O Nightly Thoughts

[heslopian]

I sweat and I sweat and I sweat,
stinking like a corpse in an African sun.
This is the first poem I've written in months,

and it comes back to sweating,
sweating in a faded Beatles shirt.
You can barely see McCartney's face,

and Lennon's the ghost of a stain by now.
I hate summer nights.
The days, at least, are attractive and gay,

giving this coastal town dignity;
in the hot light of summer McDonald's is France, almost.
The nights are repellant and aggressive.

Beside my bed is a Kindle
with an H. Rider Haggard in it, 20% read.
I don't know if I can be bothered to read.

[Erthona]

I'll take a BTL, extra malaise! Oh, this is in mild critic. I think there are probably better was to say some of this. The first couple lines seem extraordinarily forced. A corpse in the African sun does not sweat. Too much sweating the word.

"The nights are repellant and aggressive." why?

I like "the hot light of summer MacDonald's is France, almost." Although i have no idea what it means and "McDonald's" is spelled wrong. Maybe it's Scotland instead of France?


dale the empathetic

[heslopian]

Thank you for your honest feedback, Erthona I think maybe that African sun line was inspired by the Haggard I've been reading. "Inspired" being a generous word... I'll edit "MacDonald's" now; cheers for the heads up. (By the way, I said the corpse was stinking, not sweating.)

[Erthona]

Sorry, my mistake. Dyslexia I guess. That's not just an excuse, I do have it really bad, and I probably transposed the "sweat" right above the "stinking" and turned it into sweating. Sometimes it just gets the best of me As that is true, that's a good image.

Dale

[heslopian]

Thanks, Erthy ("Erthy"'s your new nickname.)

[LorettaYoung]

Thanks, Erthy ("Erthy"'s your new nickname.)

---

Call me dense; but sorry, I am missing the point; I could lend you my Get the Led out t-shirt! Loretta

[heslopian]

No point, Loretta, just the bored musings of a dull mind in this poem Thank you for commenting!

[Markworth]

Summer days are grand. French fries, on any day, are grand too. Should it be coastal town, instead of costal town?

[heslopian]

It should I'll correct now. Thanks for the heads up and comment, Markworth!

[Apex Vega]

Good evening.

3 lines that stick out and carry some kind of emotional punch here. (for me)

"and Lennon's the ghost of a stain by now."

- I like it, but im not quite sure why.. if it's your confession that you desperately need new t-shirts or that it paints a (probably) very accurate picture in my head of how faded it is. Or maybe it's just my fascination with the word ghost.

"in the hot light of summer McDonald's is France, almost."

- I can't wrap my head around it, but my heart loves it.



Beside my bed is a Kindle
with an H. Rider Haggard in it, 20% read.
I don't know if I can be bothered to read.

- Ok, so it's not a line. But I was planning on just using your last line her, until I read it again and felt the whole thing deserved some form of praise. I like the attitude and the honesty behind it. It's kinda cool.

[heslopian]

Thank you very much for your kind and helpful feedback, Apex Vega

[tmanzano]

The frustrated muse. An equal parallel to the plight of a seasonal stale mate with thoughts to paper. The faded shirt, the ghostly stain, a humidly costal foreboding write. I have read this over more than three times and have been bothered to read it again. Mostly because of my relation to the poem. I think I will go to France, almost.

I enjoyed the read, and can surmise no critical help to your piece other than I understand.

[tectak]

The last line is too halting.

This is not valid critique. You will reap what you sow. Sow nothing, reap nothing.Try to play the game.
Mod

[heslopian]

Thank you, tmanzano and vtsai01, for your comments I'm glad you could relate, tmanzano! My muse is perpetually frustrated, like a gay man's trophy wife

[Isis]

I like this poem a lot - it's easy for me to connect with, especially the feeling of turning the first poem in months into a poem about how difficult it is to write. I like how aggressively mundane a lot of the images are. I don't mean this as a bad thing. Most of the stuff described in the poem is familiar, and that helps me get into the mindset of the poem: the shirt that's been sweated through so many times, the Micky D's, feeling too hot and tired and meh to read. I haven't been there exactly, but I've been there.

There are a few word choices that I found kind of weird, though. (This is getting nitpicky, fair warning).

The days, at least, are attractive and gay,

giving this coastal town dignity;
in the hot light of summer McDonald's is France, almost.
The nights are repellant and aggressive.

"Gay" used in this context feels like such a colloquialism - I'm assuming that here it means "bright, fun, lively". But most of the poem is rooted in the now, in the products of late 20th and 21st century life.

I like the idea of McDonald's as almost France, but I'm left wondering how: is it so hot out that the thought of walking there for some fries is as appealing as walking to France? Or is it as cultured as this coastal town is going to get? One comparison says something about the speaker, one says something about the place. Either way it's sort of funny. But it's an open ended image, a joke some readers might miss. I feel like I'm missing or almost missing it; the more I think about it, the less clear it seems.

Beside my bed is a Kindle
with an H. Rider Haggard in it, 20% read.
I don't know if I can be bothered to read.

I found the repetition of "read" a little odd: same spelling, different sounds. The present tense/infinitive form of "read" sounds a lot more hanging and open ended than the past tense version, which I think is what creates the oddness here. The first "read" is past tense, so it sounds and feels heavy. The second "read" is infinitive, and the longer sound of the word suggests the poem might continue. But it doesn't. I find that hanging feeling at the end of the poem a little bit frustrating.

My muse is perpetually frustrated, like a gay man's trophy wife

I think there's a poem here …. maybe worth exploring next time you hit a wall? What if the frustrated wife got to speak for a change, and be the poet?

[heslopian]

Thank you so much for your wonderfully technical and aesthetic feedback, Isis; your analysis of the language used and its effects is really helpful. I know what you mean about "gay"; I just like using the word in that context