12-19-2011, 12:57 AM
There are some nice, but disjointed images here. I don't really follow how one leads to the next. Some phrase make no sense at all to me. I get that you are more or less trying to use a snake and the shedding of it's skin as a metaphor for something, but the introduction of such phrases as
"spinning mouths
embroider silk embraces
from the sky of impersonated longing."
you confuse me completely. I have no idea what spinning mouths refers to, for silk to embrace, it would need to be "embroidered", unless you are trying to say that "sky of impersonated longing" is what is being embroidered on the silk.
There is also the mixture of snake and spider images that don't seem to mesh, at least in anyway I can see. To me calling the spider's spinnerets "spinning mouths" seems a major stretch, or to infer it is a metaphor for something for me is beyond obscure.
For me the rest of the poem is pretty much of the same material, which also appears to tightly woven for me to unravel much in the way of meaning. Obviously at the end the "key" to the riddle is presented:
"When pain becomes a broken hunger
who is the lover, and who is the knife?"
But even with that I can still make no sense out of what precedes, outside of this being some form of love making either real or perceived, emotional or physical. Poetic interpretation is generally one of my strong suits, but I will concede that this piece leaves me confounded.
On the technical side, it does have a fairly smooth rhythmic quality when read.
Dale
Oh yes, if Billy is meaning format as being center justified, I would concur that it does the poem no favor, or course that is my opinion of all center justified poems, except concrete poems which can generally not avoid it.
Dale
"spinning mouths
embroider silk embraces
from the sky of impersonated longing."
you confuse me completely. I have no idea what spinning mouths refers to, for silk to embrace, it would need to be "embroidered", unless you are trying to say that "sky of impersonated longing" is what is being embroidered on the silk.
There is also the mixture of snake and spider images that don't seem to mesh, at least in anyway I can see. To me calling the spider's spinnerets "spinning mouths" seems a major stretch, or to infer it is a metaphor for something for me is beyond obscure.
For me the rest of the poem is pretty much of the same material, which also appears to tightly woven for me to unravel much in the way of meaning. Obviously at the end the "key" to the riddle is presented:
"When pain becomes a broken hunger
who is the lover, and who is the knife?"
But even with that I can still make no sense out of what precedes, outside of this being some form of love making either real or perceived, emotional or physical. Poetic interpretation is generally one of my strong suits, but I will concede that this piece leaves me confounded.
On the technical side, it does have a fairly smooth rhythmic quality when read.
Dale
Oh yes, if Billy is meaning format as being center justified, I would concur that it does the poem no favor, or course that is my opinion of all center justified poems, except concrete poems which can generally not avoid it.
Dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.