Blind Review Friday.The author shall remain anonymous (unless they chose to divulge themselves in the comments.)
Those commenting are also welcome to remain anonymous if they wish.
Incendiary comments will be removed.
If you would like your piece thrown to the wolves send it to salinger@ameritech.net with "Workshop the hell out of this poem" as the subject line.
Parapet
We have come to the edge
of this place, and there is no
stepping off that does not leave
something behind.
We chip away at morning to see
what lies beneath. Even the earth-
worm and the weed have infernal
engines that will not comply. Still,
we churn our garden, only to grow
things we think cannot die.
Everything has its end.
Even the mechanical jaw owes
its human hands – hands that plow
furrows deep in an earth that only
reveals the rocky strata of our myths
of ascent. The clay calls out beneath
our steel nests. When we sleep, we
remember when soft beds of hay
and a pennywhistle were enough.
Yet even with our cloven hooves,
we think it is us that have left
the light on.
Now our garlands hang high upon
towers of lilac and thunder, but it is
that strong wind that defeats us, always,
carrying the scent of all that we have
forgotten.
Monuments to nothing will fly and then
vanish. It is our hands that will remember -
plunged deep into a soil that gazes out
on a landscape with human eyes.
4 comments:
reminds me of the song
'where do the children play'
by cat stevens...well done!
I like this very much. I like its movement from stage to stage, how the theme of earth is woven thru each stanza in a slightly different way...
It felt a little jarring to have the mechanical jaws in the middle of it all .. though it does fit in a sense.. but with the rest being very natural that was the one element.-the wording of it perhaps- that I might suggest to change.
Overall this is a beautiful piece.
I think this is a brilliant piece, and it reminds me of Shelley's "Ozymandias."
My only criticism is that the phrasing seems awkward in the lines "we think it is us that have left / the light on." But I can live with that.
Well done....
As a whole I like this poem. But the part I see that might need some work is the beginning. "We have come to the edge of this place." is too vague for me. I assume, or visualize a cliff with a distant view. I would like to be told a specific place to start the poem. Thanks.
-tg
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