My Morning - Second Edit

[beaufort]

My Morning – Second Edit

I wake. I watch. I listen.
Recalling now that I am dying,
yet this night was not my last -
impending death still pending.

My breath rises and falls,
fully tethered to this moment -
darkness gathers itself, then disappears
pale light scurries in through the broken screen.

The coffee beckons,
a bus lurches in the alley,
the dog barks,
eyeing twitching squirrels
through the fogging window.

A whistling bird,
in love with the morning
finds a red berry
high on the bramble bush,
then soars into the cloudless sky of wanting.

I rise. I turn. I pray
to a god I
don’t believe in
and hum a hymn
whose words I can’t recall.

Carefully I pour
the black and waiting coffee,
emptying its hotness
into my grateful mouth.
The cup of salvation, indeed.

Who mourns the death of one woman?
The waves of fate turn their backs,
then change their minds.
We cannot know why
the drowsy angels sleep.



My Morning

I sit. I watch. I listen.
Night gathers itself,
Then disappears.
Dawn glows behind
The faded drapes.

The coffee beckons.
Street noises begin.
The dog barks, unhappy
That he is still in,
And not out.

The bird whistles
And finds a red berry
High on the bramble bush.
A croaking raven soars into
The cloudless sky of wanting.

I rise. I turn. I pray
To a god I
Don’t believe in
And hum a hymn
Whose words I can’t remember.

Carefully I pour
The black and waiting coffee,
Emptying its hotness
Into my grateful mouth.
The cup of salvation, indeed.

Who mourns the death of one woman?
The waves turn their backs,
Then change their minds.
The horse’s mane rises up,
The drowsy angels sleep.

This is not my story to tell.

[jdeirmend]

Hi Beaufort,

Welcome! Just gave your poem a couple of passes. First, what I like about it. There are a lot of sensuous particulars, a lot of good description of the world from the narrator's perspective. I enjoyed inhabting that world for a brief moment. To accompany the narrator through the simple, admirably understated, melancholy paces listed was not without its charm.

Where I find the poem most lacking, however, is in the absence of imagery. As you may be aware, the language trope that defines poetry is the image, whether metaphor (typically the combination of a subject and a predicate that usually aren't paired in a simple assertion, i.e., "that fish is a monster!") or simile (generally using the words 'like' or 'as' to combine a subject with a "foreign" predicate, i.e., "the tree shook like a weak-kneed convalescent").

For the most part, images are the business in poetry, because they allow a certain economy of expression. You can say so much with just a few images, particularly when they are stringed together well. Beyond that, they invoke a certain type of aesthetic experience that is characteristically poetic, i.e., wherein we become bewildered by the strange, resonant, ambiguous shapes that meaning/consciousness can take in language.

Anyhow, I'll end the lecture there and refer you to further reading. Let's get to a line-by-line critique for your poem.

My Morning

I sit. I watch. I listen. Unconventional start, but promising.
Night gathers itself, this is an image I tend to enjoy, even if a somewhat cliched one.
Then disappears.
Dawn glows behind
The faded drapes. I would like to see imagery here. How are they faded? Like a newspaper left out in the sun?

The coffee beckons. How does it beckon?
Street noises begin. What do you hear?
The dog barks, unhappy For the rest of the stanza, try and show it in an image, instead of just reporting it.
That he is still in,
And not out.

The bird whistles like a ...
And finds a red berry
High on the bramble bush.
A croaking raven soars into
The cloudless sky of wanting. This is a good image. Notice that wanting is something we don't normally associate with the sky.

I rise. I turn. I pray I like how this echoes the first line in structure and subject matter.
To a god I
Don’t believe in
And hum a hymn
Whose words I can’t remember. I like the befuddled atheism in these lines; it gives us the sense of God not just being non-existent, but rather absent or lost. This is very good IMO.

Carefully I pour
The black and waiting coffee,
Emptying its hotness
Into my grateful mouth.
The cup of salvation, indeed. Another religious reference here. What I'm liking is that salvation is found in something simple and ordinary. 'indeed' feels a little weak, but at the same time, it intimates something I like.

Who mourns the death of one woman? I'm lost here. This seems like a dramatic shift in subject matter. It is disorienting.
The waves turn their backs, This is cool, a good image, but are we at the beach? If so, you may want to establish that earlier on.
Then change their minds. That they are indecisive is good; it echoes the earlier befuddling of the narrator's mind. As with his inner world, so it is without.
The horse’s mane rises up,
The drowsy angels sleep. These two lines seem both potentially good to me but also poorly placed.

This is not my story to tell. I am very befuddled by this closing line. I don't know what this could possibly refer to, if not the story that was just told. But maybe the speaker is getting at something else: as if the world around the speaker is telling the story through the speaker. I don't know, but I suppose it's yours to play with.

I hope that is useful to you, and that the suggestions provoke you to dig into the heart of the poem some more and offer us a compelling revision. Thanks for the read, it was a pleasure.

[beaufort]

Thanks for your input, I appreciate it. What I am trying to state in the last line is that the narrator has no control over the day. Initially I had thought of someone who was dying, but woke up to another day, and I was going for starkness and pragmatism. I know that is not clear on paper. I will work on this and do a major revision. Thanks for spending so much time with it.

[jdeirmend]

Thanks for your input, I appreciate it. What I am trying to state in the last line is that the narrator has no control over the day. Initially I had thought of someone who was dying, but woke up to another day, and I was going for starkness and pragmatism. I know that is not clear on paper. I will work on this and do a major revision. Thanks for spending so much time with it.

No problem at all. Hope my mini-lecture wasn't too off-putting.

In the vein of your clarification, your poem seems even more appealing/promising. The list-like character of all the objects and experiences catalogued in it do seem to culminate in the direction you mention. After all, the narrator is just as much drawn about by every experience/object, as he seems to be an active participant in their use and perception. There is a certain passivity that the poem captures, that would be polished off well by a good image, or set of images, that gives a sense of what you're trying to describe. Something like:

"And so I'm drawn from node to node,
point to point, like the rolling of the tide."

Might do well. That is just for your consideration. Hopefully the example takes you to something of your own.

- James

[lucentwavering]

I sit. I watch. I listen.
Night gathers itself,
Then disappears.
Dawn glows behind
The faded drapes.

The coffee beckons.
Street noises begin.
The dog barks, unhappy
That he is still in,
And not out. - I love the dog.

The bird whistles
And finds a red berry
High on the bramble bush.
A croaking raven soars into
The cloudless sky of wanting. - the phrasing 'of wanting' seems weak to me. Maybe try to invert it. Alternately, the stanza could be cut, as nothing is happening with the speaker, though the bird imagery provides a nice transition to the more spiritual themes.

I rise. I turn. I pray
To a god I
Don’t believe in
And hum a hymn
Whose words I can’t remember. - I feel the last line could be shortened, especially when the rest of phrase is so beautifully sparse. Maybe: with forgotten words.

Carefully I pour
The black and waiting coffee,
Emptying its hotness
Into my grateful mouth.
The cup of salvation, indeed. - 'its hotness' seems a bit contrived. But I adore the cynicism of the last line.

Who mourns the death of one woman?
The waves turn their backs,
Then change their minds.
The horse’s mane rises up,
The drowsy angels sleep. - It is good enough that the horse's mane rises.

This is not my story to tell.

I'm quite fond of this piece. I actually find it's filled with imagery, but the phrasing is quite direct, for the most part, which I think gives a nice sense of the emotional state of the speaker. Well done!

[beaufort]

Thanks for you comments, I will do an edited version in a day or two and take your suggestions into consideration. I appreciate your taking time to look at it!