Ex Poetica

[Leanne]

This was once a place to dream
 
Now lids are prised open
with backhanded blades
and skin is
 
scraped
 
s t r e t c h e d
 
dried
 
to vellum
 
soaking up the blood
of aborted imagination

[vagabond]

is it even possible to abort imagination?
(.. ah yes, it probably is, and skinning the gravida would be a pretty extreme way. the amount of blood from the fetus is comparatively small then)

seeding imagination is easier
and done in beautiful or revulsive ways. preferences are subjective, as well as purposes.

this is a dynamic poem.
i would make the first line present tense (and maybe then continue with "but").
don´t want to diminish your point, but dreaming and having the eyes open sort of alternate or maybe sometimes happen at the same time but i´d think they don´t completely exclude one another.

[RiverNotch]

yet another reason to fear you -- and goddamn, i feel like i was, if not one of the hands, then the knife, or perhaps its handle. one thing: maybe do something with dried (shrink it?), as well as turn 'to soak' into 'soaking', so that 'to vellum' would be better isolated. lovely work.

[Wastrel]

I've suddenly become even more inarticulate. Powerful poem.

[Leanne]

is it even possible to abort imagination?
(.. ah yes, it probably is, and skinning the gravida would be a pretty extreme way. the amount of blood from the fetus is comparatively small then)

seeding imagination is easier
and done in beautiful or revulsive ways. preferences are subjective, as well as purposes.

this is a dynamic poem.
i would make the first line present tense (and maybe then continue with "but").
don´t want to diminish your point, but dreaming and having the eyes open sort of alternate or maybe sometimes happen at the same time but i´d think they don´t completely exclude one another.

Thanks for a great comment. I've considered your suggestion and decided against it mostly because I don't want to add another word, and also because although you're right that you can dream with your eyes open, I reckon if they were forced open you'd be thinking about some fairly immediate problems rather than focussing inward. You definitely made me think though!

yet another reason to fear you -- and goddamn, i feel like i was, if not one of the hands, then the knife, or perhaps its handle. one thing: maybe do something with dried (shrink it?), as well as turn 'to soak' into 'soaking', so that 'to vellum' would be better isolated. lovely work.

Thanks for another great comment, RiverNotch -- I'm off to change soaking now, as you're right that the repetition of "to" is too much.

I've suddenly become even more inarticulate. Powerful poem.

Many thanks -- although I hope you don't stay inarticulate for long!

[vagabond]

is it even possible to abort imagination?
(.. ah yes, it probably is, and skinning the gravida would be a pretty extreme way. the amount of blood from the fetus is comparatively small then)

seeding imagination is easier
and done in beautiful or revulsive ways. preferences are subjective, as well as purposes.

this is a dynamic poem.
i would make the first line present tense (and maybe then continue with "but").
don´t want to diminish your point, but dreaming and having the eyes  open sort of alternate or maybe sometimes happen at the same time but i´d think they don´t completely exclude one another.

Thanks for a great comment.  I've considered your suggestion and decided against it mostly because I don't want to add another word, and also because although you're right that you can dream with your eyes open, I reckon if they were forced open you'd be thinking about some fairly immediate problems rather than focussing inward.  You definitely made me think though!

you can prise eyes open to see "reality" but reality remains subjective , i mean partly imagination.

i don´t really know what you mean with focussing inward but i think we choose our distractions rather than have them forced on us.
on the long run dreaming is pretty boring without input anyway (which is a theoretical thought)