07-06-2016, 06:08 AM
(06-27-2016, 07:04 PM)RiverNotch Wrote:Hey RiverNotch, I appreciate all the comments and feedback. I'd already set this one down for a bit (probably 3-6 months to acquire some distance), so I will add your comments to the file I'm working from and readdress them then. Thank you again for the time you spent.(06-22-2016, 07:30 AM)Todd Wrote: Revision 1.2
I watch you sleeping,
nestled in the depression I avoided this poem like the plague once I got to this line, not because I knew it would be bad, but because I knew this would be emotional, and as I was reading this, I was riding a high I'd rather kept going. And I must say, there's a feeling of the cliched in these first two lines, but still, effective.
of the bed that my body left
huddling for a warmth I no longer feel. Construction of the sentence quite weird here. Who is nestled -- "my body left" says it's the watched, but then "huddling for a warmth I no longer feel" says it's the watcher. Here's my preferred: "I watch you sleeping, / nestled in the depression / of the bed that my body left / as it huddled for a warmth I did not feel."
Has this space between us always been If huddling is converted to past tense, possibly a better change would be "this" to "the", but that would be less close, wouldn't it? "I watch you sleeping, /[the two of us[?]] nestled in the depression / in the bed that my body leaves / as it huddles for a warmth I do not feel."?
a part of me? The moon leachesĀ
light from my skin like smoke
rising from a fire; I settle I like 'and'. Adds fluidity, plus echoes L14.
into the darkness of our small room.
The sallow light rests on you,
holds you motionless,
immutable in amber. Possible weirdness: breaking off the parallelism makes the light itself immutable in amber. But meh, that's a silly nit.
The slats of the blinds rattle
in the night breeze, and their shadows
cover you in bars. I feel the hair
on my arms bristle at the captivity. I prefer "the hairs of my arm", as it makes the line break more fluid.
The title also somewhat accentuates that "so-universal-it-might-be-cliched" feeling I got with those first two lines, which is why I'd rather see it changed, though I have no suggestions. Otherwise, really good, in the quietest, really loveliest, way --- reminds me a lot of winter, of moonlight, of smoky nights and Bjork's Vespertine, but ultimately much older, or perhaps simply more detached --- it's almost like something from Louise Gluck's Descending Figure, only almost in that it feels to me particularly masculine.
Much Appreciated,
Todd
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
