07-12-2016, 01:01 PM
(07-01-2016, 12:09 PM)lizziep Wrote: You are the Watch Man –I read this late last night and was gushing with praise. I typed up comments with my thumbs (using phone) and then something happened and my feedback wouldn't post. I do not want to get into all the specifics I said all over again. Sorry but that is just too tiresome
– synchronized –
on time,
in rhyme,
clock chime.
Your ideas are precise
and p.u.n.c.t.u.a.t.e.d.
Your t's are always perfect,
a package intact,
like little perfect crosses.
Your baptism beliefs
– so streamlined –
are written
clean
in decisive cursive –
one-sided,
double spaced on black
ruled
tablets – then filed in cold,
smooth
cabinets, in manila envelopes,
sealed
with lined, white
labels.
You are a trash compactor
feeding yourself archaic decay
that you force into cubes
with magnificent effort,
bending rust
into sharpened edges.
Oh, dad, what a sin I am to you,
the foul stench
of curved flesh
in your solid, metal cubes –
the i missing its dot.
Original Version:
You are the Watch Man
—synchronized—
on time,
in rhyme,
clock chime.
Your ideas are precise
and p.u.n.c.t.u.a.t.e.d.
Your t's are always perfect,
a package intact,
like little perfect crosses.
Your baptism beliefs
—so streamlined—
are written clean
in decisive cursive—
one sided, double spaced
on a ruled yellow legal pad—
then filed neat in gray cabinets,
in beige manila envelopes,
sealed with lined, white labels.
You are a compactor,
feeding yourself archaic decay
that you force into cubes
with magnificent effort,
bending rust
into sharpened edges.
Oh, dad, what a sin I am to you,
the foul stench
of curved flesh
in your solid, metal cubes—
the i missing its dot.
(Slight edits in response to feedback, 7/1/16.)
Let it suffice to say that I love the revised version and I think it is a great poem. My one suggestion is to bring back the word yellow in your stanza about writing on the lined pads. I think the yellow is significant because the yellow indicates legal pads, an aspect which is integral to your character IMO.
"Write while the heat is in you...The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with." --Henry David Thoreau

