Nervous Cough

[rowens]

I guess I was supposed to've put the latest version on top days ago. It ends on a different note in this version; less hopeful than the first might or might not have been. But that doesn't matter if it's nothing but a pointless, thoughtless ramble, as a gang of critics on another forum told me. Leaving me feeling as if I'd insulted them in some way by posting it.

..................

I've formed a nervous cough
From some neurotic things that float inside,
And I've been digging through my unconscious
Trying to make it stop.

There's a nervous thought stuck in my throat
I've no hope of clearing out.
Even if I dry heave until I gag
I'm only stirring dead fish in an invisible pond.

I think it's a puddle with nothing in it,
That it's the hope itself being gone.
Now that it can't even see its reflection,
It feels it isn't there, never was.

While there might be an infinite world beneath the surface,
Without a hope in Hell, what does it matter?
Someone's invisible fish and talking wounds:
A whole sea life beyond my persona.

If I can't talk about it, I'm just going to cough.
Repress the fantastical visions until they're dead.
Dissolving the rest in island silences
Divorced from an ocean dense with words.








......................


I’ve formed a nervous cough
From some neurotic things that float inside,
And I’ve been digging through my unconscious
Trying to make it stop.

There’s a nervous thought stuck in my throat,
I’ve no hope of clearing out.
Even if I dry heave until I gag
I’m only stirring dead fish in an invisible pond.

I think it’s a puddle with nothing in it,
That it’s the hope itself being gone.
Now that it can’t even see its reflection,
It feels it isn’t there, never was.

While there might be an infinite world beneath the surface,
Without a hope in Hell, what does it matter?
Someone’s invisible fish and talking wounds:
A whole sea life beyond my persona.

If I can’t talk about it, I’m just going to cough.
Repress the fantastical visions until they’re dead.
But it was a fit for survival among the angels
That led the mammal to its first word.

[heslopian]

Some grammatical shit: I don't think you need the comma in L1 of verse two, and in the penultimate line "fit" should be "fight".
This poem reminds me of when I was just starting university and for a long time thought I had something lodged in my throat. Turned out it was just a psychosamatic reaction to stress. Your poem elegantly conveys fear and the dark inner mysteries which sometimes have physical manifestations. My favourite lines were the last two of verse two. They were surreal and weirdly effective. The last two lines of the poem, meanwhile, are the perfect close. I like poetry which refers to man's origins, spirituality and evolution. Thanks for the read

[rowens]

I remember that I took that comma out and then put it back before I posted it. It doesn't make sense to be there, but I was trying give a vague distance between 'my throat' and 'I've' as subjects. On the version I copied out I removed it again. I knew somebody here was going to get me about that comma.

I was thinking 'fit' could play on its several meanings. Can you see it that way?

[popeye]

Enjoyed the read rowens, being able to express oneself without fear should be the first thing we are taught! Perhaps an ellipsis after 'throat' might work and I guess you do mean 'fight' and not 'fit'? Cheers, keep up the good work!

[rowens]

The comma can go, it's not necessary. The angels fighting is too direct an image. 'Fit' is open to a broader interpretation. As I see it anyway.

[addy]

There was a satisfying evolution to this piece... can't stop thinking about the last two lines. thanks for sharing this

[billy]

I’ve formed a nervous cough
From some neurotic things that float inside,
And I’ve been digging through my unconscious
Trying to make it stop.

There’s a nervous thought stuck in my throat,
I’ve no hope of clearing out.
Even if I dry heave until I gag
I’m only stirring dead fish in an invisible pond.

I think it’s a puddle with nothing in it,
That it’s the hope itself being gone.
Now that it can’t even see its reflection,
It feels it isn’t there, never was.

While there might be an infinite world beneath the surface,
Without a hope in Hell, what does it matter?
Someone’s invisible fish and talking wounds:
A whole sea life beyond my persona.

If I can’t talk about it, I’m just going to cough.
Repress the fantastical visions until they’re dead.
But it was a fit for survival among the angels
That led the mammal to its first word.

i really enjoyed the poem. it's contradictory in places
but i think that only add to piece. it has a sense of fear about it, fear of self. when things are hammering to come out but you bite your tongue...well that not it. it's more like a fear of not being noticed. no nits though i thought the last two lines spoiled it a little for being trite. i'm not sure they have any relevance to the rest of the poem which i found to be personal and strong.

thanks for the read.

[rowens]

I think the ending is making a general statement about humanity. While the speaker ends with the resolve to keep coughing neurotically rather than give in to the delusions that would comfort him, the last two lines admit that humanity is based on delusion and fantasy. That's why I prefer the word 'fit' rather than 'fight' as others suggested to me, the angels are a fit, an outburst of desperation. And even if the speaker broke down and embraced faith, like you said, it would contradict itself.

[billy]

yes i see that's the case from your reply but i'm saying what i see, not what you know.
i still see it the same way, specially re the last line

[rowens]

If this wasn't a workshop site, I wouldn't say anything. But here I want to know what people see, and why they don't see what I see. But when it comes to poetry, it doesn't matter how you take it. I couldn't live with myself if I wrote a poem everybody could agree on. That would make me nervous.

[billy]

and i do agree and accept that. it's one of the reason this hovel was set up
all along the poem was about the 1st person.
then all of a sudden it ends with angels and mammals.

But it was a fit for survival among the angels i just don't see any relevance of this line.
That led the mammal to its first word. and the continuation to this doesn't hold water on any level. it's all ended up with a christian type of reason why we began talking. while the use of hell in the poem worked well, the religious aspect inferred doesn't and of course that's just how i read it. hence i thought it a bit trite, and still do.

i don't see what you see because i'm not you, because you didn't allow me to see it (in the last two lines at least)
the feel that 1st person in the poem is comparing his cough to the beginning of language feels out of sorts he isn't fighting angels, he's fight his fears. or whatever emotional thing it is that's stopping him voice the words. i can't see that he sees those he stands before as metaphorical angels.

[rowens]

I agree with you from your point of view, having read it in that way. I'm not trying to defend the poem as much as I'm trying to come to terms with other people's experience of it. That's the whole point really. I see how the last lines can be seen to come out of nowhere, and seem out of character with what's heard from the speaker up to then.

There was a hope that is gone. A hope that lived with fantastical visions and talking wounds in a schizophrenic ecstasy that he's trying to repress and not talk about. I'm trying to express his thought processes. If I failed, that was part of the risk. There's no fighting angels:

I can't expect people to see the schizophrenic logic of the last lines, that's the main contradiction. But that's the feat I've been trying, and failing, to accomplish: the angels aren't angels yet, not believed in angels or metaphysical angels or abstract angels, but something's throwing a fit that will later be seen as angels or daimons, maybe I could have said "A fit for survival among future angels [or simply, the angel]"; 'angel' or 'daimon', both have unfortunate connotations. The mammal is obvious and trite, as you say. But something is happening to an animal that can't even know the concept of "happening" or "something". 'Word' can be a metaphor. The speaker can know things though. As far as he knows, all his shared experiences aren't really shared.

---

I've a "primitive" use of poetry. Like "philosophy" in the old, magical ways.

[rowens]

Now I have a few more drafts. I go at it like a method actor. I live them out in my head, and sometimes worse. Now I have to decide on the drafts.

[billy]

i hope you don't go too far with the edit. (it must be really bad inside your head )

[rowens]

I made three new poems, and two alternate versions out of this one. I’m trying to merge the two.

It’s an organic thing, I like it to be open-ended, and subject to mutation. Like a magic spell that works on logic like a virus.

In the process of the original poem, the last four lines were made a good while after the rest. Usually you’d grab a last line like the end of a thread or an electric outlet that runs through the foundation, rewiring the whole thing. But here, only the last four lines are infected. I have to sit with the thing and tell it, “I have to punch out one of your eyes to put in a window so someone else can see.” Then I have to cut into it. But you can’t sedate a poem. If you can sedate it, it don’t work. But that’s me. I have the obsession to see a ’revision’ instead of an ’edit’.

[rowens]

I salvaged everything but the last two lines which I elaborated elsewhere to better draw out my intended effect.

Nervous Cough

I've formed a nervous cough
From some neurotic things that float inside,
And I've been digging through my unconscious
Trying to make it stop.

There's a nervous thought stuck in my throat
I've no hope of clearing out.
Even if I dry heave until I gag
I'm only stirring dead fish in an invisible pond.

I think it's a puddle with nothing in it,
That it's the hope itself being gone.
Now that it can't even see its reflection,
It feels it isn't there, never was.

While there might be an infinite world beneath the surface,
Without a hope in Hell, what does it matter?
Someone's invisible fish and talking wounds:
A whole sea life beyond my persona.

If I can't talk about it, I'm just going to cough.
Repress the fantastical visions until they're dead.
Dissolving the rest in island silences
Divorced from an ocean dense with words.