My Wheelchair

[SirBrendan]

My Wheelchair

Silver frying pan
Shivering, portable to purpose
Purified and bleached
sacred, adept to the rite

Electric melting pain
Elated, the water boils
Sustenance comfortably blanched
Cooked, the food is ate

Please don't burn

Circular dearest wheel
Contraption, portable to purpose
Spinning along its rims
Bound, hog-tied and spoked

Immaculate mechanised steel
Ingenious, the turnstyle toils
Motion comfortably prism'd
directed, the point awoke

Please just turn

---

This is my first post. I'm not classically educated in poetry whatsoever as I dropped out of highschool and only have a couple years of university under my belt. Point is, I know my understanding of metre and such isn't up to far with some of the writers here, so be as constructive as possible please. Thank you very much to anyone who takes the time to read this and I hope you enjoy


My Wheelchair 2.0 (An attempt to make it feel more)

Silver frying pan
Functional and portable to purpose
Purified and bleached
sacred and adept to the rite

Electric melting pain
Elated, the nerves boil
And with sustenance comfortably blanched
cooked, the food is ate

Just please don't burn

And you, dearest wheel
another contraption, portable to purpose
Spinning along its rims
Bound, hog-tied and spoked

An Immaculate mechanised steel
Ingenious, the way the turnstyle toils
Motion comfortably prism'd
and directed-- the point is choked

Please just turn

My wheelchair 3.0

Silver frying pan
Functional and portable to purpose
Purified and bleached
the ingredient list expertly beaten

Electric melting pain
Elated, the nerves boil
And with sustenance comfortably blanched
the unleavened loaf is eaten

Just please don't burn

And you, dearest wheel
another contraption, portable to purpose
Spinning along its rims
Bound, hog-tied and spoked

An Immaculate mechanised steel
Ingenious, the way the turnstyle toils
Motion comfortably prism'd
and directed-- the point is choked

Please just turn

P.S There was a point I was about to enter "the meat is beaten"...so after giggling for a minute I realised this poem is dead to me. Thank you anyways for the welcome, and we'll see if something better comes out tomorrow

[Todd]

Hi, welcome to the site! I've read this a few times, and this is one of the tougher kind to critique. Not meaning to sound negative, but here's my issue with the poem: It doesn't move me in any way. I see that you're comparing a circular surface to another circular surface (pan to wheel). I also see that there are a lot of adjectives and other modifiers scattered throughout that tell me something about these items. Let's take just one, sacred. If you've ever read the opening of Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis there's an introductory scene where you see the title character putting on his clothes down to a pin for his lapel like he's a priest donning vestments. I think there needs to be less modifier more demonstration through action in this poem. I also would like you to ask yourself, what do you want the reader know, feel, or come away with as a result of reading? Ask yourself if your poem does that. For me, it didn't do anything. That said, there's nothing to say it wouldn't move me after an edit.

Best,

Todd

My Wheelchair

Silver frying pan
Shivering, portable to purpose
Purified and bleached
sacred, adept to the rite

Electric melting pain
Elated, the water boils
Sustenance comfortably blanched
Cooked, the food is ate

Please don't burn

Circular dearest wheel
Contraption, portable to purpose
Spinning along its rims
Bound, hog-tied and spoked

Immaculate mechanised steel
Ingenious, the turnstyle toils
Motion comfortably prism'd
directed, the point awoke

Please just turn

---

This is my first post. I'm not classically educated in poetry whatsoever as I dropped out of highschool and only have a couple years of university under my belt. Point is, I know my understanding of metre and such isn't up to far with some of the writers here, so be as constructive as possible please. Thank you very much to anyone who takes the time to read this and I hope you enjoy

[SirBrendan]

Damn, well a lack of feeling was certainly not what I was goin' for. Actually the poem was written from a very personal and painful part, as it's about my wheelchair.
Ha, I was trying for the comparison to a bit more than just that they're both circular.
I wanted it to be seen that they're both tools with clear-cut functions that have all of this subtext we put on them
The impression I was trying to give was that they're callous and grey and I wanted the words to match.
Only problem I'm now realising is that if you deliberately use cold and neutral language, the poem comes off as cold and neutral
So maybe if I personalise it a bit more and bring the phrasing down

"Silver frying pan
Functional and portable to purpose
Purified and bleached
sacred and adept to the rite

Electric melting pain
Elated, the nerves boil
Sustenance comfortably blanched
and cooked, the food is ate

Just please don't burn

And you, dearest wheel
another contraption, portable to purpose
Spinning along its rims
Bound, hog-tied and spoked

An Immaculate mechanised steel
Ingenious, the way the turnstyle toils
Motion comfortably prism'd
and directed-- the point is choked

Please just turn"

I think the line structure suffers but hopefully the poem is better for the tweaks. Let me know what you think of the revision and if it brought any heart to the poem. Thanks by the way for review

[billy]

hi sir

the title is sort of saying,

the poem is about a wheel chair,

my problem then becomes, do i want to read a poem about a wheelchair,
i've just left a bit of crit because i realised, it feels more like a list. or perhaps a manual. the last line reminds me of a joke about a brain damaged boxer and a shopping trolley as to what the difference was . the punch line was; the shopping trolley has a mind of its own. so the last line i like it strikes me as amusing and even funny. the execution need to be more than a manual.
good effort though.
i also liked the line

circular dearest wheel. btw i can picture the wheelie person talking to their wheels.

My Wheelchair

Silver frying pan i think[b] this tries to work on more than one level; it's round, or if you're in it you're fried. but i'm not sure is succeeds.
Shivering, portable to purpose what does portable to purpose? it feels forced, do you mean [portable]
Purified and bleached
sacred, adept to the rite

Electric melting pain
Elated, the water boils
Sustenance comfortably blanched
Cooked, the food is ate

Please don't burn

Circular dearest wheel
Contraption, portable to purpose
Spinning along its rims
Bound, hog-tied and spoked

Immaculate mechanised steel
Ingenious, the turnstyle toils
Motion comfortably prism'd
directed, the point awoke

Please just turn
[/b]
---

This is my first post. I'm not classically educated in poetry whatsoever as I dropped out of highschool and only have a couple years of university under my belt. Point is, I know my understanding of metre and such isn't up to far with some of the writers here, so be as constructive as possible please. Thank you very much to anyone who takes the time to read this and I hope you enjoy


My Wheelchair 2.0 (An attempt to make it feel more)

Silver frying pan
Functional and portable to purpose
Purified and bleached
sacred and adept to the rite

Electric melting pain
Elated, the nerves boil
And with sustenance comfortably blanched
cooked, the food is ate

Just please don't burn

And you, dearest wheel
another contraption, portable to purpose
Spinning along its rims
Bound, hog-tied and spoked

An Immaculate mechanised steel
Ingenious, the way the turnstyle toils
Motion comfortably prism'd
and directed-- the point is choked

Please just turn

[Todd]

Still nothing. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be contrary, but I'm not connecting with this one.

It's possible I'm not your reader.

[Saphi Topz]

Electric melting pain
Elated, the nerves boil
And with sustenance comfortably blanched
cooked, the food is ate

In this stanza you could perhaps change ate to eaten

[SirBrendan]

Hmm, ya, we'll try again tomorrow with another poem altogether. I like the tip to change it from ate to eaten, just because that line seems a bit awkward. Thanks for the warm welcome and hopefully this'll just be the chalked off as an awkward starting step.

A new last edit is now placed in, and hopefully it'll make it at least stronger than it first entered.

[jdeirmend]

Hi SirBrendan,

I think there is a lot of potential here. My suggestion: each line reads like a fragment of a complete thought. Why not expand on each, and make some proper images? Here are some possibilities to explore.

My Wheelchair

The thing is round, like a silver frying pan
Shivering, portable to purpose, a veritable . . . (insert descriptor)
Purified and bleached, like a virgin linen sheet
sacred, adept to the rite of motion, which defines all animate beings

[ellajam]

Hi, Brendan, your frying pan and wheelchair have been rolling around together in my brain for some time now; I would write a poem about them if they weren't yours.

I see great potential here, the emotions each hold, how each can sustain us, what life would be like with or without each one.

I hope when you get a few skills under your belt you will revisit this, through this poem or another. I wouldn't want to see this unique combo trashed.

Now take your pan and chair and get out of my head, I need that space for where I parked the car.