09-26-2014, 05:04 AM
1st edit:
I Know One Thing
Pile the ashes
into a hill.
Burned paper, dry
leaves, unceremoniously.
Flames quiet,
drain colours out
and shrivel what's left.
Pile the ashes,
no pulp, no ink,
just grey.
Hi - the timing in your poem stands out to me - you start in the present and go back to the past, the fire (burned paper). But that fire stanza is in present tense (flames quiet, drain colour) . I want to read 'burnt paper' too.
The second stanza feels clunky - the fragment doesn't really work for me. I do like the 'unceremoniously' there; it seems to contradict what happens. There is a feeling of ceremony to the poem, a solemnity which alerts your reader to the fact that the fire is a metaphor for some human emotion - whether love or loss doesn't matter.
Also I wonder if both 'pile' and 'hill' are needed.
I Know One Thing
Pile the ashes
into a hill.
Burned paper, dry
leaves, unceremoniously.
Flames quiet,
drain colours out
and shrivel what's left.
Pile the ashes,
no pulp, no ink,
just grey.
Hi - the timing in your poem stands out to me - you start in the present and go back to the past, the fire (burned paper). But that fire stanza is in present tense (flames quiet, drain colour) . I want to read 'burnt paper' too.
The second stanza feels clunky - the fragment doesn't really work for me. I do like the 'unceremoniously' there; it seems to contradict what happens. There is a feeling of ceremony to the poem, a solemnity which alerts your reader to the fact that the fire is a metaphor for some human emotion - whether love or loss doesn't matter.
Also I wonder if both 'pile' and 'hill' are needed.