Metempsychosis

[Aish]

Vintage eschara,
with pin-hole star mouths
and wormy tongues

bore
through reinforced hulls
and calcified pollution.

Phoneme linked pheromones,
hot and naked in the center.

Vintage eschara,
with pin-hole star mouths
and wormy tongues;

the entombed are alive.

Alive,
and wicked
and dreaming...

[billy]

i quite like the idea of coral being hell though i'm not sure if i got it right?
i know it could mean we come back as little yucky things but it sounds like a good representations of one of the levels in dante's inferno

[Philatone]

hello, aish!

most of my comments are biased towards my personal style and a lack of a firm grasp on the material; take what you will!

Vintage eschara,
with pin-hole star mouths ...maybe includes one more adjective than I would like normally
and wormy tongues

bore ...was not a fan of the single line for this. also, played with making this present tense to make it more immediate
through reinforced hulls
and calcified pollution.....like the images i'm getting, especially the "hulls" --great choice. I did want "pollution" to be a little more specific and concrete, though the "calcified" does make it seem more tangible. I like how you display the power of these tiny creatures

Phoneme linked pheromones, ...initially read this as "phoneme-linked", where "phoneme" is an adjective. overall, this stanza leaves me puzzled. I'm having trouble placing the "center"; center of the creatures? the ship? something more religious (as suggested by the title)?
hot and naked in the center.

Vintage eschara,
with pin-hole star mouths
and wormy tongues; ...the repetition makes this chant-like. i'm imagining a witch's spell almost. also suggests a cycle

the entombed are alive. ...seems somewhat open. I took it as either these eschara inside of a sunken vessel or perhaps the ship just sunk, and the people are drowning. regardless, the words given lend it a sinister quality
Alive,
and wicked ...for me, dropping the "and" adds a bit of impact for the ending
and dreaming...

i apologize because i am sure i'm way off base. regardless, i hope this can help

[Todd]

Hi Aish,

I'm not sure I'm getting this, but I'll give it a try. Thank god for the title. Taking it into account, I think we are visually being introduced to the process of reincarnation or transmigration. Whether this is intentional or not this has almost a Lovecraftian feel to it with the underwater feeling and the pin-hole star mouths with their wormy tongues. It's a bit ominous.

Vintage eschara,--as with other work of yours, I like the word choices. Vintage is an interesting modifier. In the context, it suggests something a little more than age. It suggests that perhaps the thing or what the thing represents is returning into fashion. Otherwise it would just be old or ancient. There's a sense of quality conveyed by vintage.
with pin-hole star mouths
and wormy tongues--like the horror of this image. It strikes me as being an image representing physical death. The tongues being a method of conveyance.

bore
through reinforced hulls
and calcified pollution.--so we have something external that bores through the body I'm guessing. Pollution is an interesting addition. It's like we build up a shell as we walk through our lives. This could be a more figurative hardening of our ideas or how we limit ourselves in our preconceptions.

Phoneme linked pheromones,--This is a bit of a mouthful. So, trying to work this out. Maybe this is the primitive sense of life, communication and identity. The pheromones make me think of attraction or sexual connection and the phonemes make me think of the basic sounds of language...perhaps this is saying that after death we are restored to something less complicated more primal...in a way more pure...not sure just thinking out loud
hot and naked in the center.

Vintage eschara,
with pin-hole star mouths
and wormy tongues;--repetition for emphasis...no issues with that

the entombed are alive.--so, the body is a tomb that we are buried within. At least that's how I'm reading it. I like that that which we fear is actually meant to help us. We've misinterpreted everything.

Alive,
and wicked
and dreaming...--Not sure I like the repetion of alive on the stand alone line. Another possibility might be to change the above end punctuation, eliminate the second alive and then bring it back later...something like:


and wicked
alive and wicked
and dreaming...

That may or may not be any better just something to consider.

A good read.

Best,

Todd

[Leanne]

Now, I'm probably way off base and driven by my own self-interest as a reader/writer/nerdy pants... but I see this as the (often insidious) shift of poet to poem to reader/critic.

There is a sense (again, it might well just be me!) that within that reinforced hull of indifference/disdain/simple forgetting are the living words, waiting to possess the unwary but starving mass.

Or it may just be that I need some breakfast.