Building A Nest Much More Complicated

[addy]

hi rowens . I enjoyed the read, but I think the piece could be tightened up. Cut out all the ellipses, for a start, and all the asides that add little. You have lots of strong, original lines; cutting the fat will emphasize your poems strengths and put the focus squarely where it should be, improving cohesiveness.

You cannot remember this:
I don’t expect you to remember. "I don't expect you to" is fine, imo
All the same…
Can you remember the time
We fell in love?— Maybe you could cut this part out? Leave it as "All the same, Does that old song.... (etc, etc)". That's one way to go about it. i'm sure there are others
That old song…
Does it bring anything back with it,
Out of the polyphonic rhizome,
Medium-haunted about you?

Disney Baby, it wasn’t me;
Because I wasn’t the Beast for long.
Only ugly,
Till there was you:
Marian at a breakfast club;
You, Marian of my thievery.

I grew too many brown
And tender shades of grey. I like these lines . i can't articulate why, but i do
…Not as ferocious, maybe,
In my social world, but,
Truly, I have none… 'I have none' of what? I might have missed something in the reading

So give up that stagnant Frog Prince pond;
And come back to the beast that needs you.
I can’t help I’m not as ugly as I used to be,
I can’t help that beauty sadness brings. The switched grammar muddles things a bit here
…But I can help you, Beauty.
—I can give you a name…

Not some general descriptive:
“Beauty is as beauty does…”
No, my cancelled lady,
What’s in a name,
But everything?

I can give you my own name, o.k.? Don't need "OK"
But if I have to bring the ribbons,
Or work out an elaborate shining
Rather than the shining of my eyes;
If I have to sing the same old songs
In a new style, in a newly invented tune,
It’s going to take a while.

There's going to have to be a new sense,
A more than casual presentation,
Than you’re used to, I don't really like these last three lines. It's telly, but I'm not actually sure what it's saying
To digest.
—You’re going to have
To meet me halfway,
At the new equator of your mind,
If this is going to work. Does this line add anything?

You can’t understand fairy tales.
What with the cyber unconscious
Collecting digital taxes,
And your scattered faith in tragedy:
Love is a confusion of cognate pain. The tone started to shift since the previous part, but here the tone shift became a lot more stark. Not sure how this part helps the rest of the piece, to be honest.

“My cycles! My cycles!
My cycles and contradictions, all the same!”
I hear you cry, like a nightingale of old;
But not like the nightingale, don’t you know?
—Don’t leave me at this cerebral impasse:
Christina! How’s that? I call you out!
What do you think of that tune?

You’re not Beatrice.
You’re not Maud Gonne; but you’re no Helen of Troy.
You leave me everywhere.
As I go through the streets of this town,
Hallucinating Christina.
Muttering to myself
With lips closed. I like this part

Remember how you always said, “we’re not a people”?
As far as I’m concerned, I’m still not a people.
I don’t know about you…

It’s been an uphill fight,
And I can see myself fighting all the way
Back down to where I started;
Where you can start again.
Your cycles. Don't think this line strictly adds anything, but that's imo

Thanks for the read