Don't Look (Revised)

[Solstice]

Revision


Don't Look

Cleaning my own clock
I chimed in
hungry scavengers;

From the time
I passed through the canal,
I've clung to every word offered
from this cruel world of pendulums, Pendulums nods to motion of words and their meaning, where staves, in the next line,
trying to ready staves, reveals perhaps a stubbornness.
secure them in place;

Trusting scholars Directed sardonic language towards scholars is something that is hard to do, without a reputation. Kudos.
over instinct & common sense,
my key turned once too often,
twisting out of shape
worn, rusted,
over-wound coils. Throughout the poem, there's very much of self-deprecation, and at the end, it gives the reader a well deserved gasp of air. Also, perhaps twisting out of shape and over-wound are unnecessary repeats.

Weary of wasting each notch
on silly, lying vanities,
wondering if I would ever
find life again,
I turned fate over Turning fate over to the narrator's God. Welcome line of reason here.
to the hands
of my own mercy: 

Sounding the great alarm,
I lifted from my grave clothes
trading velvet cap and bells
for a robe of purest white. This makes for an image of the previously masochistic narrator as a child-like writer. In that most, if not all of the poem is leading up to this, it reminds me of a certain poem by a master, in which there is a distinct character expression of having moved past this, and it takes up generally all of the poem. Self-deprecation works best when the work is of the opposite effect.



Original
Don't Look


I cleaned my own clock
by hanging heavily
to every word
of this world;
trusting scholars,
turning over my life
to the hands of death
as I wasted time selling
my own lying vanities.









sorry, I realized the 1st poem
was a big mistake. I tried
to delete it, but it wouldn't
let me, so, I wrote over it
a completely different poem.

Good read, nibbed. Well done on the revision.