Name Game

[UselessBlueprint]

Name Game


1 (Not sure what the numbering does, really. The seperation seems awkward, almost random)
Your name

staked in your brain
like tracks of a railroad train. (was "railroad tracks" too hard to rhyme? A lot of extra words that make it sound unpleasant just for the sake of rhyme?)
 
If you had a different name,
would you be the same? (sort of a whimsical section here, which I actually think fits the position in the piece.)
 
2
From birth you are staked with a name (this is the sort of thing that bothers me for some reasons. I like beginnings at the beginning and endings at the end. I like Up to be up and Down to be down. In this case, birth is a beginning, but it is not at the beginning of the piece -- not even the first word in the line.)
hammering over your brain
like thousands of rattling trains (repeating the rhyme? not a fan of that...)
chuffing out rhythms proclaimed, (the line I like the most, even if poorly disguised the inversion is)
 
This is your name!
This is your name!
This is your name!
 
Do names limit lives
as tracks limit destinations? (slightly odd comparison, but it somewhat fits.)
 
Joe the plumber (this section has some weird sonics)
pulls pipes in Pittsburgh. (percussive P sounds don't mimic plumbing, they seem to suggest hammering)
Bob the builder
hammers houses in Houston. (and the aspiration of the letter H here suggests strenuous work, such as lifting, pushing, or pulling something heavy)
 
But where is Cletus the theorist?

Should have named him Theodore. (lost on the purpose of this and the previous line)
 
3
Imagine naming yourself.
 
Slower.
 
Imagine naming 
 
your 
 
self (that's a hell of a lot of whitespace)
 
without the tracks
your name has rattled, 
rattling you away.
 
Now, imagine 
your 
self
unnamed.
 
These pseudonyms won’t last. (this statement lacks support. Why do they not last? What makes them different from the other infinite amount of things that do not last?)

Only a mild critique here, of course. Personally, I think the idea is a perfectly fair one, but the style and execution make me cringe. I actually saw it in Novice first, but couldn't make myself read through it before. Critically, my biggest issues are the placement of "birth" in section 2, the awkward sonics in section 2, and the unjustified final line. I think that carrying the railroad tracks metaphor through the piece is useless if you don't make the tracks tangible, or at least audible. I'm not able to connect the idea of names with an image of tracks in my head -- and honestly, I'm not sure what should be changed to make that possible.