05-09-2018, 08:53 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-09-2018, 08:54 PM by RiverNotch.)
(03-25-2018, 04:02 AM)Richard Wrote: Red River of the NorthA satisfying read. Yer going the right way.
How many do you keep below?
You, who devour women and girls The article I read on this started and ended with dead boys -- this line keeps it sinister, sure, but at the cost of limiting the truth.
like chocolate covered raisins.
Are you satisfied knowing the proper weight
to sink them? I prefer, for sonics, "Are you satisfied to know the proper weight / for sinking them?" That said, I don't really know the weight of what I just ate, not unless I measure it beforehand, so I'm not sure how apt these two lines are.
Did you feel jilted when that one slipped away,
resurfacing, I prefer "Did you feel jilted when that one slipped away / and resurfaced"...
wrapped in a Costco blanket? ...even (though I'm sure there are alternative wordings) at the cost of this detail, since this detail feels like it puts too much focus on that specific person.
You'd probably brag to the oceans if you could:
compare your body counts,
wear ribbons for special numbers,
finish your beers, stumble home. I like this stanza. It palpably links the violence behind the Red River of the North to something wrong with our (your?) culture.
We could discover all your secrets,
but the cost is measured in dollars
on a white page,
justice just another waterlogged body. I'm a little on-the-fence about this stanza, though. Even if this piece is meant (as I presume it is) as a call to Drag the Red, suddenly critiquing some other aspect of our (your?) culture with "the cost is measured in dollars / on a white page", aside from feeling a little incomplete (dollars on a white page?), feels like it moves away from the subtle comprehension of the earlier stanzas, particularly the penultimate one. Certainly money is one of their issues, but there's an issue behind that issue that I think the penultimate stanza better touches upon -- that is, if my reading's right.
But returning to a less contentious detail, "waterlogged body" is a bit of a sonic dud for me, with the term not being vivid enough, and the line ending with an unstressed syllable. Maybe synecdoche (which, at least as based on that article I read, is also not): say, "waterlogged foot"?

