12-06-2013, 10:00 AM
Danger Men at Work
The title is about the doctor, surgeon, ambulance driver? Or about the cause if death? Or both? The read is unclear . . .
I ran in slow motion past
I'd put parentheticals around "in slow motion" to force a slower reading.
the empty ambulance
Doesn't seem superfluous to me, but perhaps "emptied" would be a better descriptor: it's more narrative and would contrast pleasantly to roomful.
into a room of unanswered prayers
Oh--I thought this was "room full," and was going to suggest "roomful," to make it mysterious if it's one person's prayers or lots of them, and, further, that "unanswered prayers" could be "prayers and their absence"
clinging to the thick burgundy
I read this as a reference to red-carpeted churches and communion. Slightly jarring, but I take it we're at a funeral now?
carpet, bibles, and tissue boxes.
Add a reference to a coffin to seat the reader in the new location? Also, if this is a funeral, capitalize "Bibles."
In the hallway, I could hear
a woman's high pitched laughter.
Her relief blistered my skin.
Hyphenate "high pitched." "Heard" seems superior to "could hear." Her "relief" fits to the doctor's empathy? Blisters make skin sensitive and vulnerable , but there's no pay off. Perhaps the skin bursts or weeps later? Otherwise, "her" paired to "blister" (the thing you get from something hot, like Hell) could relate to religiosity, e.g. "bibles," to suggest a demonic presence. Is that an inversion of a guardian angel idea?
I only wanted to stay
indefinitely in your sterile room,
Seems like purgatory meets hospital? Are we scene-shifting? Also consider "I wanted only to stay". Otherwise, I think your action was leaving, as in, "I only wanted, but did not need or do."
but a doctor arrived to break me
with practiced sympathy.
Perhaps, "break me from/away/loose." And try "with clinical sympathy"? Otw, I could attribute the sympathy to the narrator.
Your shrouded body
hiding a gaping hole
Why "gaping"? Why "hiding"? Why not, "Your shrouded body hides a hole"? Or, maybe better, "Your shroud hides a hole"?
the surgeon made trying
to massage your heart back to life.
Made is weak. Try "the surgeon [some variant of 'opened']. Add a comma to "made". Why not combine the actions as "the surgeon made, to massage"?
I touched soft brown hair streaked with silver
" touched" is weak. Otw great, here. Oh, also, is there an intended ambiguity? It could be either the narrator's (or narrators'?) or the deceased's (or deceaseds'?) hair.
and memorized the love lines around your eyes.
Hyphenate "love lines," for ease of reading. You're contrasting love lines with laugh lines. Cool. But "memorizing" shares the distance attributable to the laughing woman and the empathetic doctor. Is that intentional?
"Goodbye" I said with a hollow chest
Should be, "'Goodbye,' I said" w the comma. Chest links back to boxes? Perhaps not, but it could. But now I think the deceased is speaking . . . Is there a kind if spiritual heart transplant?
no sheets could conceal
Should be "sheet," singular, in the subjunctive.
The concealing forces are manifold, not just linen. The doctor, the prayerful loved ones in the waiting room, the relieved woman.
This line implies an effort to conceal--did the doc and the crying woman teach you to conceal your heart?
Macro--this is a poem about a death. The narrator runs into a hospital and finds herself in a church, remembering the hospital, coping with it. It is also about things being present and absent--prayers, literal and figurative hearts, God, the loved one, and, mainly, comfort. It is not a poem of mourning, and so I disagree that the poem cries. There's no eulogy in it.
Good. It's about the moment you reach down for a heart that's not there anymore.
Keep the deceased away, focus on the decedent, and develop the parallels between the comforts offered--laughter, sympathy, massage, etc.--and the two exposed/shrouded hearts.
The title is about the doctor, surgeon, ambulance driver? Or about the cause if death? Or both? The read is unclear . . .
I ran in slow motion past
I'd put parentheticals around "in slow motion" to force a slower reading.
the empty ambulance
Doesn't seem superfluous to me, but perhaps "emptied" would be a better descriptor: it's more narrative and would contrast pleasantly to roomful.
into a room of unanswered prayers
Oh--I thought this was "room full," and was going to suggest "roomful," to make it mysterious if it's one person's prayers or lots of them, and, further, that "unanswered prayers" could be "prayers and their absence"
clinging to the thick burgundy
I read this as a reference to red-carpeted churches and communion. Slightly jarring, but I take it we're at a funeral now?
carpet, bibles, and tissue boxes.
Add a reference to a coffin to seat the reader in the new location? Also, if this is a funeral, capitalize "Bibles."
In the hallway, I could hear
a woman's high pitched laughter.
Her relief blistered my skin.
Hyphenate "high pitched." "Heard" seems superior to "could hear." Her "relief" fits to the doctor's empathy? Blisters make skin sensitive and vulnerable , but there's no pay off. Perhaps the skin bursts or weeps later? Otherwise, "her" paired to "blister" (the thing you get from something hot, like Hell) could relate to religiosity, e.g. "bibles," to suggest a demonic presence. Is that an inversion of a guardian angel idea?
I only wanted to stay
indefinitely in your sterile room,
Seems like purgatory meets hospital? Are we scene-shifting? Also consider "I wanted only to stay". Otherwise, I think your action was leaving, as in, "I only wanted, but did not need or do."
but a doctor arrived to break me
with practiced sympathy.
Perhaps, "break me from/away/loose." And try "with clinical sympathy"? Otw, I could attribute the sympathy to the narrator.
Your shrouded body
hiding a gaping hole
Why "gaping"? Why "hiding"? Why not, "Your shrouded body hides a hole"? Or, maybe better, "Your shroud hides a hole"?
the surgeon made trying
to massage your heart back to life.
Made is weak. Try "the surgeon [some variant of 'opened']. Add a comma to "made". Why not combine the actions as "the surgeon made, to massage"?
I touched soft brown hair streaked with silver
" touched" is weak. Otw great, here. Oh, also, is there an intended ambiguity? It could be either the narrator's (or narrators'?) or the deceased's (or deceaseds'?) hair.
and memorized the love lines around your eyes.
Hyphenate "love lines," for ease of reading. You're contrasting love lines with laugh lines. Cool. But "memorizing" shares the distance attributable to the laughing woman and the empathetic doctor. Is that intentional?
"Goodbye" I said with a hollow chest
Should be, "'Goodbye,' I said" w the comma. Chest links back to boxes? Perhaps not, but it could. But now I think the deceased is speaking . . . Is there a kind if spiritual heart transplant?
no sheets could conceal
Should be "sheet," singular, in the subjunctive.
The concealing forces are manifold, not just linen. The doctor, the prayerful loved ones in the waiting room, the relieved woman.
This line implies an effort to conceal--did the doc and the crying woman teach you to conceal your heart?
Macro--this is a poem about a death. The narrator runs into a hospital and finds herself in a church, remembering the hospital, coping with it. It is also about things being present and absent--prayers, literal and figurative hearts, God, the loved one, and, mainly, comfort. It is not a poem of mourning, and so I disagree that the poem cries. There's no eulogy in it.
Good. It's about the moment you reach down for a heart that's not there anymore.
Keep the deceased away, focus on the decedent, and develop the parallels between the comforts offered--laughter, sympathy, massage, etc.--and the two exposed/shrouded hearts.