08-09-2024, 10:20 PM
Hi James,
a post-apocalypse piece? Okay then ...
Had you considered setting it in the present tense?
S1. You rather lost me with ûrClouds, trying a bit too hard (it seemed to me.) And how can clouds be primitive? I had been assuming mushroom clouds but ...
Don't know what 'defeated by the sun' means.
S2. This seems a more natural opening, though I'm not sure what the colour of the grains means (other than transformed in a nuclear blast) - and compared to the reduction from mountain to grain doesn't seem that dramatic. Perhaps some better adjectives
S3. I don't think you need this (at least not the first five-seven lines of it) You have 'concrete cliff' in the next verse which suggests a city anyway.
S4. Struggling with 'animal home' - it feels a bit flat.
Do you mean 'arced' rather than 'ached'?
S5. Wondered if, in the penultimate line you might change 'its eyes' to 'my eyes'?
Also, how can 'ribs' be 'hirsuite'? (Rather at odds with 'skin tattooed' isn't it? And how does one clasp a ring against one's ribs?)
The Animal.
The Animal stirs
and sieves. Cupping
a thousand grains
in its animal hand
grains that once were mountains,
now the colour of shellac,
rag, and bone
The Animal sits
looks seawards
at the smears
of grey and mauve
that mass at the horizon
like exhausted armies
defeated by the sun
The Animal rises
walks the path its made
its own, stares at the concrete cliff
And nods a greeting to itself,
A flock of splinters flushed
by its passing flies up, shattering
in a cry of russet and gold
The Animal. Closed and barred
Against the glow lies down
and stretches. its skin,
still tattooed by the last embers
of the light. Clasping a ring
of copper and gold
tight I close my eyes
against the night.
Best, Knot
.
a post-apocalypse piece? Okay then ...
Had you considered setting it in the present tense?
S1. You rather lost me with ûrClouds, trying a bit too hard (it seemed to me.) And how can clouds be primitive? I had been assuming mushroom clouds but ...
Don't know what 'defeated by the sun' means.
S2. This seems a more natural opening, though I'm not sure what the colour of the grains means (other than transformed in a nuclear blast) - and compared to the reduction from mountain to grain doesn't seem that dramatic. Perhaps some better adjectives
S3. I don't think you need this (at least not the first five-seven lines of it) You have 'concrete cliff' in the next verse which suggests a city anyway.
S4. Struggling with 'animal home' - it feels a bit flat.
Do you mean 'arced' rather than 'ached'?
S5. Wondered if, in the penultimate line you might change 'its eyes' to 'my eyes'?
Also, how can 'ribs' be 'hirsuite'? (Rather at odds with 'skin tattooed' isn't it? And how does one clasp a ring against one's ribs?)
The Animal.
The Animal stirs
and sieves. Cupping
a thousand grains
in its animal hand
grains that once were mountains,
now the colour of shellac,
rag, and bone
The Animal sits
looks seawards
at the smears
of grey and mauve
that mass at the horizon
like exhausted armies
defeated by the sun
The Animal rises
walks the path its made
its own, stares at the concrete cliff
And nods a greeting to itself,
A flock of splinters flushed
by its passing flies up, shattering
in a cry of russet and gold
The Animal. Closed and barred
Against the glow lies down
and stretches. its skin,
still tattooed by the last embers
of the light. Clasping a ring
of copper and gold
tight I close my eyes
against the night.
Best, Knot
.