Going Away Party

[Wildcard]

bitter fog wraps tilted stones
whose worn inscriptions
chuckle at strangers.

within my sarcophagus
tasting of petulance,
feral urges loiter

sweetly depredating
the rotten bond
of an immortal will.

summoned to the dance
I slip into the Stygian
like cool, clean sheets.

bitter fog mingles with tilted stones
whose worn inscriptions
chuckle at strangers

for within my sarcophagus
tasting petulance,
feral urges loiter

summoned to the dance,
I slip into the Stygian
like cool, clean sheets

[Philatone]

Hey man,
just wanted to let you know my thoughts.

bitter fog mingles with tilted stones --dramatic, I will give you that.
whose worn inscriptions --the "whose" here drags out the scene. now, in a sense, it reinforces the "worn" of this stanza, but I think it also brings with it a loss of energy and agency.
chuckle at strangers

for within my sarcophagus --need the "for?
tasting petulance,
feral urges loiter --this is a deep word here with all of the possible meanings

summoned to the dance,
I slip into the Stygian
like cool, clean sheets ---this could be stronger as a metaphor rather than a simile-- for instance, making "Stygian" possessive and dropping the "like". I don't think it would lose its effect. it is a good image as is too!

in terms of comments, I don't have much to add down here. I do feel like this is a poem that could benefit from another stanza or two, preferably somewhere around the middle stanza (either before or after). I like the last stanza especially

[Wildcard]

Thanks Geoff. I'm between sets now but tomorrow I will go through and take a closer look at your suggestions.

[heslopian]

bitter fog mingles with tilted stones Is "bitter" needed? "Fog" seems atmospheric enough. (Be wary of using too many adjectives.) I like how the stones are tilted.
whose worn inscriptions
chuckle at strangers Great stuff. Chuckling inscriptions is nicely original.

for within my sarcophagus "Sarcophagus" is one of my favourite words
tasting petulance,
feral urges loiter

summoned to the dance,
I slip into the Stygian
like cool, clean sheets

I'd recommend removing all punctuation. Unless you plan on using them consistently, like you would with prose, they tend to confuse the rhythm. Otherwise a great poem. Dense and lyrical for such a short piece. Thanks for introducing me to the word "Stygian"!

[billy]

bitter fog mingles with tilted stones
whose worn inscriptions
chuckle at strangers

for within my sarcophagus
tasting petulance,
feral urges loiter

summoned to the dance,
I slip into the Stygian
like cool, clean sheets

i'm presuming the cemetery is the setting. i like the opening line but not the "bitter" could something else work better (not thick ) also chuckle feels a little off. stygian relates to the river stix. it isn't the river of itself, stygian water, creek, or pool would work along with a number of of other words. if you moved cool clean sheets to the 2nd line of the 3rd, and the "of the stygian (insert word here) to the last it would give it more depth.

i like the concept, would love to see it stretched and made darker, thanks for the read.

[Wildcard]

Hi Jack,
   Thanks for your feedback. I'll have another look at 'bitter'. As for the puncuation, I hadn't considered removing it entirely, but I will. Believe it or not, this poem has come a long way and been reduced in half by edits.

Hi Billy,
   As an adjective, 'Stygian' could mean 'as black as the river Styx', but in this case I am trying for 'total dark' or more simply 'blackness' or 'the night'. Either that or I am entirely confused :p Thanks for your feedback. I did get a little dark for a moment, but that wasn't the intent necessarily. I'll work on it some more.

---

Hi Geoff,
   It's amazing how your comments so directly relate to my own insecurities about the poem. I went through a lot of internal debate about 'whose' and 'for.' Obviously I decided to go with it, but your comments make me want to revisit those decisions. Thanks for the feedback.

[Philatone]

I was debating about the same thing as billy with Stygian. I kinda liked turning it into a noun, but that's just too much I suppose. If anything, I think it could work simply as

"I slip into the Stygian
Cool clean sheets"

or something of that sort, commas as you like if at all. I also had a quick question about the setting, but eventually assumed it was a cemetery as well and thought better of it. maybe a quick word or two thrown in for orientation's sake could be helpful.

maybe seeing those other stanzas would be good also; as stated, a little length here may not be a bad thing

let's see what we can do mark. i do think you are on to something

[Leanne]

OK Mark, I'm deliberately paying no attention to previous comments so bear with me if I'm repeating things.

bitter fog mingles with tilted stones -- I really like the idea of fog being bitter, it conjures up ideas of drunken revelry and that delightful aftertaste coupled with the tilted stones, which seems to me the aftermath of a wake -- I did toy with an alternative "fog bitters tilted stones" but that shifts the meaning somewhat -- I think it's "mingles" that slightly decreases the impact of the line as an opener, so maybe "bitter fog twists through tilted stones"?
whose worn inscriptions
chuckle at strangers -- love this!

for within my sarcophagus -- "for" is redundant
tasting petulance,
feral urges loiter -- this implies that the feral urges are tasting petulance, I think your grammar might need addressing. You could maybe try reversing the first two lines of this strophe

summoned to the dance,
I slip into the Stygian -- I love Stygian as a kind of metalepsis, it's the ultimate black
like cool, clean sheets

Very nicely done, Mark, I think the images work brilliantly against the title and with just a few tweaks you'll have yourself a great poem.

[Wildcard]

Leanne,
   Thanks for such a detailed critique and for a lot of great ideas. I added a little more to the poem and rearranged the second(tercet?/stanza?/strophe?) Thanks for all the help and feel free to tell me it was better the other way

---

Jack,
   I decided to just try to be consistant with the punctuation throughout. Thanks for the advice and please tell me if you notice bad puncuation as it is a weak point of mine. Thanks again.

[billy]

Hi Billy,
   As an adjective, 'Stygian' could mean 'as black as the river Styx', but in this case I am trying for 'total dark' or more simply 'blackness' or 'the night'. Either that or I am entirely confused :p Thanks for your feedback. I did get a little dark for a moment, but that wasn't the intent necessarily. I'll work on it some more.

---

but would that be interpreted as;
i slip into the as black as the river styx?

i slip into the Stygian
cool,
would work for me

as a metalepsis, i suppose it could work (as leanne said) but the styx, is often known as the river of hate, which again, i suppose could be black but it would be a big leap to connect it with black...which is what a metalepsis does i suppose. for me it doesn't work and i suspect for the multitude a metalepsis would be something not known.

that said, i'm not even sure cool is good word to be connected with stygian as it separates earth from hell, hades or the underworld (where people often stoke boilers for a living.

shit...sorry for the long windy

[Wildcard]

No need to be sorry. Your thoughts are appreciated.

I grew up reading Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan and John Carter series and (especially in the latter) he used 'Stygian' like it was his favorite word. Being very young, I had to look it up, but eventually realized that Burroughs used 'Stygian' like an adjective to describe darkness. His favorite was 'Stygian gloom', when John Carter marched into the unkown dungeon.
In my poem, I wanted to use 'Stygian' like I'd seen William L. Shirer use in his discussions of Adolf Hitler's personality. 'A man filled with the Stygian - no light at all.' Maybe people won't get it though. I worried about that when I chose it, but now I am just so attached to the way it works there for me. I will give it some serious thought, though. Thanks for your help. Your advice is always valuable.

[billy]

stygian gloom works.

i'm not so sure

i slip into the stygian
like cool, clean sheets

does.

it would work as

i slip into the Stygian-like cool

i slip into the stygian
like cool, clean sheets

sort of becomes a simile

which i think stops it being a metalepsis (i think)


filled with the Stygian

that works because then it becomes a solid ( as solid as one can be) metalepsis, where stygian is the metaphore for what ever context is being used. (again, i think that's the case)

but enough of the discussion you're the boss

[Leanne]

On Stygian -- personally I had no trouble at all with it, and was pretty surprised by the discussion as I just accepted it. Maybe that's because of Tarzan in childhood as well But to me, "slipping into the Stygian" works in the same way as "having a drink at the local".

[billy]

yes it does
but for me it doesn't work with the line underneath it.

having a drink at the local
like meat, sliced beef

and it's the differences that make the styx go round

[Wildcard]

I see what you are saying, but mine would go:

having a drink at the local
like a knot on a log

See?

[billy]

yes i see;
that doesn't work for me either
sorry AA.

to match your poem it would have to read as;

having a drink at the local
like knot, on a log

which doesn't work for me either.

hey, it could be me whose wearing a fuzzy hat. so it's no biggy, i'm just in a pondering mood i think.

[Wildcard]

Okay. Thanks for pondering to my benefit I'll use any excuse to talk about Burroughs.

[Ca ne fait rien]

bitter fog wraps tilted stones
whose worn inscriptions
chuckle at strangers.

within my sarcophagus
tasting of petulance,
feral urges loiter

sweetly depredating
the rotten bond
of an immortal will.

summoned to the dance
I slip into the Stygian
like cool, clean sheets.

bitter fog mingles with tilted stones
whose worn inscriptions
chuckle at strangers

for within my sarcophagus
tasting petulance,
feral urges loiter

summoned to the dance,
I slip into the Stygian
like cool, clean sheets

LOL I did read the comments before throwing my hat into the ring.
I thought it must have been worked over before it got here, so further picking may feel a bit frutrating for you, but I'll do it anyway because I know you will take it in the spirit of discussing your poem, which is of course your poem. I too stumbled on Stygian as a noun. I can appreciate the device of Stygian as one of those adjectives where the noun is implicit, but

'I slip into the stygian
depths of cool
clean sheets'

is how ;this reader' registered it.

I also noted others were ambivalent over 'bitter fog'. Bitter and 'petulant ' go together, so what about turning it on its head and having

'petulant fog wraps ,,,'

and
'tasting of bitters' (or bitter something or other)

Just messing with it for the sake of it-

[Wildcard]

Thanks for your comments. As far as 'picking' at the poem: pick away. Every comment is valuable to me and everyone's help is appreciated (even Billy's :p) You gave me some good points to think on and I'll do just that. If I seem adamant about 'Stygian' like it is, I hope no one thinks I am snubbing my nose at good crit. In the end I may cut or change it, but honestly I am sorely prejudiced toward leaving it. My appreciation for all the help I get from The Pig Pen

[Ca ne fait rien]

Thanks for your comments. As far as 'picking' at the poem: pick away. Every comment is valuable to me and everyone's help is appreciated (even Billy's :p) You gave me some good points to think on and I'll do just that. If I seem adamant about 'Stygian' like it is, I hope no one thinks I am snubbing my nose at good crit. In the end I may cut or change it, but honestly I am sorely prejudiced toward leaving it. My appreciation for all the help I get from The Pig Pen

As I said, it is your poem, not mine or anyone else's, and often discussion over things like this crystallise it in the poet's mind, that this is what he wrote and this is what he meant. I like it when that happens. Sometimes one just writes something down, a word, an image, and doesn't give it a thought either way until it is brought under the microscope.
I love this forum.