Portending Concrete Reality

[fromcancertocapricorn]

Indefatigably I fret.
Inexorably I agonize.

I crawl and curl up,
worrying that one day my skin will grow too large for my bones and organs,
and that I will lie there.
Someone will mistake my epidermal catastrophe for a used bandage:
padding the scrapes they earned after discarding tricycles
with gauze covered in my adolescent acne.
For this I bleed my wrists of anxiety.


Desperately, I attempt to flee chronological progress,
trying to climb back into the womb.
I climb up the blue cord like a rope ladder,
and in exhaustion slip down into my periwinkle noose.

I create these tribulations,
and let them tread over my unwrinkled knuckles.

I wax my skull and use the hair to weave a crown covering my now bare scalp.
I am Macbeth’s portent, becoming grievous royalty, playing my own fool.

[tectak]

Indefatigably I fret.
Inexorably I agonize.

I crawl and curl up,
worrying that one day my skin will grow too large for my bones and organs,
and that I will lie there.
Someone will mistake my epidermal catastrophe for a used bandage:
padding the scrapes they earned after discarding tricycles
with gauze covered in my adolescent acne.
For this I bleed my wrists of anxiety.


Desperately, I attempt to flee chronological progress,
trying to climb back into the womb.
I climb up the blue cord like a rope ladder,
and in exhaustion slip down into my periwinkle noose.

I create these tribulations,
and let them tread over my unwrinkled knuckles.

I wax my skull and use the hair to weave a crown covering my now bare scalp.
I am Macbeth’s portent, becoming grievous royalty, playing my own fool.

It was hard to read for me, though I'm not sure what type of poetry this was (so it may just be me not finding the line-play very easy to read), but there was a lot of too long, too short lines that didn't have much of a rhythm at all. I found it a bit hard to focus on. I'd suggest rephrasing to get the lines more in synch with each other and get a steady flow.

"
I crawl and curl up,
worrying that one day my skin will grow too large for my bones and organs,
and that I will lie there.
Someone will mistake my epidermal catastrophe for a used bandage:
padding the scrapes they earned after discarding tricycles
with gauze covered in my adolescent acne.
For this I bleed my wrists of anxiety.
"

It just seemed too uneven to me, I would, at the very least, consider rephrasing the first four lines to get them to fit in with each other better.

Though I am a fan of a particular type of poetry so that could just be what I'm basing this off of.

Hi fromc,
If  you could play piano well, playing badly for effect results in humour. The same applies to poetry. Here, I am unconvinced that you can write poetry well and so the piece brings no joy.
You could expect a line by line in Serious but there is so much wrong with this that it would appear a churlish crit. The real problem is imbalance. Gratuitous and pretentious word use makes the overall gentle banality lumpily out of character for the character. Complete lack of meter is acceptable in poetry circles but you will  be seen as a dilettante if you cannot use rhythm as a "control" device.
Lacking rhyme makes little difference to good (whatever that is, but you know it when you read it) poetry but there is such inconsistency  in word density in this piece that it is impossible to make even imagined off-rhymes ring.
Concept seems to be an uncertainty to boot. There is an uncomfortable feeling that you are leading but lost. I wish I could see where we are heading but then again, I constantly wish I had stayed at home.
The title says it all. It means nothing to me.
You are uninfluenced by dogma and/or convention and that can be to the good. Still, though, I would like to hear you play Chopin before you become Les Dawson.
This is not poetic, though you may like to call it poetry...and who could argue with that. For this crit, just give me something that I can hold on to. Lyrically speaking.
Best,
tectak

[Leah S.]

Indefatigably I fret.
Inexorably I agonize.

I crawl and curl up,
worrying that one day my skin will grow too large for my bones and organs,
and that I will lie there.
Someone will mistake my epidermal catastrophe for a used bandage:
padding the scrapes they earned after discarding tricycles
with gauze covered in my adolescent acne.
For this I bleed my wrists of anxiety.


Desperately, I attempt to flee chronological progress,
trying to climb back into the womb.
I climb up the blue cord like a rope ladder,
and in exhaustion slip down into my periwinkle noose.

I create these tribulations,
and let them tread over my unwrinkled knuckles.

I wax my skull and use the hair to weave a crown covering my now bare scalp.
I am Macbeth’s portent, becoming grievous royalty, playing my own fool.

Sorry, I get no concrete portentions. (Pretentions maybe.)
I dared not attempt a line by line, but......

Newborn fretting without getting tired,
agonizing (it's parents?) relentlessly.
crawling and curling (deformed spine?)
worrying about too-large-skin problem
Somebody is throwing tricycles and picking up used acne encrusted bandages to pad injuries incurred in the throwing of the aforementioned tricycles.
Somehow this causes the annoying but anxious infant to cut its own wrists.

Infant fears growing old, suddenly achieves climbing ability,
grabs umbilical cord, attempts to climb it, gets tired, slips and strangles self while admiring color of noose.
Dying infant manufactures more troubles which come alive and step on his knuckles.

Infant miraculously revives, finds wax somewhere, (delivery room in hospital, maybe?) rubs it on head.
Wax causes hair to fall out. (an effect which remains unexplained)
Infant collects hair and braids it into headband.
Puts headband on and pretends to be Macbeth.
Infant feels grievously stupid.

I'm not sure if you intended to put this poem in Serious Workshopping, but if you did, I think you need to start over.
Carry on. Leah

[fromcancertocapricorn]

Indefatigably I fret.
Inexorably I agonize.
I crawl and curl up,
worrying that one day my skin will grow too large for my bones and organs,
and that I will lie there.
Someone will mistake my epidermal catastrophe for a used bandage:
padding the scrapes they earned after discarding tricycles
with gauze covered in my adolescent acne.
For this I bleed my wrists of anxiety.

Desperately, I attempt to flee chronological progress,
trying to climb back into the womb.
I climb up the blue cord like a rope ladder,
and in exhaustion slip down into my periwinkle noose.
I create these tribulations,
and let them tread over my unwrinkled knuckles.
I wax my skull and use the hair to weave a crown covering my now bare scalp.
I am Macbeth’s portent, becoming grievous royalty, playing my own fool.

Sorry, I get no concrete portentions. (Pretentions maybe.)
I dared not attempt a line by line, but......
Newborn fretting without getting tired,
agonizing (it's parents?) relentlessly.
crawling and curling (deformed spine?)
worrying about too-large-skin problem
Somebody is throwing tricycles and picking up used acne encrusted bandages to pad injuries incurred in the throwing of the aforementioned tricycles.
Somehow this causes the annoying but anxious infant to cut its own wrists.
Infant fears growing old, suddenly achieves climbing ability,
grabs umbilical cord, attempts to climb it, gets tired, slips and strangles self while admiring color of noose.
Dying infant manufactures more troubles which come alive and step on his knuckles.
Infant miraculously revives, finds wax somewhere, (delivery room in hospital, maybe?) rubs it on head.
Wax causes hair to fall out. (an effect which remains unexplained)
Infant collects hair and braids it into headband.
Puts headband on and pretends to be Macbeth.
Infant feels grievously stupid.
I'm not sure if you intended to put this poem in Serious Workshopping, but if you did, I think you need to start over.
Carry on. Leah

Thanks for the feedback Leah, tectak, and Rain. Honestly, maybe this poem was just a massive miss for me, but I intended it to explain how we fret over the inevitable process of aging. Hence all the baby language and analogies of stress. The main character is not a baby though, more of an infantile man who is in denial of his aging. I was trying to show how we make aging out to be this terrible thing and as a result, it is. Thus, the Macbeth reference (Self-fulfilling Prophecy). Also, I definitely agree on the rhythm part, I rewrote this multiple times trying to establish some sort of general rhythm, but obviously failed. Now knowing what my authorial intent was, are there any ways you think I could have conveyed this better? Or should I just trash this poem and never look back?

[Leah S.]

Indefatigably I fret.
Inexorably I agonize.
I crawl and curl up,
worrying that one day my skin will grow too large for my bones and organs,
and that I will lie there.
Someone will mistake my epidermal catastrophe for a used bandage:
padding the scrapes they earned after discarding tricycles
with gauze covered in my adolescent acne.
For this I bleed my wrists of anxiety.

Desperately, I attempt to flee chronological progress,
trying to climb back into the womb.
I climb up the blue cord like a rope ladder,
and in exhaustion slip down into my periwinkle noose.
I create these tribulations,
and let them tread over my unwrinkled knuckles.
I wax my skull and use the hair to weave a crown covering my now bare scalp.
I am Macbeth’s portent, becoming grievous royalty, playing my own fool.

Sorry, I get no concrete portentions. (Pretentions maybe.)
I dared not attempt a line by line, but......
Newborn fretting without getting tired,
agonizing (it's parents?) relentlessly.
crawling and curling (deformed spine?)
worrying about too-large-skin problem
Somebody is throwing tricycles and picking up used acne encrusted bandages to pad injuries incurred in the throwing of the aforementioned tricycles.
Somehow this causes the annoying but anxious infant to cut its own wrists.
Infant fears growing old, suddenly achieves climbing ability,
grabs umbilical cord, attempts to climb it, gets tired, slips and strangles self while admiring color of noose.
Dying infant manufactures more troubles which come alive and step on his knuckles.
Infant miraculously revives, finds wax somewhere, (delivery room in hospital, maybe?) rubs it on head.
Wax causes hair to fall out. (an effect which remains unexplained)
Infant collects hair and braids it into headband.
Puts headband on and pretends to be Macbeth.
Infant feels grievously stupid.
I'm not sure if you intended to put this poem in Serious Workshopping, but if you did, I think you need to start over.
Carry on. Leah

Thanks for the feedback Leah, tectak, and Rain. Honestly, maybe this poem was just a massive miss for me, but I intended it to explain how we fret over the inevitable process of aging. Hence all the baby language and analogies of stress. The main character is not a baby though, more of an infantile man who is in denial of his aging. I was trying to show how we make aging out to be this terrible thing and as a result, it is. Thus, the Macbeth reference (Self-fulfilling Prophecy). Also, I definitely agree on the rhythm part, I rewrote this multiple times trying to establish some sort of general rhythm, but obviously failed. Now knowing what my authorial intent was, are there any ways you think I could have conveyed this better? Or should I just trash this poem and never look back?

Don't trash the idea, but yeah, I would pretty much trash the poem as written and start over. It is a well used theme, so you will have to come up with a "hook" for the reader that is more appealing than a slimy periwinkle umbilical cord. Also, please, always read your poems for continuity and plain syntactical meaning.

[tectak]

Sorry, I get no concrete portentions. (Pretentions maybe.)
I dared not attempt a line by line, but......
Newborn fretting without getting tired,
agonizing (it's parents?) relentlessly.
crawling and curling (deformed spine?)
worrying about too-large-skin problem
Somebody is throwing tricycles and picking up used acne encrusted bandages to pad injuries incurred in the throwing of the aforementioned tricycles.
Somehow this causes the annoying but anxious infant to cut its own wrists.
Infant fears growing old, suddenly achieves climbing ability,
grabs umbilical cord, attempts to climb it, gets tired, slips and strangles self while admiring color of noose.
Dying infant manufactures more troubles which come alive and step on his knuckles.
Infant miraculously revives, finds wax somewhere, (delivery room in hospital, maybe?) rubs it on head.
Wax causes hair to fall out. (an effect which remains unexplained)
Infant collects hair and braids it into headband.
Puts headband on and pretends to be Macbeth.
Infant feels grievously stupid.
I'm not sure if you intended to put this poem in Serious Workshopping, but if you did, I think you need to start over.
Carry on. Leah

Thanks for the feedback Leah, tectak, and Rain. Honestly, maybe this poem was just a massive miss for me, but I intended it to explain how we fret over the inevitable process of aging. Hence all the baby language and analogies of stress. The main character is not a baby though, more of an infantile man who is in denial of his aging. I was trying to show how we make aging out to be this terrible thing and as a result, it is. Thus, the Macbeth reference (Self-fulfilling Prophecy). Also, I definitely agree on the rhythm part, I rewrote this multiple times trying to establish some sort of general rhythm, but obviously failed. Now knowing what my authorial intent was, are there any ways you think I could have conveyed this better? Or should I just trash this poem and never look back?

Don't trash the idea, but yeah, I would pretty much trash the poem as written and start over. It is a well used theme, so you will have to come up with a "hook" for the reader that is more appealing than a slimy periwinkle umbilical cord. Also, please, always read your poems for continuity and plain syntactical meaning.

Hi fromc,
keep the concept.
Poems are ten a bad penny...good concepts don't turn up every day.
Here's the rub.How come you can explain what the thing is all about once the crits cry obscure? If you can explain it afterwards why not make yourself clear in the bloody poem?
it is not just you...pseudo poets specialise in making the clear obscure because it seems profound. Give me imagery, explanatory metaphor, grammatical precision and most important of all...sincerity of purpose. If you believe in your concept you can write poetry around it. Note the terminology. Milo is right...get yourself a core metaphor and build on it. Dale is right...aim to make the obscure clear. Me? I am a humble crit...all I ask for is poetry; and I know it when I read it.
Best,
tectak

[lacan123]

Indefatigably I fret.
Inexorably I agonize.

I crawl and curl up,
worrying that one day my skin will grow too large for my bones and organs,
and that I will lie there.
Someone will mistake my epidermal catastrophe for a used bandage:
padding the scrapes they earned after discarding tricycles
with gauze covered in my adolescent acne.
For this I bleed my wrists of anxiety.


Desperately, I attempt to flee chronological progress,
trying to climb back into the womb.
I climb up the blue cord like a rope ladder,
and in exhaustion slip down into my periwinkle noose.

I create these tribulations,
and let them tread over my unwrinkled knuckles.

I wax my skull and use the hair to weave a crown covering my now bare scalp.
I am Macbeth’s portent, becoming grievous royalty, playing my own fool.

There's a great deal in this I can relate to - the ideas of anxiety, self abuse, regression back to safety. The last line is very good - and reminiscent in rhythm of the famous lines of Macbeth Act 5 Scene 5.

The only line that remains obscure for me is the penultimate one?