The Dead

[Lizzie]

Hello River! I feel like your last three poems or so (at least the ones that I've commented on) have so much beauty, but it's inaccessible.

An observation (not praise or criticism): it seems like the search for greatness and the supernatural has been seen in your work lately, and in this one in particular. Greek gods, Biblical gods, ideal women...it shows me something of the speaker's longing for something beyond, out of reach. And it feels so vague and out of reach for me too.  I felt like your strongest pieces focused on what was in front of you, like McKinley Road. What I do like about it is that I get a sense of something of the speaker in that reaching and searching which is very quintessentially human, but that's subtext and should be subservient to a strong primary text.

A few thoughts below.

The Dead


The dead feast on my flesh,
and I have bared it for them. -- I like a good bit of grump in my poetry; I'm a little maudlin myself, but it's bordering on 'woe is me.'

Once it was spring. Once, swings and whispers
brought enjoyment. But the cellar -- show enjoyment, don't state it! Falls flat.
opened, the notepad widened, and some ill-fated
woman in an ancient Greek dress
creeped in. Murderess! The basket fell, -- women are always to blame, eh?
a pomegranate rolled, and the text
was filled with themes -- Adam and Eve is one theme....what are the others? Themes is a weak word.
Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve.

(Always with the em dashes!
And that love of punctuation....) -- and yet you're not using em dashes -- signals to me a longing to escape strictures. Maybe push that a little bit and play with other ways to break the rules.

Writing should not be a toil. Days pass
and he's made nothing. He begins to fear
the red-haired woman with a Fury's eyes -- is this the same red haired woman from 'Making of a Straight Man?' You wouldn't be recycling images would you....? That's ok, just make me love and hate her, though. If she's going to be a recurring character...
would scold him for his lateness. Like a poem,
she should ask: "What kept you? What kept you?"
and, in bitter prose, he should deflate
to simple truth: "My Virtue failed." -- this is the best stanza because the speaker becomes human and approachable. This is where connection to the reader is possible.

So he changes his mind. In the beginning,
God made the heavens and the earth: as his spirit -- I dig the Biblical reference because this is a beautiful passage.
hovered over the face of the waters, he said,
"Let there be light", and there was light --
and all writing came from that great light
like scars, brands on experience. -- writing is a scar? Why would the speaker mourn that something that scars the universe is lost? I think you're referencing 'in the beginning was the Word' and I dig, but the word needs to become FLESH, eh? Bring the imagery down to earth.

(Always with the em dashes!
And that love of punctuation....) -- I love me the em dashes. Hater.

He scatters lamps across the ocean, in the hope -- lamps across the ocean is lovely. Good tie in with the light from preceding stanzas.
that she should follow. Should she follow?
Should she cross into his foggy land
and sacrifice her spirit world for flesh?
dye her hair, powder her skin, and wear
nails for bracelets, strips of leather
for a shirt? But all his wood is burned!
his hill has melted to a muddy flood,
his tomb, collapsed to reveal
flesh and bone and cloth consuming scarabs. -- Huh??? I love scarab beetles, and I dig the slightly kinky wardrobe you've chosen for her, but these details are personal to the point of being non-transferable to your audience (unless your audience is yourself....)

Moments pass. All his decisions, indecisions --
he considers them experiments. Ever the optimist,
he predicts that in another life....

(What a splendid skill! not to spill
a single drop of blood, not to evoke
the memory of speech, of prophecy.) Huh???