Once again the heart has gained weight,
It is waiting for a feeling that never comes,
The stomach hope that the moths, waking up in the shadow of my nervousness, will release their grip
The tear canals, holding the fort at all costs, hope to sometime be drained
Other peoples self-evident footsteps,
bears witness of souls so calm, so confident
Their peace of mind lies a thousand miles beyond me,
Their hearts weigh a hundred pounds below mine
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Once again the heart has gained weight,
It is waiting for a feeling that never comes,
The first two lines are all right. Especially the first one.
The stomach hope that the moths, waking up in the shadow of my nervousness, will release their grip
The tear canals, holding the fort at all costs, hope to sometime be drained
I think those two at least sound interesting. Do you like those big sentence lines there, sectioned off by commas? The stomach hope, are you using stomach as an adjective? It sounds interesting, but it probably isn't meant to be like that.
Other peoples self-evident footsteps,
bears witness of souls so calm, so confident
What about the commas here? and the s on the bear?
Their peace of mind lies a thousand miles beyond me,
Their hearts weigh a hundred pounds below mine
The last two lines are interesting too. Overall it's interesting. I don't know how much is intentional though.
(11-11-2014, 05:32 AM)rowens Wrote: Once again the heart has gained weight,
It is waiting for a feeling that never comes,
The first two lines are all right. Especially the first one.
The stomach hope that the moths, waking up in the shadow of my nervousness, will release their grip
The tear canals, holding the fort at all costs, hope to sometime be drained
I think those two at least sound interesting. Do you like those big sentence lines there, sectioned off by commas? The stomach hope, are you using stomach as an adjective? It sounds interesting, but it probably isn't meant to be like that.
Other peoples self-evident footsteps,
bears witness of souls so calm, so confident
What about the commas here? and the s on the bear?
Their peace of mind lies a thousand miles beyond me,
Their hearts weigh a hundred pounds below mine
The last two lines are interesting too. Overall it's interesting. I don't know how much is intentional though.
At first, thank you for taking your time to critique, I'm glad you find it interesting.
I do like those long sentence lines. The line about the stomach is, like those about the heart and the tear canals made to be out of the stomachs perspective, if that makes any sense. It is a way of describing the feeling of insecurity though "bodily" responses, and a wish for more confidence. The last lines further express a wish for the confidence everyone else seem to have, but which the "owner" of the body lack.
Im not sure about all the commas and when to use them, i have not written a poem before so i will have to research that. The s on bear is a grammatical error, it is not supposed to be interpreted as the animal "bear" in plural.
Kind regards
Posts: 170
Threads: 53
Joined: Jan 2013
Hello,
Firstly before getting started, I would like to say that I really like the idea of this, unfortunately the poem itself didn't deliver for me. I didn't see much connection with language and the body parts (or even something unique like, the Logic of Sensation, seemingly mutually exclusive - the body, concrete and language, abstract). Also, why didn't you call it simply 'body language' or 'my body language'? I don't think I could have resisted that little, smug, self-satisfied, ambiguity of meaning.
(11-11-2014, 04:51 AM)Albatross Wrote: Once again the heart has gained weight, - Ok, so I am only going to mention this one time... punctuation. This is a relatively good opening. It did make me want to read on. We're already mixing up stomachs and hearts, which is definitely interesting. One point, you use the definite article, as in 'the heart', but the title specifies that this is the language of YOUR body, so why not 'my heart'? Also, I don't think you need 'once again', it sounds too contrived and makes it all weak and floppy (:
It is waiting for a feeling that never comes, - yes, this is good. The first two lines together really express that sense of anxiety when the heart feels bloated.
The stomach hope that the moths, waking up in the shadow of my nervousness, will release their grip
The tear canals, holding the fort at all costs, hope to sometime be drained - These lines are far too long. Break it after moths, then again after nervousness, and again after costs, Having said that, i understand that there is an aesthetic element that you may be going for here; the long line rupturing the middle, etc. Also, moths releasing their grip just isn't a very good image, or at least not for me. And 'the stomach hope that the...' I assume there is a typo here and it should read 'the stomach hopes...' and even better would be 'the stomach hopes the moths...', minus the 'that'.
Other peoples self-evident footsteps, - yeah, I don't really get this bit. Why 'self-evident'?
bears witness of souls so calm, so confident - if we are to have 'self-evident footsteps [as insane as that sounds] then THEY are plural and therefore do not 'bears witness' to anything. It should be, 'bear witness...' oh, and isn't it always 'bear witness to' not 'bear witness of'?
Their peace of mind lies a thousand miles beyond me, - I must confess by this stage I had already lost confidence in the poem and the author. Yet, I still like this idea about 'everyone seems ok... I haven't got a clue' and so on. I mean it isn't the most original thing in the world to write about, but it beats fucking love any day of the week. Also, I couldn't resist 'piece of mind' here... I know, I feel dirty and need a shower just for even suggesting such a cheap trick; but in my defense, I think it genuinely fits better, it is just a pitiful coincidence about the pun.
Their hearts weigh a hundred pounds below mine - That is a very specific number, I wonder where you got it? Regardless, this last line is a bit of a mess. Do we say that X weighs below Y? or do we say that X weighs less than Y?
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