08-09-2015, 07:47 AM
(08-07-2015, 05:53 AM)Todd Wrote:
Hi Todd - I like this updating the language of a folk tale. You've put it under a psychological lens. I can't decide whether the narrator is the brother or the sister. I like that.
My childhood lay behind me
in this trail of torn bread
I could no longer retrace. I don't think this strophe does much for your poem. I think the context is obvious without it, and it sounds very 'telling'.
We always ate enough Nice line break
to remain hungry, our stomachs
waning like the sliver of moon
that sparkled through the branches I'm having trouble seeing a stomach sparkling in branches
of this darkling forest. I think you put darkling in to keep playing with the 'ar' sounds. Don't think you need it.
Even when I saw the food
on her table, I kept gnawing
on the shingle like
a little mouse, little mouse. Not sure why the repetition, doesn't do anything for me.
I still carry the finger bone
I once pressed into her hand I like this part, bone/hand
each night, while licking the plates clean. This image, of pressing while licking, feels a bit strange.
The hunger had crossed the threshold with me, What threshold?
and remained even
as her fat melted in the oven.
We came back older than our parents The reintroduction of the sibling is sudden.
with gems that shone like in the fairy tale
of the girl who had them fall from her mouth
like so many ripe cherries. I'm breaking under the load of similes. What's wrong with a good old-fashioned metaphor? This strophe doesn't really add anything.
I chewed my words until they broke
my teeth, and laid heavy in my stomach powerful
like forest stones. I wonder if you need this line?
I no longer needed a path back
for I never left that cottage. I like the ending here - though I wonder if 'needed' should be 'need'