The Gravediggers

[miyako73]

Diggers on still brows and limbs,
On torsos and cracking bones,
On balls of hairs and loose nails,
On tendons and hanging loins,
On blood stains and bursting veins,
In holes, creases, and staring eyes,
In deep furrows of blueing skins,
In cold steel beds and plastic cups,
In rooms of bodies and gas fumes,
Come out to bury spirits for rebirth.

[PrinceMyshkin]

After that definitive and dreadful list, I expected something more exhilarating or depressing from the end.

[miyako73]

Hehehehe, Prince. The project today is anti-climax and writing about ants and death. Can a poem control its reader's emotional investment, like in this one, from the morbid and horrible to the spiritual and serene?

[PrinceMyshkin]

Hehehehe, Prince. The project today is anti-climax and writing about ants and death. Can a poem control its reader's emotional investment, like in this one, from the morbid and horrible to the spiritual and serene?

Hehehehe, Miyako. The project for today is to learn that one cannot control the reader, one can only persuade or entice him or her to follow along the path one has chosen.

[MorpheusSandman]

I like how the implacable, omnipresent nature of the gravediggers are mirrored in the anaphora. I also appreciate the subtle change between "on" (implying something still outside) and "in" (implying that they've gotten deeper), so the poem does get even more disturbing from L5 onward. I'm with Prince in that the ending seems a bit anti-climactic, and "burying spirits" seems an odd phrase, since shouldn't the spirit be the thing that's freed from a body's burial? Also, I'm not quite sure if there is any relevant pattern to the progression of the images or the way they're presented... maybe you'd be kind enough to share your thought processes there?

[miyako73]

Hehehehe, Miyako. The project for today is to learn that one cannot control the reader, one can only persuade or entice him or her to follow along the path one has chosen.

I'm sorry, Prince, if you misunderstood me. The lesson was for myself. I wanted to know if anti-climax would work. This thing also opened my mind that, interpretation-wise, an author has no control over his/her finished work. I'm still a baby in literature who is growing up and asking why the sky is blue or if a cloud is part of the sky.

How about this:

The Gravediggers

Diggers on still brows and limbs,
On torsos and cracking bones,
On balls of hairs and loose nails,
On tendons and hanging loins,
On blood stains and bursting veins,
In holes, creases, and staring eyes,
In deep furrows of blueing skins,
In cold steel beds and plastic cups,
In rooms of bodies and gas fumes,
Will carry me alive to my grave.

[MorpheusSandman]

This thing also opened my mind that, interpretation-wise, an author has no control over his/her finished work. I'm still a baby in literature who is growing up and asking why the sky is blue or if a cloud is part of the sky.I think it was Neil Gaiman that said: "artists have the right to define what they intended, but not what they created." The more your work invites varying interpretations, usually the better off you are. As for still being a baby in literature, I've been studying it for years and I still feel like I'm asking why the sky is blue. :)