Warm greeting fellow poetry lovers. I am new to this forum and to poetry in general. This is one of my recent pieces and I hope you will find it a worthy contribution. I'm looking forward to receiving and giving feedback to you all.
A Suit of Brass
A tunnel dark, an ending white
A coffin cramped, no space to breathe.
No chance to leave, to fight
And no way out, for you or me
A suit of brass, with sunny gleam
The only luxury you have
And this, my little friend, it seems
Is how your funeral will pass
And as you lie there, on your own
With no one close to you in sight
You feel as calm and cool as stone
Since this will be your only flight
The line for funerals is long
Still 29 , at least, to go
Before you've sung your final song
Another one will lie there cold
And once you fly, my little friend
Once you've reached that moment last
As you prepare for the end
You would have lost your suit of brass.
It's a skeleton with no meat and no blood, not even any bones. It's a toy you're playing with. It sounds nice, most of the lines run kind of smooth and have music. But it's a plastic music, like those fake flutes they call "recorders" they give you in school. This sounds like a poem you'd write in high school. An American high school, too.
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Hi,
Maybe you could take a look at the punctuation, as it seems quite random. You have two periods and then leave them out completely for the rest of the poem. Most of your rhymes worked for me, except for a few (have-pass for example). I see a theme throughout the poem, but it doesn't feel all cohesive to me, it seems to be pulling in different directions, that are not fully explained or explored.
JMHO of course.
Best,
LB
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I'd advise you to first work on your imagery - lesson #1 of Poetry 101 is "show, not tell." A poet uses language to elicit an emotional response from readers, which is why lines like "The line for funerals is long" don't work. There's a place for literal language in poetry, but keep in mind it should be used deliberately by the author and compliment the style of the poem. Descriptive language is your new best friend. I recommend you also think more about the best way to utilize punctuation and capitalization, and try to keep them consistent.
More specifically, if you choose to use rhyming, make sure it works. For example, rhyming "have" with "pass" is a stretch. I don't know what your inspiration for this poem was, but as a rule of thumb rhyming is rarely used in modern poetry. I'm not sure what the general opinion of this forum is on rhyme schemes in contemporary poems, but I personally find them dated and sophomoric. Definitely hard to pull off as a novice writer.
From one newcomer to another, keep writing! You can only get better from here.
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Not much I can add to what has already been said. I also noticed the "not-quite" rhymes, and they took me out of the moment, as did the lack of punctuation.
As far as the content, I had thought the suit of brass was the urn holding one's ashes, but you specifically mention a coffin, so I ended up confused, and the piece also mentions the feelings of the dead, without letting us "inside" to understand what those feelings might be, which I found odd.
"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." - Paul Dirac (1902 - 1984)
Thanks for all the comments everybody. Indeed I know I have problems with the punctuation as English is a second language. As for the poem, it's about a bullet, about to be fired. The suit of brass is the bullet's casing, the tunnel and the coffin are the barrel of the firearm and the whole poem is from the POV of the shooter. I'll see if I can find someone to help me work on it a little bit. I appreciate your criticism.
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Glad you explained the meaning, sometimes that helps with the understanding more so...but then I wonder if you could have caputured that with more depth of imagery to allow us to see for ourselves.....anyhow its nice to meet you and read your work.
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Beautiful representation of a weapon
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Perhaps, if you moved "my little friend" to the first stanza it might help clarify off the bat and not turn off readers who have checked out after the first stanza thinking your poem was about death and dreariness.
