Sometimes I Bleed

[ckeo]

The Still I remember, when the sky slipped
through the haze of my slumber and the cerulean
glass exposed from the mist offered reprieve
from heat ablating my skin.

Serving salinity I lay there, A leather bound
trinket unteathered on unrelenting hardness
of driftwood. I closed my eyes back to the
comfort of my dream, no avail.. endless drifting,
the ocean lapping my vessel.

I fear the water reflecting faces, legends of
wise men and mercy staining my bones. I long
for human touch, the glow of a fresh lit hearth
over ice cream sundaes and doe eyes pining in
vain. I ponder the servitude.

I struggled the edge, occasionally relenting
to my weight and sometimes I bled. I could smell
the dried crust over my wounds and the fire from
salt washing it away. A deed that would test A
common man, until only an echo remains.

Here.. buoyant and embryotic I drift, shadows
no longer search above, the animations of their wake
have long subdued. With all hope lost as I am,
may my lonliness... be their pain.

** reposted from novice, only change was "leather bound" from "leatherbound"

[tectak]

[='ckeo' pid='91400' dateline='1330607907']
[b]The Still I remember, when the sky slipped
through the haze of my slumber and the cerulean
glass exposed from the mist offered reprieve
from heat ablating my skin.as we get no clue from the title (not a bad thing per se) it may be better to begin with something a little more specifically informative. This is an enormously long sentence to plough through for so few potatoes. Can I tentatively suggest less gratuitously urgent hyperbole. You are young and have plenty of time to get all your flowery imagery out in good measure. NOW, this is not a huge criticism but the next bit is. If you are intent on following your "poetic" instincts please do so BUT remember that mortar is as important as bricks. So.....capitalize to anthropomorphise "still" if you must but this reader suggests:
The stillness I remember: then the sky slipped
through the haze of slumber. The cerulean glass,
disrobed by melting mist, offered reprieve
from the skin ablating heat.
"Ablating" is a pretty strong word for a pretty fierce heat. You can get away with it as an expression of intensity but in imagery it is probably just wrong. My opinion, but only because I know what ablation means specifically.

[/b]Serving salinity I lay there, A leather bound lower case for "a" but this is a worthy stanza. Two "un's" are a bit Boris Johnson about which I could not fail to disagree with you less. Try "loose tethered" and then permit yourself the naughty luxury of a nice comma.
trinket unteathered on unrelenting hardness
of driftwood. I closed my eyes back to the
comfort of my dream, no avail.. endless drifting,a little clichéd but not noticed in the glare of grammatical slips. Try
"comfort of my dream. No avail; just endless drifting
on the ocean lapping my vessel."
It is still a weak end line but it is not my poem

I fear the water reflecting faces, legends of
wise men and mercy staining my bones. I long
for human touch, the glow of a fresh lit hearth
[/b]over ice cream sundaes and doe eyes pining in
vain. I ponder the servitude.Look,there is good stuff here but it is a hotchpotch. This stanza squirts out like lumpy toothpaste. You have fallen in love with your emotions and bugger the reader. Legends of wise men? Not THE wise men? Shouldn't they be in the desert. Oh, not those three...who then? The quality of mercy is not strained....nor stained. I do not get this (statement). Now, about this hearth over an ice cream sundae. Help me,please. Look into my pining doe eyes. It needs tidying up,yes?[b]

I struggled the edge, occasionally relenting
to my weight and sometimes I bled. I could smell
the dried crust over my wounds and the fire from
salt washing it away. A deed that would test A
common man, until only an echo remains.

Here.. buoyant and embryotic I drift, shadows
no longer search above, the animations of their wake
have long subdued. With all hope lost as I am,
may my lonliness... be their pain.

** reposted from novice, only change was "leather bound" from "leatherbound"

[/quote]

More to follow if requested. Exhausted.
Best,
Keep writing.
Tectak

[ckeo]

Thank you !! And my ears feel well boxed.
Seriously tho, I found your critique very helpful and it has advanced my Googling skills tremendously.

as we get no clue from the title (not a bad thing per se) it may be better to begin with something a little more specifically informative. This is an enormously long sentence to plough through for so few potatoes.

Ok.
lets take the last stanza and put it in front...

Here.. buoyant and embryotic I drift, shadows
no longer search above, animations of their wake
have long subdued. All hope lost, as I am.

The Still I remember, when the sky slipped
through the haze of my slumber and the cerulean
glass exposed from the mist offered reprieve
from heat ablating my skin.

Serving salinity I lay there, A leather bound
trinket unteathered on unrelenting hardness
of driftwood. I closed my eyes back to the
comfort of my dream, no avail.. endless drifting,
the ocean lapping my vessel.

I fear the water reflecting faces, legends of
wise men and mercy staining my bones. I long
for human touch, the glow of a fresh lit hearth
over ice cream sundaes and doe eyes pining in
vain. I ponder the servitude.

I struggled the edge, occasionally relenting
to my weight and sometimes I bled. I could smell
the dried crust over my wounds and the fire from
salt washing it away. A deed that would test A
common man, until only an echo remains.


** So now we open with a person drifting dead in the water below
the surface where the search boats above could not see him,
then he goes into the narrative. (of course some rewording is necessary), but with that aside, this would be a mental image powerful enough for me to want to continue reading.

Hows those potatoes ?
Does mother still cut them in bite sized pieces for you ?

[tectak]

Thank you !! And my ears feel well boxed.
Seriously tho, I found your critique very helpful and it has advanced my Googling skills tremendously.

as we get no clue from the title (not a bad thing per se) it may be better to begin with something a little more specifically informative. This is an enormously long sentence to plough through for so few potatoes.

Ok.
lets take the last stanza and put it in front...

Here.. buoyant and embryotic I drift, shadows
no longer search above, animations of their wake
have long subdued. All hope lost, as I am.

The Still I remember, when the sky slipped
through the haze of my slumber and the cerulean
glass exposed from the mist offered reprieve
from heat ablating my skin.

Serving salinity I lay there, A leather bound
trinket unteathered on unrelenting hardness
of driftwood. I closed my eyes back to the
comfort of my dream, no avail.. endless drifting,
the ocean lapping my vessel.

I fear the water reflecting faces, legends of
wise men and mercy staining my bones. I long
for human touch, the glow of a fresh lit hearth
over ice cream sundaes and doe eyes pining in
vain. I ponder the servitude.

I struggled the edge, occasionally relenting
to my weight and sometimes I bled. I could smell
the dried crust over my wounds and the fire from
salt washing it away. A deed that would test A
common man, until only an echo remains.


** So now we open with a person drifting dead in the water below so not buoyant then?
the surface where the search boats above could not see him,
then he goes into the narrative. (of course some rewording is necessary), but with that aside, this would be a mental image powerful enough for me to want to continue reading.writing.Yes

Hows those potatoes ?
Does mother still cut them in bite sized pieces for you ?

I'm on mash these days!

[Erthona]

Ckeo,

Sorry, but I don't have much in the way of positive to say about this. There are just too many problems as far as I'm concerned. So read what follows at your own peril.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You know, if you would clue the reader that these are the thoughts of a dead man floating face down in water at the very start, and make that clear then you could go forward with whatever you wanted, I mean, what do we know of a dead man. Personally I prefer that approach better than having to spend my time trying to figure what is going on. Plus I have no idea what such phrases mean as "I struggled the edge".

This is ambiguous at best:

"I fear the water reflecting faces" You fear faces that reflect water? -or-
You fear the water, that it will reflect faces? -or- You fear water's ability to reflect faces?

"Serving salinity I lay there" -----"Serving salinity I lay here" As this is in present tense, "here" works better than "there", as to say there one has to be in the narr. form, which when talking about self usually refers to past events.

----------------------------------------------
There is too much obvious thesaurus thumbing here. Using different words is great, but they have to be consistent with the piece.

Such as "animations of their wake
have long subdued".

Why not simply motion? It is more in keeping with water anyway. Plus you need an article, "the motion".
Subsided is more appropriate than subsided.

So... The motion of their wake has long subsided."
--------------------------------------------------------
To me there is just to much beluga to wade through to extract much in the way of meaning. Plus why should I care what a dead man is thinking? This device is sometimes used in prose, with the narrator already dead, and starting at that point and going backwards to tell the story. To me it is a dubious device in prose, but generally in poetry, one does not have the space to make something like that work. So outside of just deciding to tell what a dead man feels, I'm not sure what the point is. Aside from being pure conjecture, there is nothing compelling or insightful in the telling. Alive or dead, there has to be some reason for the reader to connect to the character.

There are also other difficulties with the dead doing things they can't normally do, like opening their eyes. Instead of reading the poem, I become focused on that question.

Dale

[ckeo]

ok, I just plain simply give up.

[Todd]

Don't give up Craig. It's likely that you're just seeing too much to deal with at once. I have had ideas that took me years to develop the skills to bring out fully. Poetry is something that takes time. The Serious Forum assumes that you've worked a lot of issues with your writing, a lot of failed attempts. It's not that people are less than honest in the other forums they just try to focus on the big things they see.

I worked on one poem for 15 years. I remember getting some "less is more advice". It wasn't all that the piece needed but it eventually led me there. Your poem can be developed just treat it like a work in progress, and try not to be discouraged.

[Philatone]

hey ck!
wanted to provide some suggestions I hope would be helpful. I would encourage you not to give up! The work you put into this piece will come back to help you with other pieces I feel, but that is your decision.
I haven't read the other critiques, so let's begin!

One thing to think about is the title; it comes off as being pretty dramatic, which isn't a bad thing, almost has a romantic touch, but I'm not convinced it covers what you're going for.

The Still I remember, when the sky slipped ....interesting idea, the sky "slipping", but I'm not 100% sure how I'm supposed to take the meaning
through the haze of my slumber and the cerulean ...how about cutting the "my" and "the"?
glass exposed from the mist offered reprieve
from heat ablating my skin. ...there is a lot squeezed into the stanza. I felt as though some ideas could be trimmed a bit to make things clearer. if you prefer the words, I think adding a comma or two wouldn't hurt

Serving salinity I lay there, A leather bound ...I would make the A lowercase. "Serving salinity" felt a bit vague to me
trinket unteathered on unrelenting hardness ...how much do you need "unrelenting"? is "unteathered" spelled right? might just be me
of driftwood. I closed my eyes back to the
comfort of my dream, no avail.. endless drifting, ...how about reforming the line to: "comfort of my dream, endlessly drifting" or even just "drifting"
the ocean lapping my vessel.

I fear the water reflecting faces, legends of...I like this idea
wise men and mercy staining my bones. I long ...didn't understand the "mercy"
for human touch, the glow of a fresh lit hearth
over ice cream sundaes and doe eyes pining in...I wanted a stronger connection between "ice cream sundaes" and "doe eyes"; I think replacing "ice cream" with something of a more woodsy, natural feel would be easier and more conducive to what you're going for
vain. I ponder the servitude....this line did little for me; what servitude exactly?

I struggled the edge, occasionally relenting
to my weight and sometimes I bled. I could smell...I had trouble picturing this. do you mean "straddled" instead of "struggled"? again, could just be on my end.
the dried crust over my wounds and the fire from
salt washing it away. A deed that would test A ...I like the image of fire melding with water. after "away", I considered removing the rest
common man, until only an echo remains.

Here.. buoyant and embryotic I drift, shadows
no longer search above, the animations of their wake
have long subdued. With all hope lost as I am,
may my lonliness... be their pain. ...this stanza didn't contribute much for me to the piece. I've already gotten your sense of drifting as well as loneliness and despair. I think you can find a stronger punch

** reposted from novice, only change was "leather bound" from "leatherbound"

i found sparks scattered in here, but they were really covered up with puzzling word choices and descriptions. I think scissors would be your best friend here to begin with; see if you can get rid of anything unnecessary, and that will make improving other elements stronger. I'm not convinced it's worth abandoning, even if you may disagree; I think it could provide a nice base to improve from.

take as you will

[tectak]

ok, I just plain simply give up.

You had better not give up after all the effort put in by the critics. Serious now. Giving up is only a temporary holding position. If you really want to enjoy your own poetic experience then just stop and take measure. What you put up on the board was fair game and was accordingly shot down. You appear to understand the reasons for this injurous attetmpt and will have learned a hell of a lot more than if you had suffered from dangerously encouraging praise.
No one who criticises other's efforts on sites like this have any claim to perfection. It follows that this writer has no such claim either. What you do is take the bits from the critics which you can agree with and bugger the rest.
That way, it is still your poetry. If you disagree completely with everything the critics say, then bugger you Just go home happy but remember that sometimes you will bleed.
Best,
Tectak

[ckeo]

ok, I just plain simply give up.

You had better not give up after all the effort put in by the critics. Serious now. Giving up is only a temporary holding position. If you really want to enjoy your own poetic experience then just stop and take measure. What you put up on the board was fair game and was accordingly shot down. You appear to understand the reasons for this injurous attetmpt and will have learned a hell of a lot more than if you had suffered from dangerously encouraging praise.
No one who criticises other's efforts on sites like this have any claim to perfection. It follows that this writer has no such claim either. What you do is take the bits from the critics which you can agree with and bugger the rest.
That way, it is still your poetry. If you disagree completely with everything the critics say, then bugger you Just go home happy but remember that sometimes you will bleed.
Best,
Tectak

Well, I have you off lost in a desert some place with "The three wise men" thinking you are Jesus.. and another resurrecting the dead, I realize the piece was vague and somewhat abstract... but no more so than when I read most of the poetry written by others here without having a damn clue what you are all writing about. So this leaves me scratching my head, I see no direction other than just abandoning poetry and writing because the more I do it, the more futile the effort becomes.

[Leanne]

Craig, I've neglected critique in recent times because I've been ridiculously busy and not in the right head space to contemplate it, but I feel compelled to jump in here because I see a small disaster that was not intended to happen...

First things first: you must not abandon all efforts here. There are some excellent concepts, and all the criticism has been aimed (so far as I can see) at helping you bring those concepts out without the slight confusion of the extra adjectives and prepositions all over the place. It may help to think of your poem as a sculpture with a few wayward lumps of clay that need to be knocked off. Tectak very rightly points out that no critic here claims to be coming from a holier-than-thou perspective, they are merely offering their views and sharing their often-quite-considerable knowledge with you, and all of the rest of us who are watching the thread progress. All is offered freely, with no expectation that you will take up all the suggestions, but with a fervent hope that by putting a poem in serious critique you intend to seriously consider its direction.

For myself, I am fascinated with the ideas I can see at the core of this poem but as everyone else has pointed out, there are things to be trimmed away to bring those ideas to the fore and almost every suggestion has been a good one. Some are conflicting, but it's up to you as the writer to choose between those... taking suggestions does not in any way diminish you as the poet. Rather, it is you benefiting from the experience of others that might take you decades to glean on your own.

[billy]

ok, I just plain simply give up.

why on earth would you give up?
you say you read poetry here that feels the same as this. you say;

I realize the piece was vague and somewhat abstract... but no more so than when I read most of the poetry written by others here without having a damn clue what you are all writing about

see you can give feedback. if thats what you see in some of the poetry here, say so in critique or feedback with the reason why. writing feedback will give you more insight into your own poetry. you placed your poem here and got some good feedback, though it seemed harsh it wasn't really...apart from dale thinking writing as corpse mundane (a valid point)
most of the stuff mentioned could be done in a fairly quick edit.

it isn't about us giving feedback really, it's about you seeing if there's anything you get that's worth using. (i think tecktak said something similar)

so no you can't leave, you can stay and show the next person who feels gutted like a fish that it's really only a minor abrasion you suffered.

[Erthona]

"but no more so than when I read most of the poetry written by others here without having a damn clue what you are all writing about."

My question would be, if that is what you thought, why would you emulate it? Poetry is not meant to be written in a vague and obscure way, simply for the sake of being vague and obscure. Sometimes poetry appears that way because of the difficulty of the concept being dealt with, and the lack in the writer of the skills necessary to make those concepts clear. I know one of the pieces to which you refer, and it was probably an error to give it a pass as we did. I thought about critiquing it further, but the author was so aggressive in defending it, I didn't see the point. So even when we appear to give something a pass, though it makes no sense at all, it may simply be a case of seeing no point in doing so. So it is like, "OK, whatever".

Also, please feel free to point out anytime I write something that appears pointless or senseless. I can only speak for myself, but I am not here to pretend to depth through being obscure. If what I write is not clear, then I have failed, and that is on me, not the reader.

Dale

[billy]

if it was my poem feel free to mention it or go back and rip it. (not that i think it were mine )

you make a good point. more than one actually and i second them.
we all need to be less sensitive when accepting feedback, or maybe more sensitive as to why we're getting it.
tossing the towel in is futile, better to use it for wiping the sweat away after an edit or two. i think t's oaky to roll with what's being posted in this thread because of the op's choice to give up.

maybe someone will read it and see that giving up should never be option because of harsh feedback, be it right or wrong. if anything it should be the reason to continue.

i seriously hope craig doesn't leave. i hope no one leaves

[Todd]

"but no more so than when I read most of the poetry written by others here without having a damn clue what you are all writing about."

My question would be, if that is what you thought, why would you emulate it? Poetry is not meant to be written in a vague and obscure way, simply for the sake of being vague and obscure. Sometimes poetry appears that way because of the difficulty of the concept being dealt with, and the lack in the writer of the skills necessary to make those concepts clear. I know one of the pieces to which you refer, and it was probably an error to give it a pass as we did. I thought about critiquing it further, but the author was so aggressive in defending it, I didn't see the point. So even when we appear to give something a pass, though it makes no sense at all, it may simply be a case of seeing no point in doing so. So it is like, "OK, whatever".

Also, please feel free to point out anytime I write something that appears pointless or senseless. I can only speak for myself, but I am not here to pretend to depth through being obscure. If what I write is not clear, then I have failed, and that is on me, not the reader.

Dale

Agree Dale. A lot of good points.

Sometimes things aren't clear because the reader doesn't get what you're doing most of the time the execution has failed. I do think most people do try to workshop their poems which means no matter how far along they might be they are usually trying new things (otherwise it's boring). That implies risk. It's better to commit to producing good work and realizing that a lot of what we do is false starts.

I know that's a hard thing for the ego, but it's healthy (IMO)

[billy]

it's the norm for me, which reminds me, next week i'll be doing edits for most of the week.
what was it bruce lee said. be the water