11-23-2013, 11:45 PM
(11-23-2013, 10:46 PM)Euan Wrote: I've placed this in Serious for a reason. I want to improveAll in all, a pretty good postmodern war poem. The theme of dead friends and comrades dwindling down to memories and dark thoughts could be explored a little more, with a heavier focus on your (metaphorical) ghost imagery, but it's still well-conveyed. I enjoyed this one. It's heavy and intense. Critique is JMHO. Thank you for the read.
Pieces rain like blood tattered confetti, "Tattered" doesn't really go with a liquid, in my opinion; "blood-spattered" would be clearer.
still remembering their names, their faces.
They're screaming through their exit wounds Excellent image. Punctuation is needed at the end of this line, though.
I place barrel to temple, pull Ditto punctuation. When you have a poem which uses grammatical marks, sentences and sometimes clauses need to be clearly separated, effecting a smooth rhythm. Without that the reader keeps needing to pause and get his bearings.
Only now have they finally ceased
they've reduced to a light chanting "been" should really go before "reduced". Also, again, punctuation needed at the end of this, the previous and following lines, though it's more problematic here.
Watching me, touching me, stripping me
taking my soul, my resolve, drained.
They cannot take my purpose, survival.
Nor can I theirs, akin struggle. Is "akin" needed? The contrast with "survival" would be clearer without it, I think.
Soldiers, all the Enemies I've killed. I normally dislike errant capitals, but here and in the next line they kind of make sense, as they humanise those objective groups of people.
Soldiers, all the Brothers I've lost.
Washed ashore, relinquished from the Sea Again, fine with the capital here, as it personifies nature.
that corralled Souls, eliminated our Conscience. These, however, are extraneous. I love your use of "coralled", by the way. It reminds me of how priests draw verbiage from everyday life to explain spirituality.
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges." - Gene Wolfe