AronVanSciver
Unregistered
Today is everyday—is crumpled time.
Sheets of paper crushed in hands and dropped.
Today shakes in the wind like dry leaves,
Jittering is a broken toy, Rumbling is a leopard’s throat.
Today is September—leaving like leaves
Gilded green and growing brown and fading.
Today is content to exist in mist,
To drift into October’s arms unheeded.
Posts: 574
Threads: 80
Joined: May 2013
[quote='AronVanSciver' pid='178461' dateline='1415498752']
Ok, it seems you've got a pretty good lexicon, and your doing things that I don't really do (like the dashes which can be colon and semicolons and things I think, as well as other things like breaks in a haiku). I read about something called a "barnacle test" where you substitute a word with barnacle and see if it makes just as much sense. The point I think is to recognize that ambiguity can be good but not to go overboard with vagueness (something I've done quite often). Think of the phrase "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" as a nonsensical phrase that Chomsky posed, and try to attribute meaning to it if you feel inclined to ponder this point further.
Today is everyday—is crumpled time. -- Maybe "Today,like everyday, is crumpled time.
Sheets of paper crushed in hands and dropped. -- I think this is a fragment.
Today shakes in the wind like dry leaves, -- Sometimes a phrase like dry leaves might fit into a scheme like this, but here dry seems to interrupt with a needless adjective.
Jittering is a broken toy, Rumbling is a leopard’s throat. -- Here is where I am suspect (and might apply the barnacle test), though others may think differently.
Today is September—leaving like leaves -- Maybe something like Today is September, full of leaves . (though the grammar may be an issue even though I made the latter portion parenthetical). Maybe even this: Today is like September: full of leaves.
Gilded green and growing brown and fading. -- Probably too much use of "and" here.
Today is content to exist in mist, -Maybe something a little simpler like, Today is content to exist. Though, you may desire more syllables. If so, you may be able to combine the last two lines and add another one (If you need that).
To drift into October’s arms unheeded. -- I'm not sure you need arms or unheeded, but if you keep unheeded I would at least put a comma after arms (or right before it).
Like I said, good lexicon. Good luck.
Posts: 461
Threads: 374
Joined: Sep 2014
Today is everyday—is crumpled time.
What do you think about making "everyday" two words, and taking out the second "is"?
Sheets of paper crushed in hands and dropped.
Some words here could be dropped, and, with the next line, you could form an image with the paper and leaves in the wind. ...crumpled time,
paper crushed and dropped,
Today (if you don't want to use 'it' or something else) shakes like dry leaves in the wind.
Or something less generic.
Today shakes in the wind like dry leaves,
Jittering is a broken toy, Rumbling is a leopard’s throat.
Today is September—leaving like leaves
Gilded green and growing brown and fading.
Today is content to exist in mist,
To drift into October’s arms unheeded.
Something similar could be done with the last two lines by losing words, rearranging and blending.
