Pendragon
07-04-2007, 08:35 AM
For once, I ask you to critique my poetry. This is a trilogy I wrote, all dates and such removed. They are my own copyright and I won't say if they were ever published or not, because I want honest help with them.
Without further ado, The Shunned Trilogy:
Shunned I: Vision
I wend my way among you,
A skipping stone across the sea of faces that surround me—
Yet not one eye blinks in recognition of my passing,
Not one shining orb dares meet my own.
In the vast Ocean of Existence,
The faces dance with partners dressed in frilly foam.
They run their ceaseless races
To the sandy shore and back again,
Increasing speed as the tide draws to its climax,
Then tiring out as it slows.
My stone skips across the faces without stopping,
Then sinks slowly out of sight—
And out of mind.
So I make my circle smaller—
The ocean becomes a moonlit pond.
Surely, here, in this much tinier world
The eyes must acknowledge my presence,
I am just a displacement of air as I pass,
And the multicolored lenses give no heed.
Overhead the bats dance with the fireflies,
And the frogs strike up their band
Singing the “Greens.”
Eyes light the darkness all around like will-o-the-wisps.
But somehow I still manage to pass unseen,
A formless shadow among the shadows,
A ghost among the other unseen haunters,
Unseen by any eye, or at the very least denied.
So again I shrink my circle—
The pond becomes a puddle,
Just a fragment of the whole
Yet perhaps I will fit in somewhere now.
To my everlasting horror no reflection
Of my passing shows within the watery mirror,
As if I have become accursed--one of the “undead.”
Can it truly be I roam the earth a formless revenant?
The shades pull in the windows of the soul;
I sadly watch the lights that extinguish one by one.
No one has regarded me, or even given indication I was there.
I must press on. No peace for the lonely.
So I turn to one on one,
Mano a mano, Vis a vis,
Just two droplets, two specks of humanity.
Together we run like tears side by side
Down the face of Mother Earth.
Cannot you see now that we are the same?
But your eyes fail to focus on me,
Or even worse stare right through me,
As lava passes through the frozen snow.
Why do you deny me visual existence?
Your wishing won’t make me go away.
What do I have to do to gain your attention?
To impress on your recognition?
What do I have to do to make you see—
Me?
Shunned II: Sound
I cry out
But the sound of my pain is drowned
In the crescendo of noise
That is The Opera House of Life.
Here, each one imagines himself a Prima Donna,
Or a brilliant virtuoso on the instrument of choice.
So mid the wails of star-struck wannabes,
The screeching of the strings as though the cat were still alive:
Amid the bold discord of the brasses, blown by bloated porcine faces,
The whimpering of the woodwinds, finally forced into submission:
Amid the grumbling of the percussion—angry: smashing, crashing,
The Phantom tortures his pipe organ in wanton cruelty,
While his insane twin tickles the ivories until they shriek with pain.
The grimacing conductor draws arcane symbols in the air,
And waves his baton in silent fury as if to make it all go away.
And so I flee.
My cry next escapes within a grand cathedral,
With high vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows,
And fluted waterspouts with the hideous visages of gargoyles.
If God shall not forsake me, then surely His Children will also accept me.
But the noise is almost as bad as the Opera House,
And nearly as chaotic.
The usher points to a spot on the very last pew,
And passes me a white card and a pen with ink like blood to write thereon.
I glance around at the worshipers, each lost in a litany of their own,
Only to discover a recent escapee from the Catacombs beneath our feet,
Newly varnished with the latest in fashion,
Resplendent skeletons, but skeletons nonetheless.
Even the robes of the unharmonious choir,
And the vestments of the clergyman ascending to his precarious perch
Cannot hide the hollow eyes and flashing fleshless bone.
They are skeletons in robes and finery, devout in endless worship,
But skeletons have no ears and so they cannot hear my pleas.
So again, I depart in haste,
While the gargoyles seem to laugh to think that I’d find comfort here.
I brush past a man in robe and sandals, who stands knocking on the door…
No, God has not forsaken me. It is HE that has been forgotten…
Again, my cry is repeated,
This time in a Tower of Babel, a motley collection of sixteen persons
Each with the same or similar circumstances that have prostrated me.
“Vocalization of your troubles to those with like sorrows
Is the true Path of Enlightenment that shall free you from your self-imposed prison.”
The bored, overpaid instructor mouths the plaudits like a mantra,
In a dull, dead monotone that is anything but reassuring,
Yet it is the single tiny spark that ignites the volcano of voices.
Each tries to outdo the other, the hiss of tone on tone in an effort to overpower the other
Much like a lightsaber duel between good and evil.
Everyone is vocalizing, but no one has a receiver tuned to catch the words,
Far less to offer advice or encouragement,
Until I, even I, who have sworn never to speak without listening
Find myself caught up in the sheer madness of the moment,
Utilizing all my oratorical power to attempt to shut down all the rest
And let only my own desires and needs be heard.
With my fingers crammed into my ears, I dash from this new Tower of Babel.
This is not the answer that I seek—or need.
Again the impassioned plea resounds,
This time in a dank Oubliette, just The Keeper and myself
(I must be heard this time, for there is no one else but me!)
Yet the sorrowful tale echoes within the sound of silence,
For the remorseless Keeper, watching me with dead soulless eyes,
Has heard all this before from dozens of croaking throats,
And the clash of steel cup upon steel bars
Just adds sparks to the lifeless orbs,
And makes him cackle in pitiless amusement at my plight
I could have stayed within the raucous Opera House,
The grave-like cold Cathedral,
Or added my contribution to the Tower of Babel
With equally caustic end results.
Finally escaping from my heartless Keeper and his Oubliette of Horror,
I wander through the world, a world that seems not to want to listen
And bottle my emotions until the container overflows…
Shunned III: Touch
I prowl along the spider’s web of city streets,
Through the deep ravines made of glass, steel, and concrete,
My ears and eyes focused only upon the objects of my desire.
I carefully measure the pressure of each footfall,
So that I do not spook my quarry.
I blend with sunshine and shadow,
So a careless move does not ruin my stalking.
Even the angle of my approach is most carefully chosen,
As to give me best advantage.
But it is all to no avail.
Somehow they see me without seeing.
They hear me without hearing,
And they scuttle from my presence into a thousand hidey-holes.
My goal was just pleasant conversation
With other human beings,
But the sight and sound of my drawing nigh paints panic on them all.
The thing I suffer from is incommunicable,
But behold how they fear my touch!
I change my hunting grounds to the checkerboard
Of blocks within a picturesque small town.
Here the herds of humans are smaller,
And perhaps less easily startled into flight.
The hunt is much the same, a careful, well-thought out procedure,
Muffling my footsteps, making sure my shadow doesn’t give me away.
The target is a smaller group, a lesser concentration,
So I must be far more careful,
For there’s less noise to hide my thumping pump of fear.
Somehow they scent my presence,
And once again the frightened misconceptions
Cause full-blown terror-filled retreat.
They vanish within a moment as roaches before the light.
I might as well carry a sign about my neck:
LEPER! OUTCAST! UNCLEAN!
Cast ashes upon my head and fasten a bell to my wrist to toll in warning.
That’s how they seem to tremble that I might touch…
Ah, the smell of open country, dirt lanes and fields of hay!
Here a “town” consists of but a dozen weary houses,
Perhaps a small general store, and a church high on a hill.
This hunting ground is far from fertile,
Yet a few are better far than none,
So I zero in on the largest group:
(Should I choose the church or the general store?)
A hunter always can detect the weak,
So I center on the old men in the oak tree’s shade outside the store.
Funny how fast the old become the young
When they feel the least bit threatened.
They disappear like rabbits down every tiny hole,
The laughter from their latest raucous joke still hanging in the air.
I must add sackcloth to my disguise and a cowl for my face.
Perhaps I should also clink some pennies in a tin cup.
All to warn the others to beware my touch.
I’ve grown lonely with my unfruitful hunting,
And so I’ve finally given up.
I stand staring at the sign above the snow-white door:
PLEASANT GROVE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. ALL WELCOME.
All? Then that surely includes me!
Just walk on in. It’s that easy! I’ve gone about it all wrong.
I walk through the door into the sanctuary,
Feeling free for the first time in years.
But then every eye is riveted upon my person,
Extended hands fall limply by their sides,
Noses lift as if assailed by a pungent odor,
(Or as if afraid to breathe the air I’ve breathed!)
Feet echoing in the sudden silence, I scurry for the door.
Somehow I think The Carpenter would plait another whip…
It’s time to work on that sackcloth and ashes;
Time to paint my warning signs;
Time to polish the bell for my knell of danger
So that all may know to avoid my touch…
Without further ado, The Shunned Trilogy:
Shunned I: Vision
I wend my way among you,
A skipping stone across the sea of faces that surround me—
Yet not one eye blinks in recognition of my passing,
Not one shining orb dares meet my own.
In the vast Ocean of Existence,
The faces dance with partners dressed in frilly foam.
They run their ceaseless races
To the sandy shore and back again,
Increasing speed as the tide draws to its climax,
Then tiring out as it slows.
My stone skips across the faces without stopping,
Then sinks slowly out of sight—
And out of mind.
So I make my circle smaller—
The ocean becomes a moonlit pond.
Surely, here, in this much tinier world
The eyes must acknowledge my presence,
I am just a displacement of air as I pass,
And the multicolored lenses give no heed.
Overhead the bats dance with the fireflies,
And the frogs strike up their band
Singing the “Greens.”
Eyes light the darkness all around like will-o-the-wisps.
But somehow I still manage to pass unseen,
A formless shadow among the shadows,
A ghost among the other unseen haunters,
Unseen by any eye, or at the very least denied.
So again I shrink my circle—
The pond becomes a puddle,
Just a fragment of the whole
Yet perhaps I will fit in somewhere now.
To my everlasting horror no reflection
Of my passing shows within the watery mirror,
As if I have become accursed--one of the “undead.”
Can it truly be I roam the earth a formless revenant?
The shades pull in the windows of the soul;
I sadly watch the lights that extinguish one by one.
No one has regarded me, or even given indication I was there.
I must press on. No peace for the lonely.
So I turn to one on one,
Mano a mano, Vis a vis,
Just two droplets, two specks of humanity.
Together we run like tears side by side
Down the face of Mother Earth.
Cannot you see now that we are the same?
But your eyes fail to focus on me,
Or even worse stare right through me,
As lava passes through the frozen snow.
Why do you deny me visual existence?
Your wishing won’t make me go away.
What do I have to do to gain your attention?
To impress on your recognition?
What do I have to do to make you see—
Me?
Shunned II: Sound
I cry out
But the sound of my pain is drowned
In the crescendo of noise
That is The Opera House of Life.
Here, each one imagines himself a Prima Donna,
Or a brilliant virtuoso on the instrument of choice.
So mid the wails of star-struck wannabes,
The screeching of the strings as though the cat were still alive:
Amid the bold discord of the brasses, blown by bloated porcine faces,
The whimpering of the woodwinds, finally forced into submission:
Amid the grumbling of the percussion—angry: smashing, crashing,
The Phantom tortures his pipe organ in wanton cruelty,
While his insane twin tickles the ivories until they shriek with pain.
The grimacing conductor draws arcane symbols in the air,
And waves his baton in silent fury as if to make it all go away.
And so I flee.
My cry next escapes within a grand cathedral,
With high vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows,
And fluted waterspouts with the hideous visages of gargoyles.
If God shall not forsake me, then surely His Children will also accept me.
But the noise is almost as bad as the Opera House,
And nearly as chaotic.
The usher points to a spot on the very last pew,
And passes me a white card and a pen with ink like blood to write thereon.
I glance around at the worshipers, each lost in a litany of their own,
Only to discover a recent escapee from the Catacombs beneath our feet,
Newly varnished with the latest in fashion,
Resplendent skeletons, but skeletons nonetheless.
Even the robes of the unharmonious choir,
And the vestments of the clergyman ascending to his precarious perch
Cannot hide the hollow eyes and flashing fleshless bone.
They are skeletons in robes and finery, devout in endless worship,
But skeletons have no ears and so they cannot hear my pleas.
So again, I depart in haste,
While the gargoyles seem to laugh to think that I’d find comfort here.
I brush past a man in robe and sandals, who stands knocking on the door…
No, God has not forsaken me. It is HE that has been forgotten…
Again, my cry is repeated,
This time in a Tower of Babel, a motley collection of sixteen persons
Each with the same or similar circumstances that have prostrated me.
“Vocalization of your troubles to those with like sorrows
Is the true Path of Enlightenment that shall free you from your self-imposed prison.”
The bored, overpaid instructor mouths the plaudits like a mantra,
In a dull, dead monotone that is anything but reassuring,
Yet it is the single tiny spark that ignites the volcano of voices.
Each tries to outdo the other, the hiss of tone on tone in an effort to overpower the other
Much like a lightsaber duel between good and evil.
Everyone is vocalizing, but no one has a receiver tuned to catch the words,
Far less to offer advice or encouragement,
Until I, even I, who have sworn never to speak without listening
Find myself caught up in the sheer madness of the moment,
Utilizing all my oratorical power to attempt to shut down all the rest
And let only my own desires and needs be heard.
With my fingers crammed into my ears, I dash from this new Tower of Babel.
This is not the answer that I seek—or need.
Again the impassioned plea resounds,
This time in a dank Oubliette, just The Keeper and myself
(I must be heard this time, for there is no one else but me!)
Yet the sorrowful tale echoes within the sound of silence,
For the remorseless Keeper, watching me with dead soulless eyes,
Has heard all this before from dozens of croaking throats,
And the clash of steel cup upon steel bars
Just adds sparks to the lifeless orbs,
And makes him cackle in pitiless amusement at my plight
I could have stayed within the raucous Opera House,
The grave-like cold Cathedral,
Or added my contribution to the Tower of Babel
With equally caustic end results.
Finally escaping from my heartless Keeper and his Oubliette of Horror,
I wander through the world, a world that seems not to want to listen
And bottle my emotions until the container overflows…
Shunned III: Touch
I prowl along the spider’s web of city streets,
Through the deep ravines made of glass, steel, and concrete,
My ears and eyes focused only upon the objects of my desire.
I carefully measure the pressure of each footfall,
So that I do not spook my quarry.
I blend with sunshine and shadow,
So a careless move does not ruin my stalking.
Even the angle of my approach is most carefully chosen,
As to give me best advantage.
But it is all to no avail.
Somehow they see me without seeing.
They hear me without hearing,
And they scuttle from my presence into a thousand hidey-holes.
My goal was just pleasant conversation
With other human beings,
But the sight and sound of my drawing nigh paints panic on them all.
The thing I suffer from is incommunicable,
But behold how they fear my touch!
I change my hunting grounds to the checkerboard
Of blocks within a picturesque small town.
Here the herds of humans are smaller,
And perhaps less easily startled into flight.
The hunt is much the same, a careful, well-thought out procedure,
Muffling my footsteps, making sure my shadow doesn’t give me away.
The target is a smaller group, a lesser concentration,
So I must be far more careful,
For there’s less noise to hide my thumping pump of fear.
Somehow they scent my presence,
And once again the frightened misconceptions
Cause full-blown terror-filled retreat.
They vanish within a moment as roaches before the light.
I might as well carry a sign about my neck:
LEPER! OUTCAST! UNCLEAN!
Cast ashes upon my head and fasten a bell to my wrist to toll in warning.
That’s how they seem to tremble that I might touch…
Ah, the smell of open country, dirt lanes and fields of hay!
Here a “town” consists of but a dozen weary houses,
Perhaps a small general store, and a church high on a hill.
This hunting ground is far from fertile,
Yet a few are better far than none,
So I zero in on the largest group:
(Should I choose the church or the general store?)
A hunter always can detect the weak,
So I center on the old men in the oak tree’s shade outside the store.
Funny how fast the old become the young
When they feel the least bit threatened.
They disappear like rabbits down every tiny hole,
The laughter from their latest raucous joke still hanging in the air.
I must add sackcloth to my disguise and a cowl for my face.
Perhaps I should also clink some pennies in a tin cup.
All to warn the others to beware my touch.
I’ve grown lonely with my unfruitful hunting,
And so I’ve finally given up.
I stand staring at the sign above the snow-white door:
PLEASANT GROVE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. ALL WELCOME.
All? Then that surely includes me!
Just walk on in. It’s that easy! I’ve gone about it all wrong.
I walk through the door into the sanctuary,
Feeling free for the first time in years.
But then every eye is riveted upon my person,
Extended hands fall limply by their sides,
Noses lift as if assailed by a pungent odor,
(Or as if afraid to breathe the air I’ve breathed!)
Feet echoing in the sudden silence, I scurry for the door.
Somehow I think The Carpenter would plait another whip…
It’s time to work on that sackcloth and ashes;
Time to paint my warning signs;
Time to polish the bell for my knell of danger
So that all may know to avoid my touch…