The Animal

[JamesG]

Criticism welcome ;0)

The Animal.

The Animal,
sitting on the sand ,
looked seawards
at the ûrClouds,
smeared with
grey and mauve
that massed at the horizon
like exhausted armies
defeated by the sun

The Animal
stirred and sieved
and cupped a thousand
grains in its animal hand
grains that once were pebbles,
grains that once were stone,
grains that once were mountains,
grains now the colour
of shellac, rag, and bone

The Animal
rose and turned
and walked the path
it had made its own,
towards the abandoned city
that stood, a faceless
grin of empty promise.
A flock of splinters
flushed by its passing
flew up and
shattered in a cry
of russet and gold

The Animal
looked up at
the concrete cliff
that was spread
with blooms of flame
that ached towards
the sun
And nodding
a greeting
to itself,
entered its
cool dark
animal home.

The Animal
Closed and barred
Against the glow
lay down and stretched
its skin, still tattooed
by the last embers of the light.
It clasped a ring
of twisted copper and gold
tight against its hirsute ribs
and closed its eyes
against the night.

[Tiger the Lion]

Criticism welcome ;0)

The Animal. not sure why the period?

The Animal, some may not like the Caps on Animal, I'm ok with it as it has intent
sitting on the sand , this lost comma is not needed
looked seawards
at the ûrClouds, formatting issue? another comma we don't need - your short lines give the reader enough time to breathe
smeared with 
grey and mauve
that massed at the horizon
like exhausted armies
defeated by the sun a period here?

The Animal
stirred and sieved
and cupped a thousand
grains in its animal hand
grains that once were pebbles,
grains that once were stone,
grains that once were mountains,
grains now the colour
of shellac, rag, and bone

The Animal
rose and turned
and walked the path
it had made its own,
towards the abandoned city
that stood, a faceless
grin of empty promise.
A flock of splinters
flushed by its passing
flew up and
shattered in a cry
of russet and gold

The Animal
looked up at
the concrete cliff
that was spread
with blooms of flame
that ached towards
the sun
And nodding
a greeting
to itself,
entered its
cool dark
animal home.

The Animal
Closed and barred
Against the glow
lay down and stretched
its skin, still tattooed
by the last embers of the light.
It clasped a ring
of twisted copper and gold
tight against its hirsute ribs
and closed its eyes
against the night.

Welcome, James. I'll stop after the first strophe for now. Wanted to get you started. A reminder that most observations are subjective and you are welcome to take them or leave them. This has some good bones. I'll be back with more. 
Paul

[JamesG]

Hi Paul, yes I have found punctuation to be a tricky thing in Poetry, and I have been advised as to a few different directions in how to apply it. I am still not sure how to apply it properly or consistently. The Animal is capitalized as I envisioned this poem to be a kind of apocalyptic "last man" story, so the protagonist is really the last human animal, although I did my best to make this not too obvious.

[Erthona]

James,

The poem encapsulates and paints a scene filled with imagistic  atmosphere through narrative and mood with its detailed language. Reminds me of a tone poem as it conveys more a sense of emotional body, as one might describe a "thick" Burgundy than knowledge content and context.In terms of content the poem could be summed up as loneliness. Generally one wishes the number of words used to be smaller than the sum of it parts, but then you have the Modernist; a sort of in saying nothing one says everything, or vice versa and so does not lend itself well to cogent critique, fitting well within the framework of H.D. and the Modernist movement. Even though a nice representation of the style, the lack of an original voice still seems evident, in a similar way the Modernist rejected Romanticism yet never seem to have an acceptable replacement for it, at least in my mind.

I would say at the very least such things as (words/phrases) "ûrClouds" (oldest/primitive/primeval clouds) could do with a footnote, especially when borrowing from another language or as a work of fiction, as  in, "Thomas Covenant the UrLord 1". The repetition of the phrase "The Animal" seems to serve no purpose (Try reading it aloud and listening to a playback), unless just slavishly adhering to form for forms sake. Something that does not seem justified here, nor does it move the poem along.

For a neophyte I would say this is an excellent practice piece and a good grasp of the style is evident, however the lack of an original voice is holding it back. Regardless, nice form.

Welcome to the site.

best,

dale

1 The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a series of ten high fantasy novels written by American author Stephen R. Donaldson.

[JamesG]

Thanks for the Crit Erthona, that's what I am here for ;0) I think I will lose "The Animal" parts as it seems a bit laboured, looking at it again. The urClouds thing is a bit of an odd one as it was a mistake that I quite liked and kept in, as it seemed to work (at least for me). 

I well remember reading those Stephen Donaldson books in my youth!

[Knot]

Hi James,
a post-apocalypse piece? Okay then ...

Had you considered setting it in the present tense?

S1. You rather lost me with  ûrClouds, trying a bit too hard (it seemed to me.) And how can clouds be primitive? I had been assuming mushroom clouds but ...
Don't know what 'defeated by the sun' means.

S2. This seems a more natural opening, though I'm not sure what the colour of the grains means (other than transformed in a nuclear blast) - and compared to the reduction from mountain to grain doesn't seem that dramatic. Perhaps some better adjectives

S3. I don't think you need this (at least not the first five-seven lines of it)  You have 'concrete cliff' in the next verse which suggests a city anyway.

S4. Struggling with 'animal home' - it feels a bit flat.
Do you mean 'arced' rather than 'ached'?

S5. Wondered if, in the penultimate line you might change 'its eyes' to 'my eyes'?
Also, how can 'ribs' be 'hirsuite'? (Rather at odds with 'skin tattooed' isn't it? And how does one clasp a ring against one's ribs?)


The Animal.


The Animal stirs
and sieves. Cupping
a thousand grains
in its animal hand
grains that once were mountains,
now the colour of shellac,
rag, and bone

The Animal sits
looks seawards
at the smears
of grey and mauve
that mass at the horizon
like exhausted armies
defeated by the sun

The Animal rises
walks the path its made
its own, stares at the concrete cliff
And nods a greeting to itself,
A flock of splinters flushed
by its passing flies up, shattering
in a cry of russet and gold

The Animal. Closed and barred
Against the glow lies down
and stretches. its skin,
still tattooed by the last embers
of the light. Clasping a ring
of copper and gold
tight I close my eyes
against the night.


Best, Knot

.

[JamesG]

Hi James,
a post-apocalypse piece? Okay then ...

Had you considered setting it in the present tense?

S1. You rather lost me with  ûrClouds, trying a bit too hard (it seemed to me.) And how can clouds be primitive? I had been assuming mushroom clouds but ...
Don't know what 'defeated by the sun' means.

Yes I definitely  think I need to lose the urClouds bit, it seems a bit redundant and pretentious to me now. As to mushroom coluds, not all apocalypses have to be nuclear...
. 
S2. This seems a more natural opening, though I'm not sure what the colour of the grains means (other than transformed in a nuclear blast) - and compared to the reduction from mountain to grain doesn't seem that dramatic. Perhaps some better adjectives

I will look at this as I made a number of different versions of this stanza and wasn't quite happy with any of them

S3. I don't think you need this (at least not the first five-seven lines of it)  You have 'concrete cliff' in the next verse which suggests a city anyway.

S4. Struggling with 'animal home' - it feels a bit flat.
Do you mean 'arced' rather than 'ached'?

I would agree about animal home. I did try lair but that didn't seem to work either. 
I did mean ached, meant as a form of yearning


S5. Wondered if, in the penultimate line you might change 'its eyes' to 'my eyes'?
Also, how can 'ribs' be 'hirsuite'? (Rather at odds with 'skin tattooed' isn't it? And how does one clasp a ring against one's ribs?)

I think that I was trying to get across a visual allusion to something starving, ribs showing through a hair covered chest.


The Animal.


The Animal stirs
and sieves. Cupping
a thousand grains
in its animal hand
grains that once were mountains,
now the colour of shellac,
rag, and bone

The Animal sits
looks seawards
at the smears
of grey and mauve
that mass at the horizon
like exhausted armies
defeated by the sun

The Animal rises
walks the path its made
its own, stares at the concrete cliff
And nods a greeting to itself,
A flock of splinters flushed
by its passing flies up, shattering
in a cry of russet and gold

The Animal. Closed and barred
Against the glow lies down
and stretches. its skin,
still tattooed by the last embers
of the light. Clasping a ring
of copper and gold
tight I close my eyes
against the night.

I do like this edit, and I think it works better than my original, although I don't think I would be comfortable using "my eyes" as I wanted it to have more of a imagined protagonist than a first person description, if you know what I mean. Thanks for the analysis though, much appreciated!


Best, Knot

.

[JamesG]

So I rewrote this poem after the criticism, still not too sure about the ending though. Waddayathink? Any better? Or much worse...

The Animal.

The Animal
looked seawards
at the clouds,
smeared with
grey and mauve
that massed at the horizon
like exhausted armies
defeated by the sun

The Animal
stirred and sieved
and cupped a thousand
grains in its animal hand,
grains that once were mountains,
grains that once were stone
grains now the
colour of shellac,
of rag, of bone


The Animal
rose and walked
the path it had
made its own, towards
the abandoned city,
a flock of splinters
flushed by its passing
flew up and
shattered in a cry
of russet and gold

The Animal
closed and barred
against the glow
lay down and stretched
its skin, still tattooed
by the last embers of the light.
Clasping a ring
of twisted copper and gold
it shut its eyes
against the night.

[CRNDLSM]

You can also edit your original post to have both versions (original and edit) so it stays at the top and people can follow the revisions

[Knot]

Hi James,
not keen on 'It' replacing 'the Animal' - leaves some very clunky line breaks. Also, if you're going to replace them, replace all of them. Why keep it in the first line which, is identical to the title except for a pointless comma?

What colour is 'rag'?

I don't think the first verse is pulling its weight. Might just be me not understanding the significance of the clouds, but ... what part does anything in it play in the rest of the piece?

In the final verse you have 'closed and barred' before ending with 'closed'. I'd suggest losing the first one. Is 'closed and barred' adding anything important?

Still not convinced that the past tense is helping the piece.

Best, Knot

.

[JamesG]

Thanks Knot. and thanks for taking the time to look again

not keen on 'It' replacing 'the Animal' - leaves some very clunky line breaks. Also, if you're going to replace them, replace all of them. Why keep it in the first line which, is identical to the title except for a pointless comma? Yes, struggling with that, I don't think I like the repetition of "it" either

What colour is 'rag'? This is probably an British thing, and an old thing, but when I was a kid there were what where called Rag and Bone men, who would go around, often on a horse drawn cart, and pick up clothes and junk to what we now call recycle. My memory of them, which is certainly not the reality, would be that they are painted in a palette of browns, which collectively is the colour of sand 

I don't think the first verse is pulling its weight. Might just be me not understanding the significance of the clouds, but ... what part does anything in it play in the rest of the piece? I quite like this opening as to me it, like Shute's The Beach, describes a character looking out, waiting for the end, so to speak.

In the final verse you have 'closed and barred' before ending with 'closed'. I'd suggest losing the first one. Is 'closed and barred' adding anything important? Yes, you are right, I will fix this.

Still not convinced that the past tense is helping the piece. I will play with this and see where I get

.

Cheers,

James

[Knot]

Hi James.

Yes, struggling with that, I don't think I like the repetition of "it" either

I'd suggest reinstating 'The Animal' in the text, but changing the title.

This is probably an British thing, and an old thing,

As an old British thing myself I recall (just about) the Rag and Bone men, but that stretch to 'colour of sand' escaped me (my association would be more with the metal than the cloth.) Perhaps one solution would be to begin the verse with 'rags and bone' (it follows on quite neatly from the end of S1)? Shellac is still a problem though, isn't it? Feels a bit to old fashioned for the post-apocalypse, and a quick search showed a bewildering array of colours (much like sand grains under a microscope, granted, but it still seems a stretch.)

I quite like this opening as to me it, like Shute's The Beach, describes a character looking out, waiting for the end, so to speak.

Sure, but that's also what's happening in S2, isn't it?

Best, Knot

.

[JamesG]

Hi James.

Yes, struggling with that, I don't think I like the repetition of "it" either

I'd suggest reinstating 'The Animal' in the text, but changing the title.
Agreed, although now I have to come up with a new title...

This is probably an British thing, and an old thing,

As an old British thing myself I recall (just about) the Rag and Bone men, but that stretch to 'colour of sand' escaped me (my association would be more with the metal than the cloth.) Perhaps one solution would be to begin the verse with 'rags and bone' (it follows on quite neatly from the end of S1)? Shellac is still a problem though, isn't it? Feels a bit to old fashioned for the post-apocalypse, and a quick search showed a bewildering array of colours (much like sand grains under a microscope, granted, but it still seems a stretch.)
I'll look at this, though it could be that I just like the work "Shellac" too much ;o)

I quite like this opening as to me it, like Shute's The Beach, describes a character looking out, waiting for the end, so to speak.

Sure, but that's also what's happening in S2, isn't it?
It is a continuation of the narrative I think, which is allowed, no?

Best, Knot

.