lucid smoke

[natroyce]

Centipedes tap dance outside my window
Drinking memories help me cope
Thought pours into slumber
Against darkness shapes alluring
Distance left prepared
Gentle thunder herald to choices
Body of water impossible here
Yet mermaid's garb left behind
Rolling pearls leading away
Unable to follow my wake
Inside a mirror I'm standing, holding another unborn Sun

[hillwalker]

The title suggests a contemplative moment following the inhalation of certain chemical substances – possibly? It would be interesting to learn what inspired this piece.

If I’m right then the opening line could well be a hallucination. But I’ll admit I don’t think it works – it’s like the first line to a kiddies’ nursery rhyme that somehow found its way here by mistake. At best it’s a whimsical image, but how its supposed to fit in with the rest of the piece I’m not sure. I think the poem works much better if you begin with L2.

From that point on the poem takes us on a journey into the subconscious of the narrator – perhaps written in the aftermath of a drinking session, or while trying to go to sleep.

There are images of entering the sea which can be a metaphor for sinking into sleep. But I’m not sure about certain other parts because you use an awkward short-hand where the lines never quite make sense.

It’s an ambitious piece and the images of ‘drinking memories’ (‘drunken memories’? or the act of ‘drinking memories’? I’m not sure which) – ‘mermaid’s garb’ – ‘rolling pearls’ and ‘another unborn Sun’ make some kind of sense. But the lack of punctuation gives us no clues as to whether we are reading it the way we are meant to or not - and some of the sentence constructions are just baffling.

These 5 lines in particular are a grammatical mish-mash.

Against darkness shapes alluring (where’s the verb? do you mean become alluring? or are alluring?)

Distance left prepared (the line makes no sense as it’s written here – and I’m not sure whether it’s meant to be in the present tense like the rest of the poem or the past)

Gentle thunder herald to choices (that should be ‘heralds’ – and you can’t herald to anything - unless you meant to write ‘two choices’)

Body of water impossible here (no verb again- we can surmise you mean ‘is impossible’ in which case it’s acceptable, but for all we know you might mean something completely different… why is the body of water impossible?)

Yet mermaid's garb left behind (I’m not sure why yet?)

I think I’m beginning to understand what these 5 lines are supposed to be about but the way you have expressed yourself it’s almost as if you don’t even know yourself what you were trying to say.

I’m guessing it’s something along the lines of

The shapes behind the darkness are alluring – when I hear the sound of gentle thunder I have a choice to make. I can enter the water (leaving my mermaid’s garb behind?) and follow the wake of bubbles (that look like pearls?) – or I can remain here trapped in my mirror and wait for dawn.

but you make it hard work to follow.

It’s wonderful to have a wealth of images to play with but if you don’t keep some sense of the poem in mind at all times many of your ideas end up being wasted because no one can fathom out where they fit.

H

[natroyce]

Hi Hillwalker, always great full for the great feed backs

Almost everything I write is based on my dreams, the tap dance is rain, lucid smoke is finding cohesiveness in the aloof.

I realize my challenge is with constructing continuity.

It has become obvious I need to do a lot of work.

I find myself very fortunate to have someone as kind and experienced as yourself taking the time you do to help.

May wisdom of your words keep raining on us all :)