Parasitic Twin

[SleepyWitch]

I've just written a new poem. it's not exactly the best, I've ever written, so please be very cruel and honest. :)
(maybe you'll find some of the images gross, but please judge their artistic value, not whether they are gross or pleasant).
THANKS :)




Fifth floor, concrete walls,
fourth floor, metal bench,
third floor, concrete railings.
Lift going up, naked grey slabs,
concrete since 1964 and still
untouched by colour.

Second floor, laughter.

"Are you ready?"
"Yep, let's go."
You and two friends, chatting,
in focused equilibrium,
behind invisible one-way mirrors.
If I were a rock and hurled myself at the glass,
I'd still slide off and float by like a leaf.

"Hello."

Shoulders and back,
hair – skin – coat,
gold and brown
organically fused, inseparable.
If icons had backs,
would the painter have taken so much care?
If you had a front,
would you frown?

Your friend says "Hi."

More stairs, going down.
My self-absorbed love lifts her skirt
for the first whisper of doubt,
compost-heap vulva, ever ready to gulp,
and by the time I reach the ground,
they've conceived, without foreplay or noise,
an insatiable foetus,
a parasitic twin,
lodged between my ribs,
pressing on my lungs,
Better not breathe, it will grow,
hold my breath,
choke it.
Or excise it with a saw,
cut off a little finger here,
chop off a toe, slice it in half
and vomit out the pieces.

But I know you'll help me soothe it
and feed it with a smile.
Tomorrow.

[Virgil]

You definetely have some good stuff in here Sleepy. I need a little more time to ponder it. But I can tell you the last three lines are more a hinderence than a help. And this line: "I'd still slide off and float by like a leave," you mean "leaf" I think. I really liked the rhythm of this stanza:

Shoulders and back,
hair – skin – coat,
gold and brown
organically fused, inseparable.
If icons had backs,
would the painter have taken so much care?
If you had a front,
would you frown?

Some powerful images in the large stanza. The dialogue works very well too. Let me think some more and get back when I have more time.

[SleepyWitch]

You definetely have some good stuff in here Sleepy. I need a little more time to ponder it. But I can tell you the last three lines are more a hinderence than a help. And this line: "I'd still slide off and float by like a leave," you mean "leaf" I think. I really liked the rhythm of this stanza:


Some powerful images in the large stanza. The dialogue works very well too. Let me think some more and get back when I have more time.

thanks Mr Virgil. yep, the last three lines need work :) they sound a bit like "I want to say something hopeful after all this gross imagery, but I can't be bothered to write more than 3 lines" :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

I've just written a new poem. it's not exactly the best, I've ever written, so please be very cruel and honest. :)
(maybe you'll find some of the images gross, but please judge their artistic value, not whether they are gross or pleasant).
THANKS :)




Fifth floor, concrete walls,
fourth floor, metal bench,
third floor, concrete railings.
Lift going up, naked grey slabs,
concrete since 1964 and still
untouched by colour.

Second floor, laughter.

"Are you ready?"
"Yep, let's go."
You and two friends, chatting,
in focused equilibrium,
behind invisible one-way mirrors.
If I were a rock and hurled myself at the glass,
I'd still slide off and float by like a leaf.

"Hello."

Shoulders and back,
hair – skin – coat,
gold and brown
organically fused, inseparable.
If icons had backs,
would the painter have taken so much care?
If you had a front,
would you frown?

Your friend says "Hi."

More stairs, going down.
My self-absorbed love lifts her skirt
for the first whisper of doubt,
compost-heap vulva, ever ready to gulp,
and by the time I reach the ground,
they've conceived, without foreplay or noise,
and insatiable fetus,
a parasitic twin,
lodged between my ribs,
pressing on my lungs,
Better not breathe, it will grow,
hold my breath,
choke it.
Or excise it with a saw,
cut off a little finger here,
chop off a toe, slice it in half
and vomit out the pieces.

But I know you'll help me soothe it
and feed it with a smile.
Tomorrow.

Small typo which I've highlighted and the descent of the first three lines confused me with the reference to the lift going up, a confusion I never resolved. But as for the alleged "grossness," the references to hard concrete objects in the opening lines at least half-prepared me for
My self-absorbed love lifts her skirt
for the first whisper of doubt,
compost-heap vulva, ever ready to gulp,
which, frankly, is the sort of brute reference to aspects of our being that I often wish I was capable of but which, in my way of dealing with it, might come out as smirky - which is not at all the case here.

What a savage, self-loathing (?) mood must lie behind this?

But I envy you the writing of it.

[SleepyWitch]

What a savage, self-loathing (?) mood must lie behind this?

:D
thanks for your comments, Prince.
what do you think about the ending? I agree with Virgil that it needs work. I've got some half-baked addiotional lines at the back of my head.. but not sure they wouldn't be too much. should I say more optimistic things in the ending? something that makes it clearer why she thinks the guy will help her feed the little parasite?

[blp]

I think it's great. The only bit I don't like is 'organically fused'. Too fancy. The oddness of the rest depends on the unshowy language. 'focussed equillibrium' skirts this line too, but, for some reason, didn't wrongfoot me as badly.

It's true the end's a bit weak. Yes, maybe try making it clearer. It's not clear to me at all at the moment.

[SleepyWitch]

thanks blp. :) I'll work on the ending :) I'm sure I can make the last stanza longer, but I can't promise it'll be clearer :D will try, though

[PrinceMyshkin]

:D
thanks for your comments, Prince.
what do you think about the ending? I agree with Virgil that it needs work. I've got some half-baked addiotional lines at the back of my head.. but not sure they wouldn't be too much. should I say more optimistic things in the ending? something that makes it clearer why she thinks the guy will help her feed the little parasite?

After


Better not breathe, it will grow,
hold my breath,
choke it.
Or excise it with a saw,
cut off a little finger here,
chop off a toe, slice it in half
and vomit out the pieces.

But I know you'll help me soothe it
and feed it with a smile.
Tomorrow.

And especially after the sardonic afterthought of that limp "Tomorrow," I can't see where anything genuinely optimistic could possibly come from! Have we not passed the days of deii ex machinae? Nope, it's a bitter Sylvia Plathesque poem and so, I think, it must remain.

[SleepyWitch]

And especially after the sardonic afterthought of that limp "Tomorrow," I can't see where anything genuinely optimistic could possibly come from! Have we not passed the days of deii ex machinae? Nope, it's a bitter Sylvia Plathesque poem and so, I think, it must remain.
Hehe, have a little more faith! :D this deus ex machina is quite reliable :)
but, yep, you are right, if there was to be any genuine optimism it would have to take up a lot more space than these three lines and me really convincing --> it wouldn't fit together with the rest of the poem anymore and the poem would end up rather lengthy.

so maybe I'll save the optimism for another day/ poem :D

[Pendragon]

I am going to be honest, Sleepy, and honestly (call me a prude) I don't have a clue as to what the poem is about. So what I don't understand, I cannot critique, that would be as stupid as me coming in to your job and giving you a performance review on how you have done the past year. As Prince said, you only had one grammar mistake, that's all I could do.

Silly old Pen.

[SleepyWitch]

I am going to be honest, Sleepy, and honestly (call me a prude) I don't have a clue as to what the poem is about. So what I don't understand, I cannot critique, that would be as stupid as me coming in to your job and giving you a performance review on how you have done the past year. As Prince said, you only had one grammar mistake, that's all I could do.

Silly old Pen.

fair enough, Uncle Pen. Actually, I was a bit worried about that.
I suppose you can take most of it literally. don't think too much about it :)
here's a brief plot summary:
narrator walks down the stairs of an ugly building, runs into a guy she knows (who's talking with some friends), guy has his back turned towards narrator, doesn't say hello (because he obviously can't see her, with his back turned to her), narrator walks on down the stairs, throws a tantrum, add some gory imagery to describe the tantrum. The End.
simple as that :D... yeah, I know the way I phrased it makes it sound more complicated than it is :) thanks for your comment :)

edit (some more explanations): in case the parasitic twin gave you trouble, that's when a woman has twins and one of them doesn't fully develop. apparently it pumps blood from the other twin (whose heart will be damaged because it has to pump blood for both of them) and they can get stuck in the fully developed one's body and grow cancerous there. I once heard that they can go unnoticed (stuck inside the fully developed twin) and stay there till he/she is grown-up, so they have to be cut out. of course, I tried to use this as a symbol here.

[Pendragon]

OK. Strong imagery almost to the point of overkill. So you walk down and you try conversation and it fails, up to there, I'm fairly with you. Now is where we begin to drift. I've noticed in some of your other poetry a bit of earthiness, which I will define as frank usage of wording concerning anatomy and such things. Here we have a "lifting of the skirt" and "the vulva" which somehow manage to produce the "parasitic twin". (I am afraid I am all to aware of what the term means, as my sister-in-law lost several sets.)

This is your reaction to being ignored? I can see you feeling like you've suddenly become just a parasitic twin, doomed to die, unwanted, OK? But how does that tie in the the rest? Your conceiving twins suddenly? Like I say, Sleepy, and forgive me, call me a prude if you must, I don't get the one part. The feeling of helplessness and uselessness, yes. How you get there, I don't understand.


Pen
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/dunno.gif

[SleepyWitch]

This is your reaction to being ignored? I can see you feeling like you've suddenly become just a parasitic twin, doomed to die, unwanted, OK? But how does that tie in the the rest? Your conceiving twins suddenly? Like I say, Sleepy, and forgive me, call me a prude if you must, I don't get the one part. The feeling of helplessness and uselessness, yes. How you get there, I don't understand.
Pen
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/dunno.gif
thanks for your efforst Uncle Pen :) well, nope.. it's not the narrator but the self-absorbed love+the whisper of doubt who breed this little monster child (ooops, sorry, I didn't mean to call your sister-in-laws babies monster, I'm referring to the one in the poem only). --> this is why it's meant in a 'metaphorical' sense. i.e. it's not about a real parasitic twin but about the self-absorbed love+doubt bringing out the narrators dark side(=her parasitic twin). yep, I know this passage is confusing, because they in these lines

they've conceived, without foreplay or noise,
an insatiable foetus,
a parasitic twin,
is supposed to refer back to the love+doubt. I can see why this is confusing... :(
thanks for your feedback :)


I've noticed in some of your other poetry a bit of earthiness, which I will define as frank usage of wording concerning anatomy and such things
really? have I used earthy language before? I can't remember :blush: probably I have but I forgot :angel: