Lake House

[MalingeringDove]

Out the glass panes
    Winds slash waves
              on a spring lake
    The sunlight
        repelled by gloom-
              like phantoms
bore by people born
                          from different worlds.

One, grown out of the soil
                  looking up
One born in the sky
                    peering down
through clouds

Living in shifts
          of coexistence
                wearing leather hoods
                        to avoid each others eyes.
Terrified that they might
            see their own contempts
                          reflection.
                     
Sharp words escape
    under whispered breaths
            digging in the other’s neck
The one saving grace
      in this house on the lake
            is telling yourself
There are worse places
        to be unhappy.

I have only been writing for about one month. All criticism is appreciated thank you!

[thewilderhen]

I found this disconcerting (which is a compliment, because you meant to make me -your reader- disconcerted). You set up the beginning nicely. Then you latch on to the two figures, using the word “like”. You tricked me a little bit. I thought the simile was over and you were going to talk more about the waves, the landscape. But you don’t. Instead you zoom in very close (very hostile) to the two figures. I don’t want to live in this lake house with you (this, too, is a compliment).

One thing I wonder. The leather hoods bit. It is detailed. It very pointedly gives your figures a 3-D presence, a breathing weight. It of course calls to mind the figure of the executioner, two mutual executioners in a death-dance evidently, by the end of your poem. But something about that detail of what they are wearing, or the way of phrasing it. It wobbled me a little past being disconcerted and started to pull me out of the scene a bit. I had to re-read that part over before proceeding.

I don’t have recommendations. It could be because you started to intellectualize or abstract your language in the line “of coexistence” but then zoomed back in to something very palpable and visceral: the leather hoods.

You have a strong start and I want to see your next draft! On a personal note, I live near one of the Great Lakes and lake houses are honestly so terrifying at night. Those waves! The sounds! Not picturesque, nope.