Embalming air

[sun_sparks]

I played with the character in this some more when revisiting adat's comments. 

v2

Embalming air
 
Sun ghosts grey through
blue-hazed diesel fumes.
 
Sideways she pushes through, apologizing,
no belonging here.
 
Apple-sweet aromas of plastic-wrapped decay
spill from shadowed lanes.
Bile rises, swallowed hard.
 
There’s a pigeon, neck-broken,
lying by glass tower doors.
 
Salt-clammy sweat stings
on blotched-red AC-prickled arms.
No salve for her skin.
 
Grumbling offroaders block her crossing,
horns blasting.
Black-tinted window slides down,
a standing child, watching.
Not her baby, home.
One will die.
 
Deep-growled acceleration scythes
through embalming air.
She gasps.
Brakes squeal.

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Original

Embalming air
 
Sun ghosts grey through
blue-hazed diesel fumes.
 
She apologises through a group; 
alien here.
 
Apple-sweet aromas of plastic-wrapped
decay spill from shadowed lanes—
bile rises, swallowed hard.
 
Salt-clammy sweat stings
on blister-flushed AC-prickled skin.
 
She squeezes between jammed SUVs
horns erupting in frustration
followed by the eyes of a child from the sunroof beside.
 
Deep-growled acceleration scythes
through grime-textured air.
Brakes
squeal.
 
She turns to witness
the world dying
in irrevocable motion.

[adat]

nice poem and imagery! here is some feedback:

Embalming air
 
Sun ghosts grey through
blue-hazed diesel fumes.  i like this imagery
 
She apologises through a group;  unclear what this means -- it conjures up apology through a group-chat, which i am not sure is correct (and also is not very evocative)
alien here.    
 
Apple-sweet aromas of plastic-wrapped
decay spill from shadowed lanes—
bile rises, swallowed hard.   this is great, but should it be "aromas" or "aroma"?
 
Salt-clammy sweat stings
on blister-flushed AC-prickled skin. what does blister-flushed mean? can one just say blistered? and normally most of your skin won't have blisters, so what's going on? sun-blistered?
 
She squeezes between jammed SUVs  this might be stronger without specifying "she"? "Squeezes (or squeezing) between ..." ? needs ending comma, too
horns erupting in frustration needs ending comma
followed by the eyes of a child from the sunroof beside.  could be reworded to be stronger, passive verb + detail about the sunroof (and the fact that it is beside) clutter the meaning here
 
Deep-growled acceleration scythes
through grime-textured air.
Brakes
squeal.
 
She turns to witness
the world dying   so far so good, though i am not very good at judging enjambment
in irrevocable motion.   again, feel this could be reworded to make it stronger

[sun_sparks]

nice poem and imagery! here is some feedback:

Embalming air
 
Sun ghosts grey through
blue-hazed diesel fumes.  i like this imagery
 
She apologises through a group;  unclear what this means -- it conjures up apology through a group-chat, which i am not sure is correct (and also is not very evocative)
alien here.    
 
Apple-sweet aromas of plastic-wrapped
decay spill from shadowed lanes—
bile rises, swallowed hard.   this is great, but should it be "aromas" or "aroma"?
 
Salt-clammy sweat stings
on blister-flushed AC-prickled skin. what does blister-flushed mean? can one just say blistered? and normally most of your skin won't have blisters, so what's going on? sun-blistered?
 
She squeezes between jammed SUVs  this might be stronger without specifying "she"? "Squeezes (or squeezing) between ..." ? needs ending comma, too
horns erupting in frustration needs ending comma
followed by the eyes of a child from the sunroof beside.  could be reworded to be stronger, passive verb + detail about the sunroof (and the fact that it is beside) clutter the meaning here
 
Deep-growled acceleration scythes
through grime-textured air.
Brakes
squeal.
 
She turns to witness
the world dying   so far so good, though i am not very good at judging enjambment
in irrevocable motion.   again, feel this could be reworded to make it stronger

Thank you for this feedback adat. I really appreciate you taking the time to review and review this, as well as my other poem! Will review. 

I fell into the trap of reworking this too much. Need to give it some space in my mind... your perspective truly helps!

[JC_Chalant]

[quote="sun_sparks" pid='275899' dateline='1763288277']
I played with the character in this some more when revisiting adat's comments. 

v2

Embalming air
 
Sun ghosts grey through
blue-hazed diesel fumes. (gorgeous opening, atmospheric and sensory)
 
Sideways she pushes through, apologizing,
no belonging here. (interesting introduction to our poem's POV. She’s on foot, it’s crowded where she is, she feels out of place. I enjoy the rhythm between S1 and S2, the slant rhyme on fumes/through, the full-stop from the declaration of “no belonging here”)
 
Apple-sweet aromas of plastic-wrapped decay
spill from shadowed lanes.
Bile rises, swallowed hard. (I think she’s walking past trash-filled alleyways here, but it’s not fully clear. Is the bile rising due to the stench or her own inner turmoil? Also not fully clear, but that feels perhaps intentional. A sense of unease is really being chiseled into the poem. "ghosts," "decay," "shadowed lanes," "bile" all carry that idea through)
 
There’s a pigeon, neck-broken,
lying by glass tower doors. (Love these lines, the symbolism is so strong and concise. The pigeon, a common bird of the common people, juxtaposed with the glass tower, a representation of the elite, the upper-class, the “unblemished” so to speak. And the bird is not just dead but had its neck snapped presumably by flying into the glass tower, so in essence the working class crushed swiftly and unexpectedly by an aristocracy, tricked by an illusion of the elite, and it’s just lying there, without fanfare, something that happens everyday. And since we're here on the street with our POV, we can't help but feel like the pigeon too)
 
Salt-clammy sweat stings
on blotched-red AC-prickled arms.
No salve for her skin. (It seemed previously that she was outside, but now her skin is AC-prickled, as in the goosebumps caused by cold air conditioning… perhaps she’s been in a car this whole time? There’s a clear sense of discomfort in this stanza, and a sense of hopelessness from the lack of recourse [“no salve for her skin”] but I got a bit lost in these lines.)
 
Grumbling offroaders block her crossing, (there’s so much strong imagery and symbolism in the poem that the idea of “Grumbling offroaders” comes across a bit flat. The stakes have been high but now they’ve been lowered. We've carried a sense of displacement and a throughline of anxiety in the poem, this POV is going somewhere specific and it's filled with foreboading but it's also urgent, and to be blocked by some grumbling feels like a bit of a let down)
horns blasting.
Black-tinted window slides down,
a standing child, watching. (Eerie!)
Not her baby, home.
One will die.  (Very cryptic. I’m left asking who will die? These two lines –  “Not her baby, home. / One will die.” – carry so much, and they feel like the crux of the poem. They are just tantalizingly ambiguous and stay in the mind after reading. I do find myself wanting just a tiniest bit more of a breadcrumb as to their meaning – not that it has to be fully revealed but a further clue would perhaps strengthen the poem altogether by giving a clearer understanding of the emotional logic of the situation this woman finds herself in.)

Deep-growled acceleration scythes (love "scythes" here, plays right into the string of death-adjacent symbols we’ve encountered throughout the poem)
through embalming air.
She gasps.
Brakes squeal. (strong return to the title and ties up our readers journey well with a clear image striking with immediacy. All that anxiety we felt throughout the piece culminates in this gut punch of an action.)


My overall thoughts on the poem are that it conveys feeling very well through its imagery and language. The meaning is just out of reach for me. There are places where I was pulled out a bit because the descriptions weren’t quite clear, and there’s a vagueness to the poem that while I think is intentional is perhaps a notch too open-ended. If tightened just a bit, its message will hit even harder and really stay with the reader.

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