The balding pool of yarn waves to me,
Bye friend.
Going home already?
Scrubs drag lazily across the floor
through the room thick with dandelion seeds.
The man in the office
hands me my bag of clothes
and a checklist for review.
The pudding man asks for chocolates
and receives animal crackers instead.
One does not know of
technological dependency
until they’re stuck in a zoo with a dead cell phone.
Holding on to the receipt,
with three sets of numbers
hastily scribbled with eyeliner and a sense of desperation,
like an infant on the cord,
I reach for the wall
by the window, overlooking the city
in orange.
The phone is salmon pink
like Karen’s fingernails.
Three ghosts watch me from their table
their eyes like coal in the snow of 1942.
The sickly artificial sweetness
of the ice tea from the pudding cup
sticks to my throat
like four seeds of a pomegranate.
First dial nine
to connect outside.
The balding pool of yarn waves to me,
Bye friend.
Going home already?
Scrubs drag lazily across the floor
through the room thick with dandelion seeds.
The man in the office
hands me my bag of clothes
and a checklist for review.
The pudding man asks for chocolates
and receives animal crackers instead.
One does not know of
technological dependency
until they’re stuck in a zoo with a dead cell phone.
Holding on to the receipt,
with three sets of numbers
hastily scribbled with eyeliner and a sense of desperation,
like an infant on the cord,
I reach for the wall
by the window, overlooking the city
in orange.
The stanza above is full of decent things, but it might be a good place to work out something that sounds a bit better, poem-wise, and then consider what you can do with the rest of the poem.
It's not all that bad, it doesn't have to sound good. But so far the whole poem is just mildly interesting and nothing else.
The phone is salmon pink
like Karen’s fingernails.
Three ghosts watch me from their table
their eyes like coal in the snow of 1942.
The sickly artificial sweetness
of the ice tea from the pudding cup
sticks to my throat
like four seeds of a pomegranate.
First dial nine
to connect outside.
Thank you for the reply! Can you elaborate on what you mean by something that sounds better poem-wise? Do you mean it in a "make it more extravagant conventional poetry-y", or something else?
Yes. But not extravagant. Something better, unless it can't get any better.
I'll try doing a look over to see if I can come up with something, thanks for your suggestion.
Posts: 16
Threads: 2
Joined: Feb 2014
You have incredible and descriptive scenes and images going on here, which is often a hard thing for people to do. I really enjoy your use of language, and you do some unexpected things with it that I liked reading. The problem is, the poem doesn't have a point. When you write, ask yourself, "So what?" Why is what you're writing relevant? What do you mean? Tell me something that you believe or think through the poem.
The balding pool of yarn waves to me, Huh? what is this? how can yarn bald?
Bye friend.
Going home already?
Scrubs drag lazily across the floor
through the room thick with dandelion seeds. This is not a complete thought.. what are you trying to say?
The man in the office
hands me my bag of clothes
and a checklist for review.
The pudding man asks for chocolates
and receives animal crackers instead. I like this whole stanza, as an exposition part of the poem. It doesn't have a lot of meaning, but you could built on it.
One does not know of
technological dependency
until they’re stuck in a zoo with a dead cell phone.
Holding on to the receipt,
with three sets of numbers
hastily scribbled with eyeliner and a sense of desperation,
like an infant on the cord, I like this very much, but it needs to be clarified and tightened up. What is your point here?
I reach for the wall
by the window, overlooking the city
in orange.
The phone is salmon pink
like Karen’s fingernails.
Three ghosts watch me from their table
their eyes like coal in the snow of 1942.
The sickly artificial sweetness
of the ice tea from the pudding cup
sticks to my throat
like four seeds of a pomegranate.
First dial nine
to connect outside.
everything that's underlined has a clear theme, something in common running through it. You never seem to get to the point enough to tell us what's going on, though. Work less on the faaaancy capital-P "Poetic" stuff and more on bringing across a meaning, thought, or argument. As a whole, what does the poem mean? I can't answer that, so make it so I can.
MadisonDiem:
Good point. I tend to focus too much on imagery and looking inward for the meaning, forgetting that the audience cannot read my mind, nor have the same experience I have, and thus I must be a little more clear with the point I'm trying to make.
Balding pool of yarn was the only way I could describe this patient in the psych ward, he was bald, and flimsy and almost figure-less like a pool of yarn. I've had someone point out the same way you have, though, so it's probably a good idea for me to change it.
Thanks for taking your time to look at it, it's very insightful.
