Hands (ver. 5)

[TranquillityBase]

Honestly Tim-
This really seems like a place-holder poem to me- dashed off to keep the juices flowing.  I only say that because I recognize the same tendancy in myself.

Hands

Mechanical marvels   mechanical is accurate, but is it the right word?
stiff tentacles   likewise with stiff and tentacles
full of touch
with nothing in them
but the future.   the last two lines have value, but the preceding lines need to be rethunk, I think

What this poem says to me:
I'm looking at my hands looking for some kind of answer, and my empty hands may just represent an empty future.  Looking at one's hands can also be a type of praying/meditating, and I think you could work that angle into this poem. 

In a short one like this every word counts, and they each must carry their weight. For me, words like 'mechanical' and 'tentacle' need to be replaced with human qualities, because it's hard for me to empathize with those words.

Are your hands cupped, so you're looking at open palms?  Not to be too picky, but hands aren't what really do the touching, fingers do.  But there's nothing about flesh and blood fingers, only 'stiff tentacles'.

I would like to appreciate this poem more, but ya gotta give something to empathize with. Or not.

Just my two cents,
Mark

ps Ya know I love ya, right?

Mark,

Thanks for the detailed critique.  I'll only say that it wasn't dashed off.  I worked on it for more than a week, every day.  It was much longer, and did have a lot more "flesh and blood" in the early stages.  I'll see if I can reconstruct it.  Bad thing about writing on a computer; you lose your previous versions unless you make the extra effort to save each one, which I haven't so far had the patience to do.  But I think from now on I will.

I don't know if you saw the Spoiler version, but that is more what I wanted to write about when I began it.

Tim