Sometimes Poetry

Quoth · February 2012

Sestinas are awesome.

Quoth · February 2012

Okay, so, about the sestina. You have the same problem that almost everyone ever who writes sestinas ends up with: your lines get longer as you struggle to make it to the end word. I wish I had sage advice for how to handle that, but I don't, really. Try to rephrase things? :?

Hilger · February 2012

Usually when I look at the night sky,
I feel a sense of deep connection with my fellow man.
I guess it's because I think of all the other people
Like me, who are doing the same thing
Trying to figure out the where the constellations are
Or how far away that star there is from the Earth.
And because I think of all the women and men
Down the long line of history
Who looked at a night sky much like this one
Except I guess without all the airplanes and satellites.
And because I think about how, in the beginning
We were all compressed into this one infinitesimal dot
Which exploded, becoming the universe
So that even the stars are like my brothers and sisters.

But as I look at the sky tonight, something is different.
I've changed. I don't feel it anymore.

Go easy.

Quoth · February 2012

Hello, new dude. So. The deal is, your poem is kind of a well-worn subject, but not so much a comfy blanket as a pair of holey socks. Your job is to figure out how to make it fresh and interesting, and the key to that is generally finding strong, concrete images to convey your theme. A better vehicle, if you will; and then you need to pimp your ride.

You also have a turning point at the end that you then drop without any explanation and what the heck? That's the part that seems interesting! WHAT is different? What happened? This is like when people update their status on Facebook with "Man, that sucked" or "I hate my life" and then leave you hanging. Don't do that.

How should you revise this? I'm assuming you have actually stood outside at various points and had these thoughts. Cool. Now strip-mine your memory to find all the sensory details of how this went down. Engage in some mental fracking. Blow the top off your brain and sort through the leavings to find the sweet, sweet gas inside. Explore the shift and what caused it, and how exactly things have changed. Don't be afraid to write too much.

That will be draft 2. After you've got that down, you can work on honing and refining and working on the actual language and structure of the poem. But first you need to put together the raw materials to make this better.

Wank · February 2012

When the stars all seem compacted
Into an audience above you
A vast intricate machine
Each of them is really as far from everything

As the next
As the next
As the next

When you sit with knees jack-knifed to chest
With the vague sense of conspiracy
That all those blinking lights are netted together
Tapping morse code, celestial gossip

When existential unease takes an elevator up your spine
As you swell and recede in the big empty
Just know they all feel the same way
Each of them is really as lonely

As the next
As the next
As the next

Wank · February 2012

Quoth wrote:

Okay, so, about the sestina. You have the same problem that almost everyone ever who writes sestinas ends up with: your lines get longer as you struggle to make it to the end word. I wish I had sage advice for how to handle that, but I don't, really. Try to rephrase things? :?

Think this works better...

The Arsonist And The Pianist

What happened was out of my hands.
Know that before you snarl and spit,
peering through smoked glass
on blackened bone,
the scattered signature of flame.
I never intended him to burn.

The sun rubbed red like a burn
between the skyline's clumsy hands.
Streetlamps sputtered weak flame.
Chins were capped by frozen spit.
The streets were old and cold as bone;
showing bare concrete through glass.

One light slipped from florescent glass
over dropsheets, paints, money to burn,
a piano smiling obsidian and bone.
I went with petrol can in hands.
The morning's missive, sealed by spit
said it would cradle a good flame.

The pianist's arrival jolted like an old flame
makes you spill champagne from your glass.
I couldn't explain to him, could not spit
it out. He sat and my face began to burn.
From cufflinked sleeves came pale hands
and chords replaced the marrow in my bone.

"For a while," I said to more than flesh and bone.
"You may play for a while." And the flame
cupped bright in my hands
while the notes soared to shatter glass.
It must have made his fingers burn,
that fever gouged in his brow, on his lips like spit.

But my position is official; the piano was a spit.
He skewered against it, untempted by each bone
I threw. So I started the burn.
He played furiously against the flame
even as the pedals glowed like blown glass
and fire licked and sniffed his hands.

"You don't have to finish it," I implored through hands
webbed guilty across my mouth. Behind a mime's glass
he played on and on and succumbed to his flame.

Quoth · February 2012

Works for me. I'll see if I can find any lines in particular to tweak.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to write an obit poem, help.

Elegy for Sisyphus

in memoriam, Roger Boisjoly

He rolled boulders off his lawn for hours
every day until his muscles were chained
to exhaustion, until sleep stayed precariously
balanced in his grasp instead of falling
downhill like a punishment for his failure.
"We were talking to the right people," he said, but
seven astronauts were dead, their faces replayed
nonstop on news channels as the shuttle exploded
every time he closed his eyes. Cancer
finally killed what guilt nearly crushed: a good man
shouldering the weight of his own impotence.
For almost thirty years he pushed
other engineers to do more, say more, to swear
on words binding as the Styx, where he now waits
quietly for the ferryman to row him across, to a field
green as a Florida summer, with no stones in sight.

Lilnoobs · February 2012

Hilger wrote:

~~Usually~~ when I look at the night sky,
I feel ~~a sense of deep connection with~~ my fellow man.
I guess it's because I think of all the other people
Like me, who are doing the same thingTrying to figure out ~~the~~ where the constellations are
~~Or how far away that star there is from the Earth.~~And because I think of all the women and men
~~Down the long line of history~~Who looked at a night sky much like this one
Except I guess without all the airplanes and satellites.
And because I think about how, in the beginning
We were all compressed into this one infinitesimal dot
Which exploded, becoming the universe
So that even the stars are like my brothers and sisters.
But as I look at the sky tonight, something is different.
I've changed. I don't feel it anymore.

Go easy.

Grind it to the nitty,

When I look at the night sky,
I feel my fellow man
trying to figure out where the constellations are
and because I think of all the women and men
without all the airplanes and satellites
and because I think about how I look at the sky
tonight, I don't feel you anymore.

Expand.

Wank · February 2012

Miss Chernobyl
We're going to join a Russian gang
Lie lengthwise on neoprene couches while
The tattoo artist sniffs and wipes his nose
We’ll whisper to each other that our lack of Russian
May be a problem
Da, you say
Krokodil, I say

The needle and ink are ready to sink
So you can put your teeth in my forearm
As the siniy unfurls your back
Sprouting gargoyles and angels
Hydroponics between your shoulder blades
Webbing cobalt blue over anemic white
You can return the favor and we'll leave with four smiles
Two etched infected into our arms
Two gritted on our faces

Next we hijack the ferry
From Athens to Santorini
Scaling the side with magnetic harpoons
Choking, grinning on carbon fumes
We clamber up our seascraper
To where families scurry like Bedouins
Unsnapping nylon tents in choice places
And we tell the crew that this ferry
Is now property of the Russian Mafia

[When you peel from your wetsuit, starboard
I look port as a gentleman would
And pretend not to notice
The small holes in your stomach]

We raid the kitchen in formal wear
Flogging the chef with strands of cappellini
As an example to the others
Then we eat spanokopita with our hips
Knifed up to the cold railing
And the foamchurning sea bruised below us

I want to swim the nightskinned Athens harbor
Until we both taste like salt
You want to cable-car up Santorini
To install suicide nets for stray cats
I want beaches made of powdered Greek gods
You want windmill sunsets, maybe Spain
We decide to do both

[When we fuck below decks
I notice your toes are starting
To go
But I’ve never liked feet anyways]

By the time Barcelona is Newark
And we stand under the same heatlamp
Dull red licking our cold faces
Trains rumbling by and by
There is a gap where your collar bone
Used to sit so pristine
And make me think of nothing at all

[Ticket stubs rub ink on my palm
We breathe steam at each other
And laugh even though
Your eyes are caving sockets now
Your pericardium has vanished]

And when you go the opposite way
Transmuting memories to asymptotes
My eyes are vacuum dry
Because you often slurred to me
How tears are such an old invention
And all isotopes decay

Griswold · February 2012

Wank wrote:

Miss Chernobyl

Man, this is tremendous.

Lilnoobs · February 2012

Quoth wrote:

Works for me. I'll see if I can find any lines in particular to tweak.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to write an obit poem, help.

Elegy for Sisyphus

in memoriam, Roger Boisjoly

He rolled boulders off his lawn for hours
every day until his muscles were chained
to exhaustion, until sleep stayed precariously
balanced in his grasp instead of falling
downhill like a punishment for his failure.
"We were talking to the right people," he said, but
seven astronauts were dead, their faces replayed
nonstop on news channels as the shuttle exploded
every time he closed his eyes. Cancer
finally killed what guilt nearly crushed: a good man
shouldering the weight of his own impotence.
For almost thirty years he pushed
other engineers to do more, say more, to swear
on words binding as the Styx, where he now waits
quietly for the ferryman to row him across, to a field
green as a Florida summer, with no stones in sight.

What are you looking for help with?

Quoth · February 2012

That poem got picked up but I still want to work on it. I guess just general stuff? Is it paced well, are the images working, etc.

Chake99 · February 2012

This is some pretty solid stuff. I particularly enjoyed the last verse of unknowable

And even if you took down the masks
To spew your rawest selves,
My eyes and ears are dirty windows.
You’ll always be fractions,
Ghosts swimming in my cerebral fluid,
We are cars passing awkwardly on the dark road.

The first three lines are so desperate and true. The fourth line could potentially by better, and the fifth and sixth I feel definitely play the proper role.

I also really liked Turing test too until the last verse. Arg I cannot find where in the thread it is now to quote, but I felt the machinery metaphor was carried out well. In the last verse dreaming on automatic as an image/concept didn't really resonate with me (like talking did), and I don't think you justified it fully enough.

I also would hazard that the final line "sometimes color seeps through" would be better either not there or with more connection to the rest of the poem. It stands in opposition to pretty much everything else, and thus I think should either be propped up (another verse, more references to color?) or scrapped.

There seem to be a bunch of words that you return to in your poems, like "anatomy" and "treadmill." This is natural, but if you find yourself using a word a lot between poems I'd suggest finding synonyms/similar words and then working out what circumstance each of them is better suited for.

Altogether Wank, I really enjoyed going through what you had written.

liquiddark · February 2012

I've been dicking around with my poetry file for a few days now, and wondering whether I should post them here to get some real perspective. I've decided that the worst that can happen is I get a lot of good feedback. I posted Storm Knot in TWB a while ago, but I believe it has changed a lot since then, so it goes in this set. Apologies for those who've seen it before. Also, there is some harsh language. Reader beware.

Spoiler:

Wank · February 2012

The best part of breaking up? Fifty percent of all songs you hear are now about you, and you have the material to write shitty poems for days.

If I had a time machine

I’d be such a fucking bastard

I’d make you fall

So hard, so fast

Your favorite drink

Your deepest fears

I’d be the sunshine under your eyelids

Put my words in all the right places

Then I’d rip myself right out of your ribs

And you’d be the one

Who cried day

After day

Like a fucking baby

Quoth · February 2012

Here's a breakup poem and also topical, crits appreciated as always:

Lent

He could give up so many things,
it’s hard to choose. Almost midnight
and the bottle of bourbon is empty,
girlfriend not answering his calls.
He would give up the tattoo of her name
on his left shoulder, but his boss gave up
on him last week, so he can’t afford it.
The lights of the all-night laundromat
filter through thin curtains, and he sees
spinning clothes, an old Asian woman
nodding off on a hard bench, her head
fighting gravity, giving up to rest on her chest.
A teenager dances as she tosses thongs
from washer to dryer, tight jeans, loose shirt
drawing the eye to curves that blur
behind a film of tears. He drags a hand
across his face, more wrinkles than yesterday,
more gray hairs, dirty shirts underfoot
and that girl so close he can smell
the watermelon gum ballooning from lips
pink as candy hearts. He gropes
for his last pack of cigarettes, shakes it,
one rumpled stick left. He lights up,
inhales cancer and exhales gray peace,
taps the burnt end absently into
an empty glass. Hard to choose
what he should give up, so he won’t. He licks
a calloused fingertip and dips it in ash,
smears it on his forehead, succumbs to sleep.

Lilnoobs · February 2012

Quoth wrote: »

That poem got picked up but I still want to work on it. I guess just general stuff? Is it paced well, are the images working, etc.

Reads fine to me.

Magell · February 2012

Wank, for your poem I'd take out one of the fucks. probably the first one so that it has more impact at the end, although it does have some nice impact at the beginning as well. So that's up to you, but one of them definitely has to go.

Quoth your poem, Lent, is amazing and I love everything about it.

Quoth · February 2012

Tell me how you really feel.

But seriously, that's... awesome? Thanks.

Klendy · February 2012

Topical and cliche poem incoming:

PANTOUM:

Speechless:
the way
You
move.

The way
your hips sway and
move
is more than just desirable.

Your hips sway and
your lips are licked
is more than just desirable
I want to keep you forever.

Your lips are licked
you're willing and ready
I want to keep you forever
here, in my arms.

You're willing and ready
to plunge that dagger
here, in my arms
watch me die.

Plunge that dagger,
you'll leave me
watch me die.
Don't.

You leave me
speechless,
don't
you?

Wank · February 2012

still writing break-up poems woo

forensics

I found your forensics
shampoo hanging sweet pockets
in the bathroom hall
a strand too long
too dark
on the white tabletop
from when you pulled your hair
from this side to
the other
but that was weeks ago and
evidence decays so
time of death is hard to determine

eb farnum · March 2012

I wonder what her tonsils taste like
twisting, turning
a burning pit in my stomach
blame it on stress and
rowdy weekends and
not on her skinny skeleton legs
that she crosses
(somewhat awkwardly) when she sits
black eyes on pale white skin
chocolate in some way
or another

I wonder what her tonsils taste like

Quoth · March 2012

Klendy wrote:

Topical and cliche poem incoming:

PANTOUM:

Speechless:
the way
You
move.

The way
your hips sway and
move
is more than just desirable.

Your hips sway and
your lips are licked
is more than just desirable
I want to keep you forever.

Your lips are licked
you're willing and ready
I want to keep you forever
here, in my arms.

You're willing and ready
to plunge that dagger
here, in my arms
watch me die.

Plunge that dagger,
you'll leave me
watch me die.
Don't.

You leave me
speechless,
don't
you?

I think this starts to get wonky at "is more than just desirable." Hips swaying has been given much attention in poetry--I think immediately of "I Knew a Woman" by Roethke--but, you know, it's a thing, but following it up with that line is not great. Really, avoiding "is" constructions tends to help any poem right away, and working that line into more of an image would be even better if you can manage it. We get that desire is happening, so you don't need to tell us. Unless the hips are, like, elephant hips swaying or something. Then it's a pretty different poem.

After that you've got more meh with "I want to keep you forever," especially when appended to "here, in my arms" because then I start singing Depeche Mode and I am a terrible singer. Licking lips is also well-worn ground but again, it's a concrete image and is pretty direct.

I like how it ends, but the dagger part... not so much. Whether it's meant more literally or as a sex euphemism, that bit needs a refresh.

Good on you for exploring the form! Keep at it. Just remember that when you're repeating a line, it had better be a good one, or at least one that gets better as it is repeated.

Quoth · March 2012

Wank wrote:

still writing break-up poems woo

forensics

I found your forensics
shampoo hanging sweet pockets
in the bathroom hall
a strand too long
too dark
on the white tabletop
from when you pulled your hair
from this side to
the other
but that was weeks ago and
evidence decays so
time of death is hard to determine

Is that "forensics" supposed to be in the first line, because it reads much better without it. I think you should push this harder and really reach for the forensics metaphor. The image of the hair pulling is great and I like the last line a lot.

Quoth · March 2012

eb farnum wrote:

I wonder what her tonsils taste like
twisting, turning
a burning pit in my stomach
blame it on stress and
rowdy weekends and
not on her skinny skeleton legs
that she crosses
(somewhat awkwardly) when she sits
black eyes on pale white skin
chocolate in some way
or another

I wonder what her tonsils taste like

A good first line, then not so good. Rework the next four lines and the rest is basically fine, though I'm on the fence about the parenthetical bit. But yeah, find a better way to describe stomach pain, stress, and weekends.

Wank · March 2012

Feint

Find a desert, Farafra or Gobi
Somewhere with swooping dunes
And pale sand that sticks
To your slimy body

When night drops cold on your head
It should gleam radioactive
Like teeth or powder gelatin
The sky should be ink

Crater yourself in the cool sand
Take the Verey flare
Align yourself, shoot

If any petrol still swims your veins
If your organs are not yet clockwork
The hiss and flick and launch
Lanced volcanic from your hand
Should quietly ignite you

Watch the flare rise
A greedy starsucker
A peptopink lantern
Saturating your marbled sweat
Washing your small slice of desert
In chemical light

Watch it hang hard
Eternities over your head
Blanching the constellations
Erasing the night
Redirecting planes and spy satellites
To fiery conclusions
Smothering Orion, cleaving the Twins
Making the dead more anonymous

Measure the time and
Mark the fall
Do not comb the sands
For a crisp black husk
Allow the dark back into your retinas
But remember that flare
Do likewise

Lilnoobs · March 2012

@Quoth

Some comments inside. I separate them out with bold and "//". Hope this helps.

Quoth wrote: »

Here's a breakup poem and also topical, crits appreciated as always:

Lent

He could give up so many things,
it’s hard to choose. Almost midnight
and the bottle of bourbon is empty,
girlfriend not answering his calls.

//have you thought about changing the movement between the bourbon and the phone call? A way to thread the emptiness of the bottle with the emptiness of the un-answered phone?

He would give up the tattoo of her name
on his left shoulder, but his boss gave up
on him last week, so he can’t afford it.
The lights of the all-night laundromat
filter through thin curtains, and he sees

//I assume the speaker sees the laundromat from his apartment window? I imagine it's across the street or something similar?

spinning clothes, an old Asian woman
nodding off on a hard bench, her head
fighting gravity, giving up to rest on her chest.

A teenager dances as she tosses thongs
from washer to dryer, tight jeans, loose shirt
drawing the eye to curves that blur
behind a film of tears. He drags a hand

//his tears or hers? I don't think it's necessary to say, but just curious.

across his face, more wrinkles than yesterday,
more gray hairs, dirty shirts underfoot
and that girl so close he can smell
the watermelon gum ballooning from lips
pink as candy hearts. He gropes

//the teenage girl description and movement is fantastic.

for his last pack of cigarettes, shakes it,
one rumpled stick left. He lights up,
inhales cancer and exhales gray peace,

//I wonder about the "cancer" comment. Is that what a smoker thinks? Is that what the speaker thinks? Is that an authorial interjection?

taps the burnt end absently into
an empty glass. Hard to choose
what he should give up, ~~so he won’t.~~ He licks
a calloused fingertip and dips it in ash,
smears it on across his forehead, ~~succumbs~~ falls to sleep.

Quoth · March 2012

Thanks! If I switch the bourbon/girlfriend part, will the next bit about "her" still make sense, or will I need to rework that as well? Yeah, the laundromat is meant to be across the street, should I clarify? Also yes to his tears, hence him wiping his face; unclear? You're right about the cancer thing, I should change that. I like succumbs for the sibilance but is it too much?

Thanks again, good stuff.

Lilnoobs · March 2012

I would need to think on the bourbon--phone call connection a bit. To me I think there's some opportunity there--perhaps something to do with the constant ringing of the phone and the sound an empty bottle makes? Or the way one looks at an empty bottle? Feels? I'm not entirely sure, I thought maybe that's a part to explore. Right now, the connection is apparent by juxtaposition only (this comes after that). So I wonder if there was another way to move between the two. I'm not entirely sure it's necessary, I just see an opportunity there. I wouldn't suggest removing the lines or even switching the order necessarily, but changing how they dance with each other.

I wasn't bothered by the tears--being either is fine by me. At first I thought he was in the laundromat with the people but that didn't make sense when I thought about it. Maybe see how others read it? Others who aren't looking at it critically?

I preferred the "across" and "falls" approach because of "Lent".
Is succumbs too much? Puts that last part in iambic. There's an extra "s" sound, but that last line is pretty filled with it anyway, "smears", "his", "sleep" ("across" if you choose).
Looking for the hissing like that of a (the) snake? I don't know.

Quoth · March 2012

Don't Let It Slip Away

My abuela wants to know what happened to the men who go up and down. Muy peligroso, she tells me, very dangerous. I don’t know what she means, so I shrug. Yo no sé, abuela. On the TV, I hear Hall and Oates try to persuade someone to bring back that lovin’ feelin’, whoa that lovin’ feelin’ cause it’s gone.

My abuela complains that her feet hurt. She sits in a recliner so I ask if she wants me to raise the footrest, and she smiles. Aye, si, por favor. Her ankles are webbed with spider veins, skin like rice paper. Her swollen feet are stuffed into brown loafers. Why are you only wearing one sock? I ask. Yes, I’m wearing two socks, she says. The credits roll on the TV. Tom Cruise slips on a pair of aviators. Was he ever that young?

The movie gives way to soccer, pre-Olympic matches that the US is winning and Cuba is losing. My abuela says all the Cuban players are brown sugar, mulatico, miranlo. We watch them pass the ball back and forth. She moves her legs and grimaces. I ask what’s wrong. My knees hurt, she says. I ask if she wants me to put the footrest down and she smiles. Aye, si, por favor.

Hall and Oates are still crooning to me. I need your love. Bring it on back. And then, baby, I know it. I know what she was asking me earlier. Tom Cruise. Top Gun. Abuela, I say, the men who went up and down. ¿Si? The men are okay, and the girl comes back at the end. She smiles. Que bueno.

m3nace · April 2012

time upon time upon
time gains velocity
sundering my gaze from the rest
their tongues throb too fast for me
to them mine thrashes too slowly

only by time travelers' synchronicity
does babbling exchange occur
and time upon time they skitter away
I fear time travelers are rare

such is the bane of immortality
time upon time upon

(I've thought about adding something about the end of time to it too but I don't know if it would detract from it overall. Maybe something like "it's about time" or whatever)
anyways is it even good? Does it make sense or is it too esoteric? Moreover is any of that ESL sticking out?

Quoth · April 2012

I'd say it's a little too vague. When you mentioned ESL I thought the poem could be about language and communication breakdowns, which is a cool topic. But "it's about time" is, uh, less cool.

Madpoet · April 2012

Random old things

KS wrote:

Her nails burn red lines down my back
Yet my cry is not one of agony
The pleasure, the pain, the sensations of life
Come together in our furtive fusion of bodies
She could be any girl, any night
But as she dies a little more beneath me
She is every girl, every love I ever had
Every tear I ever cried lies beaded in sweat on her breast
I wonder what god she is praying to as she cries out
As I sacrifice her, As she entombs me
We collapse, drained by our ritual frenzy
Dead in each others arms at the lovers' altar

KS wrote:

"I never meant to hurt you," you said
And buried yourself in lies instead
Next time I would rather be slain
Than forced to bear your mercy again

m3nace · April 2012

Hmm, vague you say. Okay, it's about the fact that as you get older time seems to pass by more quickly coupled with immortality. If you're immortal eventually your perception of time would become asymptotic to the speed of light and you could only talk with time travelers as they were jumping (or something like that) because everyone else would be talking too fast. Now to see how I can make it less vague.

Lilnoobs · April 2012

But is that how it would even work? As I get older and reflect on my life, time seems to be going quicker. However, when I'm in the moment like now, I don't perceive a distortion; that is, right now doesn't feel any quicker than anytime else.

I enjoy the paradox with the time traveler not being able to talk to anyone else because everyone else would seem to be talking too fast, yet in reality they are talking too slow, but the idea seems pretty complicated.

m3nace · April 2012

Hmm okay. Maybe it would work better as a vignette or something, perhaps it's too complicated for a poem.

Quoth · April 2012

m3nace wrote: »

Hmm okay. Maybe it would work better as a vignette or something, perhaps it's too complicated for a poem.

I think it's more that none of the stuff from your explanation was actually in the poem! Not in an approachable way, at least. Poems can be vehicles for complex ideas; there's no rule that says poems must be simple.

One thought would be to give the poem a title that points to the theme. "The Time Traveler's Lament" or something better. Another idea is to anchor what you've got in images that better convey the "plot" you've set up, and the character. Try to over-write first and then consider what you can pare back, once you know you're getting the message across.

Quoth · April 2012

Madpoet wrote: »

Random old things

KS wrote:

Her nails burn red lines down my back
Yet my cry is not one of agony
The pleasure, the pain, the sensations of life
Come together in our furtive fusion of bodies
She could be any girl, any night
But as she dies a little more beneath me
She is every girl, every love I ever had
Every tear I ever cried lies beaded in sweat on her breast
I wonder what god she is praying to as she cries out
As I sacrifice her, As she entombs me
We collapse, drained by our ritual frenzy
Dead in each others arms at the lovers' altar

KS wrote:

"I never meant to hurt you," you said
And buried yourself in lies instead
Next time I would rather be slain
Than forced to bear your mercy again

I'm going to say something that sounds mean but stay with me, I am not a jerk: what you've got is super trite. Even Alanis Morissette got to the ol' nails-on-the-back image many years ago. Spicy sex is big yawn, and sex as violence/death is also overdone. Heck, John Donne did it 400 years ago, that's how done it is. DOUBLE DONE PUN.

But! That doesn't mean you can't write about love and sex, because obviously you can, and make it not trite. The key is, instead of writing about this in vague terms where the girl becomes "every girl," make it actually about her. Who is she? Who is the speaker? What's so special about them? Why should I care? Set the scene better. Car? Bed? Closet? Maybe work up to it a bit by telling us what they were doing beforehand. Expand the scope. Tell us what happens afterwards. Even pornos have a little lead-up, right? They don't start mid-hump.

Wank · April 2012

W.S. Graham homage:

Madpoet · April 2012

Quoth wrote: »

Madpoet wrote: »

Random old things

KS wrote:

Her nails burn red lines down my back
Yet my cry is not one of agony
The pleasure, the pain, the sensations of life
Come together in our furtive fusion of bodies
She could be any girl, any night
But as she dies a little more beneath me
She is every girl, every love I ever had
Every tear I ever cried lies beaded in sweat on her breast
I wonder what god she is praying to as she cries out
As I sacrifice her, As she entombs me
We collapse, drained by our ritual frenzy
Dead in each others arms at the lovers' altar

KS wrote:

"I never meant to hurt you," you said
And buried yourself in lies instead
Next time I would rather be slain
Than forced to bear your mercy again

I'm going to say something that sounds mean but stay with me, I am not a jerk: what you've got is super trite. Even Alanis Morissette got to the ol' nails-on-the-back image many years ago. Spicy sex is big yawn, and sex as violence/death is also overdone. Heck, John Donne did it 400 years ago, that's how done it is. DOUBLE DONE PUN.

But! That doesn't mean you can't write about love and sex, because obviously you can, and make it not trite. The key is, instead of writing about this in vague terms where the girl becomes "every girl," make it actually about her. Who is she? Who is the speaker? What's so special about them? Why should I care? Set the scene better. Car? Bed? Closet? Maybe work up to it a bit by telling us what they were doing beforehand. Expand the scope. Tell us what happens afterwards. Even pornos have a little lead-up, right? They don't start mid-hump.

Heh.. I would never in a million years defend my writing against accusations of triviality. Especially something I wrote like 15 years ago as a kid in college. I do like that you picked up that the girl was faceless. I think that was part of my point at the time, I was responding to the poem "Sex Without Love". I also remember being really proud that I came up with "dies a little more" on my own, though it's a pretty obvious one. Here's one from 5 years after that, it sets the scene a little better.

Memories of an Old Factory
I don't know when the smell of smoke became a turn on
But there she was in the doorway, tired and tipsy
She hurries to strip off her clothes, complains a little
The acrid smell permeating every article on her body

I'm tired, sweaty, and a little drunk, I think
About the time I came home with her, and the smell
Mixed with the sweat and the booze, the smoke in her hair
My hair in her face, My hands on her ass, we kiss

Now, I remember the kiss, the curves, the soft skin
Holding me inside her, holding my breath, the smoke
The smoke is all I can smell, I remember it well
An old factory, loud music, where what we shouldn't, we must.

I always saw poems on love and loss as the landscapes of writing - something easy and familiar to hone skills on, while still allowing for some chance for mastery to shine through. So, that's what I wrote about while waiting for something important to come along. (And, to be fair, at 17 they were pretty important.)

Every day we talk
And I try to be your friend
You tell me your problems
And I give you my shoulder to cry on

How am I supposed to tell you
How tainted my advice to you can be
When I listen to you tell your troubles
Sometimes I wish that I could be the cause

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