The chocolate egg

[Julius]

The Chocolate Egg


A child sits between
his mother and
a Victorian radiator.


Held tightly,
a foil encased
chocolate egg.


Restless eyes scan
an empty cross
above adult heads.


Somewhere
a distant voice talks of
hatred,
death,
resurrection.


As the child wonders why
the egg is going soft.

Thread locked to further comment as the OP is no longer a member. /mod

[Tracy Mitchell]

Hi Julius,

There are good initial elements to the poem - mother/child, religion and of course - chocolate. The scene, while sketchy, is sufficient to give the reader the framework of the poem’s story - the young boy is at an Easter service in an old church. He has been given a chocolate Easter egg while the sermon covers the weightier matters of death and resurrection. Restless, he holds the egg and looks around. He sees the cross, and hears the sermon. The egg goes soft.

This is about as far as I can go as a reader. The image of the cross, without the body, above the heads of the adults, as seen from the boy’s POV, is interesting, but undeveloped. The notion of the egg going soft is also undeveloped. What is the reason? Is this intended as a statement about faith, or about youthful naivete or something else? You may want to tinker to sharpen the message.

As written, stanzas 1, 3, and 4 are complete sentences, and stanzas 2 and 5 are not. It would not be difficult to adjust the text of S.2 and S.5 to also constitute complete sentences. You may want to see if in your view that would help it read a bit easier. You may also want experiment and see how longer lines may make the reading of the poem less choppy. All of this is just my view. Agree or not.

T

[aschueler]

The Chocolate Egg


A child sits between
his mother and
a Victorian radiator. Nice words,the visual just escapes me, however.


Held tightly,
a foil encased
chocolate egg.more vividness could enhance this, like color or size of egg.  Chocolate helps,  but then it always helps.


Restless eyes scan  
an empty cross
above adult heads.  I think you mean the child's eyes, this is unclear and stumbles a little


Somewhere
a distant voice talks of
hatred,
death,
resurrection.  Nicely done, makes me uncomfortable.


As the child wonders why
the egg is going soft.  I do like the clear distraction here, but seems to end a little empty.  Also, I think a semicolon after resurrection and lower case A for as would solve this sentence fragment.

Julius I think you did a great job here, I like the change in your format.  I did what I would consider mild instead of novice eval., so sue me.

[Nester]

The Chocolate Egg


A child sits between
his mother and
a Victorian radiator.


Held tightly,
a foil encased
chocolate egg.


Restless eyes scan
an empty cross
above adult heads.


Somewhere
a distant voice talks of
hatred,
death,
resurrection.


As the child wonders why
the egg is going soft.

I think having "hatred/death/resurrection" on separate lines is a bit melodramatic: this is a mostly quiet poem, and I don't think you need that device for the verse to have an impact.

I'd also suggest making the poem longer. I don't think you need to add specific details (e.g. the color of the egg), but without them, the poem comes off as abrupt. Adding more stanzas would help "flesh it out" without changing the tone you have established.

Hope this helps.

[Matthew McKeown]

Hi Julius,

I like the minimalistic feel of the poem. I think you could go further in that direction (minimalism). You may want to get rid of the word somwhere; the assumptionis is we know where i.e. a church. Also as someone else has suggested put hatred, death and resurrection on a single line.

Thanks, Matt

[Acephale]

The Chocolate Egg


A child sits between
his mother and
a Victorian radiator.


Held tightly,
a foil encased
chocolate egg.


Restless eyes scan
an empty cross
above adult heads.


Somewhere
a distant voice talks of
hatred,
death,
resurrection.


As the child wonders why
the egg is going soft.

Hi, 

I really liked the way you ended it. For the reader I might decide to change the 3rd stanza. 

Restless, 
eyes scan an empty cross
above adult heads. 

I would also leave out 'Somewhere' and begin with 'A distant voice talks of' I'd change the word 'talk' to 'speak' and add an ellipses to the end of 'resurrection.' 

I hope that helps, and I thought you did a wonderful job.

[Julius]

Thank you all for reading and your interesting comments. I had been reading "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams and decided to try some of his ideas. His poem is very minimal and uses line breaks where words are important to the extent different words could slide into a different "story" or image. I hope there is what might be called a moment of decision at the line breaks in my poem

[Jasper]

The minimalist style works well here. It could be made more clear that the "restless eyes" in the third stanza are the boy's eyes. I think that the fourth stanza is a bit sudden and doesn't fit so well, although I do like it on its own. I'm not sure what you mean by "the egg is going soft," this ending could be stronger. I liked this poem overall!

[Lip Kingdavid]

The "above adult heads" line pleasantly caught me off guard, but I think a little more descriptive words could help here and in some of the other lines. I understand what is going on well enough but I can't find myself enthralled by the language used. Its a wee bit choppy and doesn't quite roll off the tongue like I want it to. It doesn't feel present within itself, its more like someone describing what happens in a given poem more than the poem itself. 
I'm not sure if you were going for a child questioning his faith, but from the last line I gathered that the child was contemplating the science of melting chocolate, which is perfectly juvenile. I like the flow of all the different aspects together, I just feel like there is room for them to stand out on their own still.

[Erthona]

I think these lines are a bit disruptive to the poem.

"Somewhere
a distant voice talks of
hatred,
death,
resurrection."

As the reader is left to wonder does the boy actually hear these words, or are they said but the child does not understand and if so, why the words?

Somewhere
a distant voice
drones
as the child wonders why
the egg is going soft.

This brings it back into the child's world. We know from the cross where and basically what the voice is saying. We know the message is about Easter, or else there would be no chocolate egg to melt. So there is no need to tell that this is about the resurrection.

Outside of the fact that your second stanza is not a sentence, everything else reads well.

Best,

dale

[Southern Scarab]

The Chocolate Egg


A child sits between
his mother and
a Victorian radiator.


Held tightly,
a foil encased
chocolate egg.


Restless eyes scan
an empty cross          
above adult heads.


Somewhere
a distant voice talks of
hatred,
death,
resurrection.


As the child wonders why
the egg is going soft.

I feel like this could use some more descriptive or specific language. Some of the stanzas are confusingly passive. However, you have some good symbolism. There's nothing wrong with your brevity, personally I like it, but I don't think you're emphasizing the strengths of the poem enough. The metaphor of the chocolate egg melting in the boy's hand, flanked by his mother and a furnace, is pretty clever. It draws a lot of tempting parallels, (redemption, damnation, lost youth, etc.) Thanks for the read!