Apple Tree

[makeshift]

One million years,
spat and chewed and spat by sun cycles.
Charcoal branches
bear no fruit, only
echoes.

Petrified bole,
serpents twisting through pale air.
Heartwood, and grit,
adorned with rope tied talons, and
black feathery masses.

Pheasants hung like,
Salem heretics.
Aging game left uneaten,
cast toward roots and
eternal ashes, but

the peacock,
like the lotus flower floating on murky water,
rest above the soot soiled tree,
and above his avian sisters, floating as
a white dandolian seed
free from its dead stalk.

[Volaticus]

Hi makeshift,
You have some interesting images here. I especially like the one in the ending. I wonder if you meant to say "dandelion"?
I wasn't too crazy about the repetition in L2 S1, I don't think you need the extra "spat". It does work, but to me it reads smoother without, and it doesn't lose the meaning. JMHO of course.
Best,
LB

[ChristopherSea]

One million years,
spat and chewed and spat by sun cycles.
Charcoal branches
bear no fruit, only
echoes.

Petrified bole,
serpents twisting through pale air.
Heartwood, and grit,
adorned with rope tied talons, and
black feathery masses.

Pheasants hung like,
Salem heretics.
Aging game left uneaten,
cast toward roots and
eternal ashes, but

the peacock,
like the lotus flower floating on murky water,
rest above the soot soiled tree,
and above his avian sisters, floating as
a white dandolian seed
free from its dead stalk.

That is one nasty apple tree ms, but I like it. It's like The Tree of Death, ancient and decaying, with many dark trimmings. The antithesis of the overwrought tree of life,a subject for one of my poems that I am laboring with. I believe you need to chew before you spit, so I would reverse them. 'Cast upon roots' might work better than 'towards', see what you think. I don't think you need 'soot' with soiled. I like with the inkling of life and hope at it's summit. Typo 'dandelion'. Lots of imagery herein

[expiring_touch]

hi,

I really enjoyed this, its visceral imagery, made me think of pagan sacrifices, and also the use of sounds that you have here: it's sort of hissing at you, if you read it aloud, which of course bring back the biblical image of the serpent in the apple tree of good and evil. Well done, overall, but if i were to nit pick, i feel you sometimes go astray of the equipoise you achieve with that first stanza:

Charcoal branches
bear no fruit, only
echoes.

I would consider editing carefully the rest of your stanzas to make sure that everything that's there really needs to be there to make it more poignant.

[makeshift]

Thnx, appreciate everyone one reading/commenting (:

I did mean dandelion not dandolion > . <

I did think about the chewing before spitting things but liked the way it read with spat first, now that you point it out I will probably switch it though, and wont repeat spat.

Reading it now there are defiantly some words I can afford to void.

Thnx again all, expect an edit soon :3

[betalife]

Okay, someone else said they didn't like spat x 2 but I LOVE it. It really hits you between the eyes - "man, this tree has been around the block." I vote you leave it in line 2. =] (Also love the phrase "sun cycles" - you really capture the repetitiveness this tree has lived through) It reminds me of Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (And miles to go before I sleep / And miles to go before I sleep). I think that's an excellent use of repetition as a rhetorical device.

"Pheasants hung like,
Salem heretics.
Aging game left uneaten"

^ My favorite part of the poem. It's a great image. I'm thinking, though - when I think of the Salem witch trials, I think about burning at the stake, too. Can you work in "burning" somehow in that image? Your call. Just a suggestion to make your historic allusion go a bit deeper and hit a bit harder. Regardless, that's my favorite part of your poem.

Nice work. =]

[Elsie Fillmore]

One million years,
spat and chewed and spat by sun cycles.
Charcoal branches
bear no fruit, only
echoes.

Petrified bole,
serpents twisting through pale air.
Heartwood, and grit,
adorned with rope tied talons, and
black feathery masses.

Pheasants hung like,
Salem heretics.
Aging game left uneaten,
cast toward roots and
eternal ashes, but

the peacock,
like the lotus flower floating on murky water,
rest above the soot soiled tree,
and above his avian sisters, floating as
a white dandolian seed
free from its dead stalk.

On my first read through of the poem, I dismissed its dense earthy images, and didnt want to invest in a close read, but it definitely improves with analysis. Like I said, it starts out pretty bleak, if there were a way to introduce the concept of rebirth and redemption a little earlier in the poem. The first three stanzas are mostly one note. Once a reader is invested, the peacock image becomes quite powerful in juxtaposition to the tree.