Apathy self-imposed (free verse)

[Mungo man]

Grinning Cheshire faces whisper from above,
their silhouettes pressed into the ceiling.
Je rêve de... Ne rêve pas.
Discordant singing falls from above,
plastering the bed around him with suppression.
No more room to think, always room to fall.

The night falls dark, and still yet you lie.
Surrounded by apathy and slavering faces.
Maws that open only to close,
and open,
and close.
These depressing faces and constant
scenery changes chain his mind
and suffocate the soul.
These cadences sung by a mouth,
grossly fed, to the hosts of hell.

With eyes fixed stoically and sadly on the ceiling,
he takes another hit.

[lucentwavering]

Grinning Cheshire faces whisper from above, -Is it perhaps more concise to omit the grinning? It already seems implied by the Cheshire. 'From' may also be unnecessary
their silhouettes pressed into the ceiling.
Je rêve de... Ne rêve pas.
Discordant singing falls from above,
plastering the bed around him with suppression. - Omit 'around him'
No more room to think, always room to fall. This line is nice, but try a semicolon. The phrase 'with suppression' seems off to me.

The night falls dark, and still yet you lie. The first clause is hackneyed. You don't need both 'still' and 'yet'. Choose one.
Surrounded by apathy and slavering faces.
Maws that open only to close,
and open,
and close. It doesn't quite work that one can be surrounded by apathy without making some sort of image out of it. What form does the apathy take? Otherwise, I would drop it and skip to the slavering faces. The entire stanza up to this point is in fact one sentence. Omit the periods and the capitalization. Then, though this is perhaps my own stylistic point, I find these last line breaks a bit cheap. Try to move the opening up one line and the closing down one line. I think this could be much stronger. The image is nice though.
These depressing faces and constant
scenery changes chain his mind
and suffocate the soul. Why 'his mind' but 'the soul'?
These cadences sung by a mouth,
grossly fed, to the hosts of hell. - The commas in these last two lines are not needed.

With eyes fixed stoically and sadly on the ceiling,
he takes another hit. The end is good from a narrative perspective, but it feels prosodically incomplete. Something has to happen here with the rhythm and the assonance so that we feel on a sensory level this return into the cycle.

I think the first stanza has some potential with the parallel phrasings. Otherwise, I think you are putting too much focus telling us how you feel about these images (apathy, depressing faces, sadly) and not enough trying to make this dream as horrible and fantastical and vivid as possible. See if you can take it further.

[Mungo man]

Thanks a ton for the feedback dude I'm hard at work revising it. I think that I'm going to write it in a few different ways and see which way is satisfying. I'm about a stanza or two into the Horrible and vivid version.

[cidermaid]

Hi, lots to like in this one and overall i think you have done a good job of conveying the idea.

The title is Ok but I am not sure that i need the self imposed designation. I think the state is normally a internal and therefore self imposed so it feels like I am fed a redudancy in the title before we even start and this gives me a predudiced mindset of what to expect from the poem.

Grinning Cheshire faces whisper from above, Not sure I need from above especially as you then mention ceilings in the next line.
their silhouettes pressed into the ceiling.
Je rêve de... Ne rêve pas. This line works ok, but I think you need some way to indicate that this is the voice from the ceiling faces. Perhaps italics.
Discordant singing falls from above, the second use of above so at least one of them needs editing to change or remove but actually I do not think you need either of them. I like the use of discordant both the meaning and the word sound add to the image of somehting out of harmony
plastering the bed around him with suppression. Not sure if around him is needed. It would work better for my read without as the image of falling plaster is again one that i would connect with deriliction and decay so really like this image to portrey the idea of the crumbling walls of the mind and the smothering of the emotions.
No more room to think, always room to fall. Whilst this line works i think I would have liked something a bit stronger. Oxygen starved of room to think; with room for thought free fall. (type of image - just a line of thought suggestion)

The night falls dark, and still yet you lie. Again the image and the thought progression works but it is a cliche and perhaps you could rework this in some way. Also think you do not need yet
Surrounded by apathy and slavering faces. Surrounded does not work for me. After all of that falling plaster to smothering and supressing, surrounded sounds out of place (Burried / suffocate would fit better for me). Also not sure i need this sentance. I aready know we are looking at apathy from the title - do we need to be told again? I think the slavering faces is stronger image but does not have much either side to support it. the rest of the poem reads a bit two dimensional
Maws that open only to close,
and open,
and close.
This needs whole stanza needs contracting down to a simpler form to reflect the blank screen emotion of the mind i feel.
Slavering faces,
maws that open and close,
open and close.
Expressions and scenery changes
that repress the mind
and chain the soul ...your ending loops the picture back to the begining with the link to the ceiling, which I like, but between here and the end there is a loose diconnect that makes it feel like you lost your way in the write and then suddenly hit on an ending idea. Perhaps step away from the faces images and offer something different by which the subject can be viewed say in comparision to "normal" life. (such as might be seen from the the wrong way down a telescope or something ).

These depressing faces and constant
scenery changes chain his mind
and suffocate the soul.
These cadences sung by a mouth,
grossly fed, to the hosts of hell.

With eyes fixed stoically and sadly on the ceiling,
he takes another hit.

Keep working on this I think you have some nice lines and images. Try not to overwork just the one image as it makes for a boring read.
Hope these comments are of some help. AJ.

[Mungo man]

Hi, lots to like in this one and overall i think you have done a good job of conveying the idea.

The title is Ok but I am not sure that i need the self imposed designation. I think the state is normally a internal and therefore self imposed so it feels like I am fed a redudancy in the title before we even start and this gives me a predudiced mindset of what to expect from the poem.

Grinning Cheshire faces whisper from above, Not sure I need from above especially as you then mention ceilings in the next line.
their silhouettes pressed into the ceiling.
Je rêve de... Ne rêve pas. This line works ok, but I think you need some way to indicate that this is the voice from the ceiling faces. Perhaps italics.
Discordant singing falls from above, the second use of above so at least one of them needs editing to change or remove but actually I do not think you need either of them. I like the use of discordant both the meaning and the word sound add to the image of somehting out of harmony
plastering the bed around him with suppression. Not sure if around him is needed. It would work better for my read without as the image of falling plaster is again one that i would connect with deriliction and decay so really like this image to portrey the idea of the crumbling walls of the mind and the smothering of the emotions.
No more room to think, always room to fall. Whilst this line works i think I would have liked something a bit stronger. Oxygen starved of room to think; with room for thought free fall. (type of image - just a line of thought suggestion)

The night falls dark, and still yet you lie. Again the image and the thought progression works but it is a cliche and perhaps you could rework this in some way. Also think you do not need yet
Surrounded by apathy and slavering faces. Surrounded does not work for me. After all of that falling plaster to smothering and supressing, surrounded sounds out of place (Burried / suffocate would fit better for me). Also not sure i need this sentance. I aready know we are looking at apathy from the title - do we need to be told again? I think the slavering faces is stronger image but does not have much either side to support it. the rest of the poem reads a bit two dimensional
Maws that open only to close,
and open,
and close.
This needs whole stanza needs contracting down to a simpler form to reflect the blank screen emotion of the mind i feel.
Slavering faces,
maws that open and close,
open and close.
Expressions and scenery changes
that repress the mind
and chain the soul ...your ending loops the picture back to the begining with the link to the ceiling, which I like, but between here and the end there is a loose diconnect that makes it feel like you lost your way in the write and then suddenly hit on an ending idea. Perhaps step away from the faces images and offer something different by which the subject can be viewed say in comparision to "normal" life. (such as might be seen from the the wrong way down a telescope or something ).

These depressing faces and constant
scenery changes chain his mind
and suffocate the soul.
These cadences sung by a mouth,
grossly fed, to the hosts of hell.

With eyes fixed stoically and sadly on the ceiling,
he takes another hit.

Keep working on this I think you have some nice lines and images. Try not to overwork just the one image as it makes for a boring read.
Hope these comments are of some help. AJ.

That was some great feedback, thank you.

I wrote this last night as I was falling asleep. It is a more concise and rather more gruesome picture:

Cheshire faces whisper from above,
their silhouettes pressed into the ceiling.
A whimper: Je rêve de... Ne rêve pas.
Discordant singing drips in bloody globules,
It pools on his sheets and slowly corrodes.
It eats through his clothes and sends vapor from his skin.
The feral sirens shriek and the floor is eaten away, leaving a homunculus to fall into the ether.
No more room to think; always room to fall.



edit: I'm going to rewrite the original with both your your's feedback in mind, but I wanted to share this first.