November

[Catamite]

What is there but peace in the heaving
Of blue waters upon blue? For in those waters
Silenced would be the stillness of the leaping fish
Underneath and stillness is naught but death in dance.
And who shall allow the rot of wind-thrashed leaf
In months of stern decay
Without declaring it, for life's sake, to be of beauty?
November sky must do for beauty; clouds squeezed black
Against the grief-washed blue
For where is summer but my fawning heart?

The moon sped upon the early night, bedded like old bric-a-brac
Of china and glue; the frost dialed upon streets jeweled
With leaf and the air searing purgatorial force -
The profit and loss of life continues. The penance of winter
In constant burning, making new beginnings from our old ends
And what can we do but declare this scene,for life's sake,
To be of beauty? Else find joy in fall and rise with the change of sky.

[Hawkman]

Hello catsmeat. I'm not sure what to say about this other than it reads oddly, partly because of some unsympathetic line-breaks and partly because of the peculiarities of the expressions you have chosen.

With line-breaks, especially in free verse, you need to break the line where the sentence would naturally break in normal speech, using them like punctuation. Likewise with stanza breaks, which one might equate with paragraphs, although this isn't really relevent to this piece.

Take for example:

"... For in those waters ceased
Would be stillness of both scene and fish underneath -"

the trouble here is that it is ambiguous. Are you saying if the heaving of the waters ceased, then the stillness of the scene and fish (beneath would scan better) would cease? If so this is kind of wierd and inaccurate. It seems not to agree whith what has come before or be at odds with it in some way. You have said that there is peace in the heaving waves and then said that if the heaving of the waves ceases then the stillness of the underwater scene is negated in some way. Odd.

Putting in one of those archaic Ohs gives the piece a rather satirical edge for me, the voice of the poet, knowingly intruding into his words and sort of commenting in them, like a Greek chorus, and, "the simper? of (a) flagellated leaf," is just wierd, as if the leaf is some kind of S&M freak.

Lines like: "Without declaring it for life's sake beauty?" don't work without puntuation. Here you need a comma after sake.

Because of the rather frequent instances of peculiar syntax, missing punctuation and articles, together with unsympathetic line-breaks, this doesn't read well and meaning is confused. However, having said that, there are the bones of a good poem in here and it would be well worth revising.

Live and be well - H

[Jack of Hearts]

Heed the Hawk. There's something worth digging out in there (and in you).





J

[Catamite]

Hey, thanks to both of you for replying, this really wasn't ready to post; I actually rewrote much of it before seeing your comments Hawkman, but I still missed some things you pointed out. I think it should be more coherent now.

[Hawkman]

It's an improvement, I think but it's not there yet. You still open with contradictions. What exactly are you trying to say in those first 3 lines? How can you silence stillness? and how does stillness equate with leaping?

In L5 is allow the right word, when see might be more appropriate?
L8, what must November sky do for beauty? I kind of get the feeling that you are using "do for" in the colloquial sense of, "kill", which is kind of at odds with the rather grandiose language in the rest of the poem.

In the last line of S1 you say,"...fawning heart." how is your heart servile and flattering, or is it jumping up at something and rubbing against it, and if so, what? One needs to be careful with one's word choices.

The first line of S2 isn't very clear either. How is it that the moon sped, and was also bedded like old bricabrac and and china and glue? Very strange image this. Likewise with frost dialed on streets. The image which springs to mind here is of ringing someone up. I guess you meant it looked like the dial of a clock or instrument, but it is kind of weird and hard to imagine. After this the verse gets quite eloquent and flowing, so it's not all bad news. :)

You might want to watch out for repetitions of particular words, which do rather stand out. If you can find alternatives, like foliage for leaf etc. it wouldn't be a bad thing. Repeating entire phrases is dodgy practice unless you can work them into a refrain, or there is a pattern in the form which requires it. With refrains, three is a good number. I find just two unsatisfying, and four, too many.

keep working on it, you're getting there.

Live and be well - H

[Catamite]

To be honest I think this is a lost cause, the poem doesn't really mean much anyway - I think that I'll leave for a while and then see what I can make of it with fresh eyes. Although I do think you're misreading some of it, I know it's not clear, but the idea of the first few lines was that if the waters were still, then it would be the cessation of nature working properly, and so in the heaving of the waves there is true rather than a superficial one. In fact I'll all but the first four lines....anyway, thanks for taking the time to comment and suggest improvements :)