Bone Cold

[heslopian]

The outside blackness does not stare, 
It simply waits, with its bone cold. 
The bridal net it wears may mock, 
Its face a fair and polished glass, 
But I am old, and bone tired... 

The multitude may never pass, 
The blue street blocked, the clouds mired. 
A chill from All-ways Death grips me, 
Its patron saint sat by the church: 
A suicide from 1410. 

Whatever beasts may roam and lurch, 
What scares one more, than teeth or men, 
Is outside blackness cast like stone. 
The hours by this small window 
Are as an embrace: cold, and slow.

[crimsonqueen]

The first stanza..I love. Very visceral and meaningful. You cut to the heart of the meaning in a powerful way.

The first half of the second is good..but you lost me at the third line..it reads as fragmented. Like you're trying to fit in more thoughts than the line can really contain. I question what the next two lines are saying..they seem to not really hit home any point. Though I'm sure there is one in your mind..you aren't expressing it as well as you might. Overall this stanza doesn't come together as cohesive.

No comma needed between "more" and "than". I dunno how "are as an" sounds..might change that a bit.

I like your poem, all around. You're a good writer and it was a fun read!

[just mercedes]

Hi Jack - nice - haven't read a poem of yours for a while.

The last 3 lines of stanza 2 mystified me, though there's nothing wrong with mystery.

The 'I' of the writer is there in the first two, but not in the final stanza. 'I' has backed off, retreated from engagement, become generic - 'one' and I don't understand why.

[Quixilated]

The outside blackness does not stare, 
It simply waits, with its bone cold. 
The bridal net it wears may mock, 
Its face a fair and polished glass, 
But I am old, and bone tired... 

The multitude may never pass, 
The blue street blocked, the clouds mired. 
A chill from All-ways Death grips me, 
Its patron saint sat by the church: 
A suicide from 1410. 

Whatever beasts may roam and lurch, 
What scares one more, than teeth or men, 
Is outside blackness cast like stone. 
The hours by this small window 
Are as an embrace: cold, and slow.

Hi, I don't have a ton of critique.  Just wanted to say, first, I really enjoyed reading this.    I think your best stanza is the last one, I think it could stand alone.  It sounds like the cryptic words of doom that a mysterious hooded figure would say to someone right before they had to go out into the darkness to face an unknown foe.  *shudders*  And also you are so right, there is something incomprehensibly terrifying about the heavy darkness of a cold night.  I love "What scares one more, than teeth or men,/ Is outside blackness cast like stone."  That little bit is going in my pocket so that I can think it on dark nights.  

I was really confused about the whole patron saint by the church thing.  Is this a local story, like something the narrator seeing out the window?  Is there a patron saint of death?  I think you could take out the middle stanza (but maybe keep the "chill from All-ways Death grips me" and fit it in somewhere else?), or if it is essential to the tale, maybe find a way to clarify what its about?  Or maybe it is only confusing to me.  I guess see what others say before doing anything drastic.  

Anyway, well done.  I very much enjoyed reading.  

--Quix

[heslopian]

Thank you all for your extremely kind and helpful commentary on this piece I see that the latter half of stanza two is confusing people. In short, I've been reading a lot of olde English fairy tales lately, so that's been influencing my writing and therefore causing me to insert imaginary worlds everywhere "All-ways Death" is just that: an imaginary world, as metaphor for the night.

[ForgeAhead]

I'll agree with what others have said, the "All-ways Death" does seem a little out of place and confusing. The two lines following it, I actually love.
Its patron saint sat by the church:
A suicide from 1410.

I feel it gives much needed setting to the poem. I'm not sure if this is at all what you were going for, but it makes me picture some old bone-tired man in a dark lonely apartment complex where someone in 1410 next door just committed suicide, in a sad dreary city with a saint sitting outside the church in the rain, sad that he could do nothing about the alluring darkness that drew in the suicidal.

Also, this poem reminds me of that Nietzsche quote, "Stare into the abyss long enough and it will stare into you"