Just Another Haze

[tectak]

I originally constructed this a year ago... Gave it a quick tidy before posting it here. I'd like to refine this into something good. I'm fond of this. I think it marked my first real step into poetry.

I can't decide how to format it! Three big stanza or six small?

It is because this is worthy that I am going to try a line by line. I do, however, believe that the subject matter is past its sell by date.......but who looks at sell by dates.
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v.2

No memory of how it got to this,personalise this to make it a sentence. " I don't know how it got to this;"
everything is in sepia, rewind,"everything in sepia, rewinding,like an old movie". In this blisss, the smoke becomes smog in my mind" A bit cliched but so is the whole subject. I don't think this matters in relating life experiences as a cliche is only irksome if everyone uses it because everyone else does.
like an old photograph, this is bliss,
the smoke becomes smog of the mind.

Somewhere distant a guitar thrums low,"Somewhere a guitar strums a distant, low" See next comment for why
disjointed melody, harmony broken,By saying the guitar "thrums"you have committed to a musical description and so we are not talking about JUST the thrumming now that you bring in melody and harmony...we have whole ensemble somewhere. That's fine but you need to "connect" L2 with L1 to be able to move in to this stanza.Easiest way is to include the guitar by the simple insertion of "a" after thrums. Semi-colon after melody and comma after low.
sound is bleak and drums beat slow,To keep in mood,"the sound is bleak(?),the drum beats slow."
no singing, the words are unspoken.

Shaking, waking for another hit,
airless, yet each breath feels so cold,
soft around the edges, we submit,
dust lies upon our time untold.Noticeably contrived rhymes here. Could be easily remedied by giving a little respect to the meaning of the words used. Submit is wrong meaning and is only there to rhyme with hit. It is even used pointedly, as a filler. Untold is wrong. Same reason but with cold.Try "Thick dust won't
let our time unfold" or somesuch.
Crawling into this broken paradise,
we wallow in our forsaken rapture,a contadictory and nonsensical line. You cannot wallow in it....you have forsaken it
for this secret delight, pay dire price,
old life that we can never recapture.why is it secret, why is it a delight (crawling,broken? Where's the delight?Dire is wrong word

Into the gutter, nothing but litter,
there is a sick glamour to my mess,
I'm already dead so I'm not bitter,
no love to mourn, no sin to confess.not the best stanza but it could be. Mess is to light a word to describe the situation, in my experience. It is a shit-hole situation. Say so. A mess just needs a mother and a mop to put right

The knight of brown industrial waste,
now ready to chase the dragon again,
but truthfully it's just me being chased,
here in this wonderfully filthy den.this last line is so weak that I cannot believe you gave in to the challenge of a rhyme with "again" so easily! It is not even a "good" rhyme

The subject is, as I said, tired. To get away with such heady, opinionated writing you need to bring in something new. You almost did but then gave up on yourself. I liked the attempt to bring real time thinking to a recalled situation (or situations)but you failed to go with your obvious experiences and wrote to ryhme rather than to reason. Could I respectfully suggest that you leave your head behind and write this again with heart. Forget about stanzas an permutations thereof and leave the rhme thing alone,too. Free-verse or prose will give you the freedom of expression you need.
As always, only listen to the critics you agree with......I'm outa here
Best,
Tectak

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v.1 pre-edit

No memory of how it got to this,
everything is in sepia, rewind,
like an old photograph, this is bliss,
the smoke becomes the smog of mind.

Somewhere distant guitar thrums low,
disjointed melody, harmony broken,
sound is bleak and drums beat slow,
no singing, the words are unspoken.

Shaking, waking, for another hit,
airless yet the air feels so cold,
soft around the edges, we submit,
dust lies upon our time untold.

Crawling into this broken paradise,
we wallow in our forsaken rapture,
for this secret delight, pay dire price,
a life that we can never recapture.

The knight of brown industrial waste,
now ready to chase the dragon again,
but truthfully it's just me being chased,
here in this filthy wonderful den.

Into the gutter, nothing but litter,
there is a sick glamour to my mess,
I'm already dead so I'm not bitter,
no love to mourn, no sin to confess.