The Calling

[cloud]

we have it all wrong;
the sands are pulling tides ashore
not the other way around.
similarly, people are
pulled from themselves
of familiar estrangement.

as subtle as the air lifting,
nobody will know
the stranger even existed
until after the fact.
like a loon call,
like love.

but,
to be gone
is also to be here.
and
here it is, lingering in the air.
like instinct,
like torrent,
swimming around my head.

the crowd of many individuals
is as a body of no single person.
there are many in the crowd,
but only one man smirked
as if to give off the whole charade.

edited 3/10/2019

with god-created intent
the air lifted and grew thin,
roads lost parallel lines,
and the working class mustered:
buskers and bakers,
men and women
all stood motionless
amidst the wake

one man smirked, as if to give off
the whole charade.

edited 08/12/2019

[dukealien]

with god created intent
the air lifted and grew thin,
roads lost parallel lines,
and the working class mustered:
clergymen, buskers and bakers,
clerks and townsmen,
all stood motionless
amidst the wake.
one man smirked, as if to give off
the whole charade.

This is intriguing, and contains thought-provoking images (for example, roads losing parallel lines - are we talking perspective here, with vanishing points?)

In basic critique, although you've chosen not to use strict punctuation, etc., I'd suggest a hyphen to make "god-created," even though it would tend to lock out some readings or interpretations.  I don't consider clergymen, generally, members of the working class - the group includes bishops, etc. - so perhaps "parsons" even though they may be a bit more educated than the average busker.

There are some good chops - "roads lost parallel lines" rolls off the tongue as well as being an arresting image.

I do question a couple of words - hope this is not excessive for Basic.  One is "wake," which simultaneously suggests (to me) the wake of a ship - makes sense in context - and the traditional liquid-fueled funereal sendoff.  Which may just be a wrong idea on my part, but it doesn't fit well with the very sober image of mustered and motionless bystanders.

The other is "off" (in "as if to give off/the whole charade" at the end).  I get the meaning from context - as we would say in the US, to give away a secret with an overtone of doing it unintentionally or disobediently.  In US parlance, "give off" connotes an emanation as in "give off light" or "give off" a bad smell.  So I'd replace "off" with "away" there, but only if that means the same thing on both sides of the pond.

I liked it, it's mysterious and visual, showing instead of telling.

[Seraphim]

I like the piece, though its intent - it’s message - isn’t coming through to me, and I’m one willing to work at understanding a poem. The opening lines offer a hint of apocalyptic setup. The working class gather for a wake (mankind’s?), then there’s a volte - a bit of a turn at the end - implying the event’s a bit of a joke. A joke on whom - the religious working class, as opposed to the intellectual elite?

Structurally the poem flows nicely, is concise and compact. The first line threw me at first, until I picked up on Duke’s comment, with which I concur. L1, however, appears to contradict my reading. If anything is actually created by God, as L1 states, then I suppose the joke is on the man who smirked.

I have no problem with ‘wake’ , as not all cultures engage in indulgences at a wake. That aspect didn’t come to mind.

But you have something here. I look forward to seeing what you do.

[Frenchie]

I watched an Icelandic thriller last night, some men killed dozens of random people in the US recently, and I am now listening to Alfred Schnittke, so I feel in the right mood with this enigmatic poem. I am wondering what The Event is, i.e. the wake, the lifting & thinning of the air, etc. It's like the world ends but we don't know what it is, and in the end, it's only a charade. Perhaps you'd wish to expose the catastrophic happening a bit more, or hide it more, if it's an illusion in the end..

I'm not 100% sure about the listing of workers, why do we need it..

I like the smirk, although I wonder if it's heavy enough. In the thriller I watched, the villain smirks when dying, it feels like a cliché, villains smurking..

[cloud]

@dukealien

thank you, intriguing will do.
semantics noted.

@seraphim
thank you for pointing out the ambiguity, when I read something that is too abstract to intrigue me after first read, I think it lacks.
semantics noted.

@frenchie
you hit the nail right on the head, honestly.
that is bad news for me if you understood my enigma too well.
I disagree with the smirk though, ain't nothing more daunting than a well placed smirk

[AlexTheAsian21]

with god-created intent
the air lifted and grew thin,
roads lost parallel lines,
and the working class mustered:
buskers and bakers,
men and women
all stood motionless
amidst the wake

one man smirked, as if to give off
the whole charade.

edited 08/12/2019

So much thoughts provoked from so little words. Who is this man that smirks? Is it god smirking at the working class? Is it THE MAN smiling at the working class that works to go nowhere? I need more story to it.

[Xlateralus]

with god-created intent
the air lifted and grew thin,
roads lost parallel lines,
and the working class mustered:
buskers and bakers,
men and women
all stood motionless
amidst the wake

one man smirked, as if to give off
the whole charade.

edited 08/12/2019

Hi.

My concern is that we seem to be falling out of control while at the same time gaining clarity (roads lost parallel lines and the air lifted/grew thin eg fog lifting. The clarity is maybe your intent but I’m not sure about falling out of control. I’m also not sure about the working class mustering. Because for me, mustering invokes duty, and I’m not sure that’s what you are going for.

But the main reason I posted, then end of the poem could be stronger by dropping the as if and sticking to your guns. The man gave off the whole charade. Own it.

[cloud]

@Alex, @Xlateralus,

with my update I added and subtracted, but mostly added to the beginning.
let me know if what I wrote aided with any sense of closure.

thanks guys.

[ink]

I like the opening - we all have it wrong - it pulls you in and it's probably true for many people within different parts of their life. I like how you talk about instinct, because that feeds well in to opening, as we instinctually seem to know what you're talking about in our own minds. Interesting how the poem positions the reader as both alone and together, the ambiguity sits nicely and it's nice that just the poet, or reader, is given the inside smirk, or nod, to knowing something more than the crowd - but if it's all a charade anyway, perhaps this doesn't matter. It certainly got me thinking!

[Xlateralus]

I feel like the prior edit was significantly stronger, so I almost regret offering critique on this one.