Taking up Smoking

[Brownlie]

Not happy with the near rhyme at the end, but it seems to convey the point a little more clearly.


I’ll build myself a smoking pyre
By burning leagues of sticks.
My semblance born in fickle fire
Is born with just one flick.

I’ve seen the boys in leather coats
Who wrinkle old like stones.
Their forms are flames exuding smoke
That shroud beyond our bones.

These epic men inside a square
Are stars that never dull.
They dazzle bright in vacuumed air,
And hide behind a bulb.

These signal men sing seraph tunes
You cannot see by sight.
From Raven’s broken orb they swoon
A chaos made of light.

Assembled to a shining corpse
Unwrapping cellophane,
I crackle like a pagan fork,
And smoke my nicotine.

Maybe, "and smoke constricting veins," or "constricting far-off veins"

[Lizzie]

Not happy with the near rhyme at the end, but it seems to convey the point a little more clearly.


I’ll build myself a smoking pyre
By burning leagues of sticks.
My semblance born in fickle fire
Is born with just one flick. -- don't like the repetition of 'born' so close together

I’ve seen the boys in leather coats
Who wrinkle old like stones.
Their forms are flames exuding smoke
That shroud beyond our bones. -- 'our' feels off, since you're talking about the boys in leather coats and then you switch voice

These epic men inside a square
Are stars that never dull.
They dazzle bright in vacuumed air,
And hide behind a bulb.

These signal men sing seraph tunes
You cannot see by sight. -- can tunes be seen with any kind of sight?? Perhaps I lack imagination.
From Raven’s broken orb they swoon
A chaos made of light.

Assembled to a shining corpse
Unwrapping cellophane,
I crackle like a pagan fork,
And smoke my nicotine. -- love the last two lines

Maybe, "and smoke constricting veins," or "constricting far-off veins"

I think there's some over-arching metaphor that I'm not understanding. I'm not even clear on the narrative other than it's about smoking and cool kids in leather jackets.

I think this one would be good to do as a response to a photograph of a guy smoking in a leather jacket looking impossibly cool. And then build the poem around the visual aid of the pic. Just a thought.

Cheers,

Lizzie

[canofworms]

Not happy with the near rhyme at the end, but it seems to convey the point a little more clearly.


Assembled to a shining corpse
Unwrapping cellophane,   ---- you could do something here with "sheen" 
I crackle like a pagan fork,
And smoke my nicotine.

Maybe, "and smoke constricting veins," or "constricting far-off veins" --- you could rhyme ancillary with capillary. (I'm just being silly here)