Heart of Darkness

[Erthona]

Thanks for the read Geoff, just getting through it is yeoman's work. I think I agree with most of your suggestion, and a number I will incorporate. I'll respond to others below just to give you my thoughts on it, although not necessarily to justify how I wrote it. In regards to your end statement:

"again, my biggest comments would have to be that 1) this is an immensely personal piece on part of the speaker, which leads to 2) as a reader, I have little investment or stake in what happens. Yeah, some good ideas and lines are peppered throughout this. I like the opening; it gave me something to grapple with, but as the sword goes, I felt like I was floundering a bit. Again, just my own take; I hope some of this can help"

I don't know if that is good or bad. I was trying to go for the feeling of extreme isolation, as though one were looking at a drama occurring within a bubble and the observer is on the outside looking in. Not unlike someone looking through the thick glass window in the door that leads to a padded cell, at a person in a strait-jacket. You can see him writhing and screaming but really can't hear the sound.
I think you make a valid point, but I am unsure if I can, or even should try to do something about it, as the point is that hell is being isolated from everything except yourself.
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"the requisite two hundred times. ..."requisite" felt a little extra to me" I may need to look at that, if for no other reason it seems somewhat clumsy. It was meant to refer to the number of times the metal of a samurai sword must be folded in order to give it the necessary strength and tensile cohesion needed to produce such a sword.
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""concentrated" and "cancerous mass" feel redundant to me"

Got a little too carried away with the alliteration
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"inexorably downward toward greater darkness....these three lines have been rather abstract; grounding them in something more tangible could be helpful"

Actually that's sort of funny, as there was more and I cut it thinking it was too wordy. Of course I didn't save it. I will think on what I can do there. I want to emphasize the idea of an exposed nerve more, maybe something along the lines of having the skin flayed from your body. This idea originally comes from the stories of the Shaman's journey where he is dismembered and then put back together as a new being. Of course in this there is no being put back together. BTW, I did actually experience something quite close to what I am describing. Two incidents actually, ironically, neither having anything to do with actual physical pain, but rather the response of an imbalance in brain chemicals. One self induced, and the other as a result of medication given to me prior to a surgery I was going to have, and the abrupt cessation of medicine they already had me on. Very unpleasant!
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"...ok; something like "my will is no longer mine" could be a little more striking I think"
That's a very good suggestion.
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"...now this "whet-stone of my despair" felt a little too romantic for me"
Oh.. I kind of liked that one

I was trying to distinguish that this was a psychic experience, although ai was describing it in terms of physicality. Plus the fact that it was for the most part self induced.
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"... I liked the beginning because it gave me something to imagine and connect with, what with the image of the sword. as the poem gets more personal and individual, I lose touch personally"

Not sure I have an answer for that.
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"...the quotations were interesting. I don't think you need them, especially when you drop them in the second half of the stanza! I would either drop all of them or add more, but I'm in favor of the former"

Nah, the quotation marks are clumsy, they should have been removed. I will when I revise it...if I don't forget again
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"What is this talk about a devil . . . Satan,...why the ellipsis? if you can explain it to me, ok, but I don't get much from it"

I was trying to go from the general devil, or demon, to the specific "Satan", as this, as will later on show, is referencing Milton's "Paradise Lost". Probably not the best way to go about it though.
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"...the ideas I am ok with, but the presentation I was not fond of. So you are having this battle/ monologue with yourself. and that is just it; as a reader, I felt I had no part in this"

I think I conveyed what I wanted, it was not done however, in the most "euphonious" of ways I'll have to agree.

I'm not sure that you not connecting as a reader is because I am failing to give you something to connect with, or your experience only allows an intellectual comprehension of what I am describing. That's not derogatory. I can remember people describing things they were going through when I was younger that I really had no conception of until I had similar experiences. I suspect it is some of both, as this is a challenging piece to put out there in a viable way, and there also must be some personal experience on the part of the reader to be able to connect to it. Regardless, there is no doubt it needs some shaping up, I'm just not sure I will every be able to overcome this particular hurdle.
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"of the rightness of your dogma ..."rightness" did not strike me as the best word"

"correctness" would be about the only other word I could think of, but maybe that would be better. "Rightness" is maybe to close to "righteousness". I'm open to suggestions.
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"Tell me then, you the answers. ....are "the answers" people or should there be a comma after "you"? I may be off"

That's a typo. I think I meant to say, "Tell me how will you answer when all your prayers fail, falling still born on the ground"

or something like that.

OK, found it. A result of editing and leaving something off that shouldn't have been.

"Tell me then, you with the answers, so say you!"

Obviously not a very clear line
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"and are exposed as pointless façades? ..."pointless" could be replaced with a word that gives imagery. how about "crumbling" or something?"

Actually just "facades" would probably be sufficient. what do you think?
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"...not sure how I feel about both questions and answers in a poem. a personal, stylistic thing"

That passage needs some work. I think you are getting a misreading on it because it lacks clarity.

"You ask, "Why must I suffer this pain; what must I do to stop it?
The only answer you receive is laughter,
laughter at your confusion,
laughter at your pain.
It is the laughter of sadistic,
they feed on your agony,
and laugh because hey know there is nothing you can do"

Something like that.
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Anyway, as I said, thanks for taking the time to read and comment, it's a long and difficult piece to wallow through. You have pointed out so things where I see I need to go back and rework a number of passages to get the meaning across, I would say more clearly, but as they are not clear at all...

Anyway, I'll let you know when I get it reworked if you want to slug through it again

Dale
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