his accounts and slumps
His way into the kitchen for a beer. We don’t have any.

Sharp, grey eyes, cold, hungry, don't
Follow him. But once, they would have lunged.
They'd take the sick. It was better. Now we think
Doctors, ammo, medicine, and guns
Are best. And entropy alone we leave to kill us.
We walk, slouching, and where would we run?

I was cutting the hedge at noon today
When I saw the slim end of a tail slide
Over broken holly leaves, drifting
Slowly, poorly camouflaged. It was Christmas,
And I thought, "It’s cold out. Snakes should be under rocks,
Hidden." And I wondered what had woke him . . .

--am I getting anywhere?
----

Entropy

Big scared eye, pink, dumb,
And unobtrusive as a broken clock.
Shocked, I drop him as he tears my arm.
He thumps his way over to the corner and digs at the carpet, my brother’s rabbit, because
My brother’s come back home, numb.
Talks about how he talked to his wife today about the law,
Of all things. Puzzles over his accounts and slumps

His way into the kitchen for a beer. We don’t have any.
Once, when wolves would eat the sick, it was
A better world. Now we have guns,
Doctors, ammo, medicine, and entropy
Alone we trust to kill us,
Passively.

I was cutting the hedge at noon today when I saw
The slim end of a tail slide over broken
Holly leaves, drifting slowly,
Poorly camouflaged. It was Christmas, and I thought,
It’s cold out. Snakes should all be under rocks,
Hidden. And I wondered what had woke him
And scared him from his hole, and I thought,
Can a snake get cold? Can a snake feel lost?

My father saw it and took a hoe and chopped
Its neck. Or maybe it was some other snake.
I don’t know. They all look a lot the same.
He tried to toss it by the tail across
The fence, but it got caught in a tree, where it hangs.
I’m raking leaves when my brother finally pulls in. He looks a lot

Like normal, but I know. He’s not. My father grins
And hugs him around the neck, and a cop
Turns around in the cul-de-sac, and it seems
Like no one finds this place except on accident.
I take off my gloves, and in no time flat,
The heat goes out of them, and I

Sit down behind a pile of leaves
And pretend I’m somewhere else,
Where there is no help,
And therefore there is no need--
Where the wolves would have you long before the grief.

(12-09-2013, 09:44 AM)crow Wrote:  Entropy

Big scared eye, pink, dumb,
And unobtrusive as a broken clock.
I'm not certain if this is intentional or not, but this isn't a sentence. Even if you're using fragments as a device, it doesn't work very well here to open the poem. Once you hit clock you stop dead wondering were the verb is and go back to reread the sentence to try and figure it out. It's enough to keep a reader from going any farther. It's hard to get in to a poem if nothing's happening. And your first couple lines are where you want to let the reader in.
Shocked, I drop him as he tears my arm.
He thumps his way over to the corner and digs at the carpet, my brother’s rabbit, because You are doing something strange here, you have a fragment describing the rabbit, and then all these pronouns proceeding their antecedent, so the whole thing's flip flopped.
My brother’s come back home, numb.
Talks about how he talked to his wife today about the law,technically this sentence is incorrect too; it should be "he talks". But I kind of like the experimentation here. It has a nice conversational tone. I dunno. I am ambivalent. I love the assonance of "the law, of all."
Of all things. Puzzles over his accounts and slumps This is my favorite line break in the poem. The connotations here are so much larger then going to the kitchen. The enjambment allows you to allude to these connotations without being melodramatic. I also like "slumps his way to the kitchen. Great image. And it let's me know that we are still finding new ways to say and describe things, so it's okay to go one more day without stabbing an ice pick threw my eyeball.

His way into the kitchen for a beer. We don’t have any.We don't have any. Nice. A lot of implications here.
Once, when wolves would eat the sick, it was
A better world. Now we have guns,
Doctors, ammo, medicine, and entropy
Alone we trust to kill us,
Passively. This bit about the wolves etc. comes out of nowhere and interrupts the narrative. It is kind of strange, and detracts from the natural movement of the plot. I'm not sure how to fix it and I know you want something to tie to your ending. Maybe you could open with it. Or could the Narrator maybe see something on television about wolves to trigger the line of thought? I know that's a lot going on; brother,rabbit, t.v., but the speaker could be sitting there in the living room with the t.v. on.

I was cutting the hedge at noon today when I sawThis stanza is excellent, but maybe break this line on today
The slim end of a tail slide over brokenand this one on tail. Maybe even slide if you want to make things interesting
Holly leaves, drifting slowly,and on drifting
Poorly camouflaged. It was Christmas, and I thought,
It’s cold out. Snakes should all be under rocks,
Hidden. And I wondered what had woke him
And scared him from his hole, and I thought,maybe cut "and I thought".
Can a snake get cold? Can a snake feel lost?

My father saw it and took a hoe and chopped
Its neck. Or maybe it was some other snake.
I don’t know. They all look a lot the same.
He tried to toss it by the tail across
The fence, but it got caught in a tree, where it hangs.
I’m raking leaves when my brother finally pulls in. He looks a lot

Like normal, but I know. He’s not. My father grins
And hugs him around the neck, and a cop
Turns around in the cul-de-sac, and it seems
Like no one finds this place except on accident.
I take off my gloves, and in no time flat,
The heat goes out of them, and I

Sit down behind a pile of leaves
And pretend I’m somewhere else,
Where there is no help,
And therefore there is no need--
Where the wolves would have you long before the grief.

With some work shopping this could be a very nice piece. I like the main ideas in the narrative, and it paints an interesting story.

You could maybe cut the wolves bit out of the middle, which is a bit telly, and let the ending do the work on it's own. I'm actually on the fence about suggesting you cut the first two stanzas entirely, as the final four are the strongest, and when reading this I get the feeling that the poem is starting when I get to "I was cutting the hedge at noon today"... I think the of idea experimenting with passivity is interesting, but it's difficult to reconcile it to coherent reading, especially in the opening.


I'm going to read this a few more times tonight and tomorrow and come back with some more suggestions for cuts, breaks, and punctuation.

Thanks for posting. Welcome to Serious.

Trueenigma, I love ya. I c a n n o t believe you edited as thoroughly as you did. Rewriting to your specs as best as I can

---

(Today 08:44 AM)crow Wrote:
Entropy

Big scared eye, pink, dumb,
He's unobtrusive as a broken clock.

I'm not certain if this is intentional or not, but this isn't a sentence. Even if
you're using fragments as a device, it doesn't work very well here to open the poem. Once you hit clock you stop dead wondering were the verb is and go back to reread the sentence to try and figure it out. It's enough to keep a reader from going any farther. It's hard to get in to a poem if nothing's happening. And your first couple lines are where you want to let the reader in.

--nice. fixed it?

Shocked, I drop him as he tears my arm.
He thumps his way over to the corner and digs at the carpet, my brother’s rabbit, because

You are doing something strange here, you have a fragment describing the rabbit, and then all these pronouns proceeding their antecedent, so the whole thing's flip flopped.
--hmmm. I'm not sure how to run with this . . . Maybe,

I drop him as he tears my arm, shocked.
He hops his way over to the corner and digs at the carpet, my brother’s rabbit, because

?

My brother’s come back home, numb.
Talks about how he talked to his wife today about the law,

technically this sentence is incorrect too; it should be "he talks". But I kind of like the experimentation here. It has a nice conversational tone. I dunno. I am ambivalent. I love the assonance of "the law, of all."

---
let me write the other version. It'd be, maybe?,

My brother’s come back home,
Numbed,
He talks about how he talked to his wife today about the law,
---

Of all things. Puzzles over his accounts and slumps

This is my favorite line break in the poem.

The connotations here are so much larger then going to the kitchen. The enjambment allows you to allude to these connotations without being melodramatic. I also like "slumps his way to the kitchen. Great image. And it let's me know that we are still finding new ways to say and describe things, so it's okay to go one more day without stabbing an ice pick threw my eyeball.

---
yessir. It can wait til the weekend I'll leave that line put
---

His way into the kitchen for a beer. We don’t have any.

We don't have any. Nice. A lot of implications here.

Once, when wolves would eat the sick, it was
A better world. Now we have guns,
Doctors, ammo, medicine, and entropy
Alone we trust to kill us,
Passively.


This bit about the wolves etc. comes out of nowhere and interrupts the narrative. It is kind of strange, and detracts from the natural movement of the plot. I'm not sure how to fix it and I know you want something to tie to your ending. Maybe you could open with it. Or could the Narrator maybe see something on television about wolves to trigger the line of thought? I know that's a lot going on; brother,rabbit, t.v., but the speaker could be sitting there in the living room with the t.v. on.

---
I take a sip, watch the wolves eating the sick.
It was a better world. Now we have guns . . .
?
---
I was cutting the hedge at noon today when I saw

This stanza is excellent, but maybe break this line on today

---
It's a broken double-Italian sonnet. I've tried to avoid breaking form except where it's for drama. I'm going to leave it, but only after some more thinking . . .
---

The slim end of a tail slide over brokenand this one on tail.

Maybe even slide if you want to make things interesting

---
I don't understand . . . Can you give me the suggested rephrasing?
---

Holly leaves, drifting slowly,

and on drifting

---
?
---

Poorly camouflaged. It was Christmas, and I thought,
It’s cold out. Snakes should all be under rocks,
Hidden. And I wondered what had woke him
And scared him from his hole, and I thought,

maybe cut "and I thought".

---
Why so?
---

Can a snake get cold? Can a snake feel lost?

My father saw it and took a hoe and chopped
Its neck. Or maybe it was some other snake.
I don’t know. They all look a lot the same.
He tried to toss it by the tail across
The fence, but it got caught in a tree, where it hangs.
I’m raking leaves when my brother finally pulls in. He looks a lot

Like normal, but I know. He’s not. My father grins
And hugs him around the neck, and a cop
Turns around in the cul-de-sac, and it seems
Like no one finds this place except on accident.
I take off my gloves, and in no time flat,
The heat goes out of them, and I

Sit down behind a pile of leaves
And pretend I’m somewhere else,
Where there is no help,
And therefore there is no need--
Where the wolves would have you long before the grief.

---

Thanks for the welcome!

What about "coldly" or "cruelly" instead of "passively"?

(12-09-2013, 01:54 PM)crow Wrote:  Trueenigma, I love ya. I c a n n o t believe you edited as thoroughly as you did. Rewriting to your specs as best as I can

---

(Today 08:44 AM)crow Wrote:
Entropy

Big scared eye, pink, dumb,
He's unobtrusive as a broken clock.

I'm not certain if this is intentional or not, but this isn't a sentence. Even if
you're using fragments as a device, it doesn't work very well here to open the poem. Once you hit clock you stop dead wondering were the verb is and go back to reread the sentence to try and figure it out. It's enough to keep a reader from going any farther. It's hard to get in to a poem if nothing's happening. And your first couple lines are where you want to let the reader in.

--nice. fixed it?

Shocked, I drop him as he tears my arm.
He thumps his way over to the corner and digs at the carpet, my brother’s rabbit, because

You are doing something strange here, you have a fragment describing the rabbit, and then all these pronouns proceeding their antecedent, so the whole thing's flip flopped.
--hmmm. I'm not sure how to run with this . . . Maybe,

I drop him as he tears my arm, shocked.
He hops his way over to the corner and digs at the carpet, my brother’s rabbit, because

?

My brother’s come back home, numb.
Talks about how he talked to his wife today about the law,

technically this sentence is incorrect too; it should be "he talks". But I kind of like the experimentation here. It has a nice conversational tone. I dunno. I am ambivalent. I love the assonance of "the law, of all."

---
let me write the other version. It'd be, maybe?,

My brother’s come back home,
Numbed,
He talks about how he talked to his wife today about the law,
---

Of all things. Puzzles over his accounts and slumps

This is my favorite line break in the poem.

The connotations here are so much larger then going to the kitchen. The enjambment allows you to allude to these connotations without being melodramatic. I also like "slumps his way to the kitchen. Great image. And it let's me know that we are still finding new ways to say and describe things, so it's okay to go one more day without stabbing an ice pick threw my eyeball.

---
yessir. It can wait til the weekend I'll leave that line put
---

His way into the kitchen for a beer. We don’t have any.

We don't have any. Nice. A lot of implications here.

Once, when wolves would eat the sick, it was
A better world. Now we have guns,
Doctors, ammo, medicine, and entropy
Alone we trust to kill us,
Passively.


This bit about the wolves etc. comes out of nowhere and interrupts the narrative. It is kind of strange, and detracts from the natural movement of the plot. I'm not sure how to fix it and I know you want something to tie to your ending. Maybe you could open with it. Or could the Narrator maybe see something on television about wolves to trigger the line of thought? I know that's a lot going on; brother,rabbit, t.v., but the speaker could be sitting there in the living room with the t.v. on.

---
I take a sip, watch the wolves eating the sick.
It was a better world. Now we have guns . . .
?
---
I was cutting the hedge at noon today when I saw

This stanza is excellent, but maybe break this line on today

---
It's a broken double-Italian sonnet. I've tried to avoid breaking form except where it's for drama. I'm going to leave it, but only after some more thinking . . .
---

The slim end of a tail slide over brokenand this one on tail.

Maybe even slide if you want to make things interesting

---
I don't understand . . . Can you give me the suggested rephrasing?
---

Holly leaves, drifting slowly,

and on drifting

---
?
---

Poorly camouflaged. It was Christmas, and I thought,
It’s cold out. Snakes should all be under rocks,
Hidden. And I wondered what had woke him
And scared him from his hole, and I thought,

maybe cut "and I thought".

---
Why so?
---

Can a snake get cold? Can a snake feel lost?

My father saw it and took a hoe and chopped
Its neck. Or maybe it was some other snake.
I don’t know. They all look a lot the same.
He tried to toss it by the tail across
The fence, but it got caught in a tree, where it hangs.
I’m raking leaves when my brother finally pulls in. He looks a lot

Like normal, but I know. He’s not. My father grins
And hugs him around the neck, and a cop
Turns around in the cul-de-sac, and it seems
Like no one finds this place except on accident.
I take off my gloves, and in no time flat,
The heat goes out of them, and I

Sit down behind a pile of leaves
And pretend I’m somewhere else,
Where there is no help,
And therefore there is no need--
Where the wolves would have you long before the grief.

---

Thanks for the welcome!

What about "coldly" or "cruelly" instead of "passively"?

Hi, yeah i was going back threw that to today and got a better look (and hear) at what you were doing the sonics on the line breaks. The reason why I suggested cutting "and I thought" is because it was already used. Just feels a too wordy and repetitive.

(12-09-2013, 01:54 PM)crow Wrote:  ---
It's a broken double-Italian sonnet. I've tried to avoid breaking form except where it's for drama. I'm going to leave it, but only after some more thinking . . .
---

Come again(??!)

Hi, Crow, I just have to say

Quote:Shocked, I drop him as he tears my arm.
He thumps his way over to the corner and digs at the carpet, my brother’s rabbit, because

vs

Quote:I drop him as he tears my arm, shocked.
He hops his way over to the corner and digs at the carpet, my brother’s rabbit, because

The original worked well for me. In the edit it's not clear who's shocked, you or the rabbit?

And please don't lose "thumped", certainly not for "hopped".

Just read billy's pinned post about placing edits above the original. Apologies.

Milo--well, I used to write a "perfect Italian"--fourteen iambic pentameter feet, Italian rhyme--and then break it where doing so would produce an effect. Two of these together plus an additional broken sestet is what I call a broken double Italian.

That sounds grandiose, maybe. When I wrote that originally, I was pretty in-my-head.

(12-10-2013, 12:43 PM)crow Wrote:  Just read billy's pinned post about placing edits above the original. Apologies.

Milo--well, I used to write a "perfect Italian"--fourteen iambic pentameter feet, Italian rhyme--and then break it where doing so would produce an effect. Two of these together plus an additional broken sestet is what I call a broken double Italian.

That sounds grandiose, maybe. When I wrote that originally, I was pretty in-my-head.

It's a non-metrical free-verse poem with random line breaks. I certainly wouldn't use the definition of a form that you arent following a single part of to excuse fixing at least a couple of your pretty bad line breaks, but that's just me.

I believe leanne may have posted an actual double petrarchan. Read in wonder.

If you write a non-metrical poem with a random number of lines, a random number of feet per line with no rhyme or volta - it's not a sonnet a double sonnet a villanelle a rondeau or and other fixed form - broken or not.

This has been a public service announcement.

Milo--you're right. Absolutely.

And thanks! Researching those forms now

---

Also . . . I can't find her double Petrarchan . . .
Little help?

(12-10-2013, 01:35 PM)crow Wrote:  Milo--you're right. Absolutely.

And thanks! Researching those forms now

---

Also . . . I can't find her double Petrarchan . . .
Little help?

Check the practice forums, we have some pretty good threads there and someone will usually guide you through an attempt.pt or two.

Will do.

Well, it would take several more hours to write all this down as suggestions, so:





Entropy

Big scared eye, pink, dumb;
he's unobtrusive as a broken clock.

Shocked, I drop my brothers rabbit as he tears
my arm. He thumps his way over to the corner and digs
at the carpet; because my brother's come back home,
numb. Says he talked to his wife today about the law,
of all things. Puzzles over his accounts and slumps
his way into the kitchen for a beer. We don't have any.

I was cutting the hedge at noon today
when I saw the slim end of a tail slide
over broken holly leaves, drifting,
poorly camouflaged. I thought, it's Christmas,

it's cold out; snakes
should all be under rocks,
hidden. And I wondered,

what had woke him and scared him from his hole?
can a snake get cold? Can a snake feel lost?

Once, when wolves would eat the sick,
it was a better world. Now we have guns,
doctors, ammo, medicine, and entropy
alone we trust to kill us,
passively.

My father saw it and took a hoe and chopped its neck.
Or maybe it was some other snake. I don't know.
They all look the same. He tried to toss it by the tail
across the fence, but it got caught in a tree, where it hangs.

I'm raking leaves when my brother finally pulls
in. He looks a lot like normal, but I know
he's not. My father grins and hugs him around the neck
as a cop turns around in the cul-de-sac.
No one finds this place except by accident.
I take off my gloves, and in no time flat, the heat goes out

of them, and I sit down behind a pile of leaves
and pretend I'm somewhere else,
where there is no help,
and there is no need--
Where the wolves would have you long before the grief.


——

I would start here.

You gave me a generous line-by-line originally, and now a structural reformatting. Can I get a middle ground? Maybe what you thought was wrong w the original ordering of events?

Meantime, I'll study your version.

Thanks for this. It can't have been quick work, itself. I'll go over it

It still might need some work to untangle some of the tenses, and you need a better verb for the "pulls" break, but this is a good place to start.

---

To be honest, the entropy strophe should probably be cut altogether, or rewritten in a way that fits to the narrative— it's an interruption just about anywhere you put it— but the reason why I move it was so that it could at least gain some strength from the snake symbolism. (Which is the strongest aspect of the poem.)

I will be happy to answer any questions, but the main reason behind most of the editing is as follows (and note that I didn't actually "rewrite" anything):


—Grammar, syntax, and punctuation.
—Eliminating unnecessary "wordiness" (some could still go)
—strengthening line breaks and starts. (the "edges" are the most important parts of a poem.)

---

look again.

---

The double sonnet you were looking for is here:

http://www.pigpenpoetry.com/showthread.php?tid=12891

Question--is it now that I rewrite the rewrite, or do I take the meaning of the rewrite and rewrite the original?

---

And, fwiw, the grammar errors were intended. I've spent upwards of 120 hours on this poem.

If you like I would be happy to help you restructure this into either a double pretarchan, or series of two. Yes. Seriously. Hell, we could even turn into a crown redouble if you like—just don't expect it to happen overnight.

---

(12-10-2013, 03:12 PM)crow Wrote:  Question--is it now that I rewrite the rewrite, or do I take the meaning of the rewrite and rewrite the original?

---

And, fwiw, the grammar errors were intended. I've spent upwards of 120 hours on this poem.

You may edit /your/ poem as you see fit. These are only suggestions. The idea behind it really was to point out weaknesses and strengths.


Use the line breaks that you like, and find ways to improve your own for the other areas. I didn't change any meaning. These are your words. I just added some layers with the line breaks.

---

I know that some of the grammar was intention. Note that I replaced the period after "I know" with an enjambment etc.—for the same effect.

Thanks again. It was an intrepid revision, and I'll spend good time with it.

I'm not going to do line by line, just stopping by to say I've enjoyed reading this whole thread, it was educational for me. I just wonder, crow, why are the grammatical errors intentional?

There's only one, so far as I can tell. It's in the first two lines, which are missing a verb. It was meant to be an isolated, stand-alone image, as a reflection of a meditative moment. You read the line twice, or just push through the confusion, and you land on the word "shocked." I was going for an effect, is the answer. Read aloud, I don't think it causes much problems, except for a nagging sense that something's incomplete, not right.

Anyway, that's what I was going for. Otherwise, and correct me if I'm wrong, it's error-free.

---

Maybe I could retitle it, "I'm staring at a . . ."?

Here's one instance:


It was Christmas, and I thought,
It’s cold out.

(which is a kinda comma splice as written.) You could solve this by putting what you thought in quotes.
Also, you switch tenses from past to present.

Other than that it is darn near perfect....I adore your voice and striking images.

tah!

mel.