Fiction

[Lykren]

Thin, like grass,
you invade the room.
Spirits communicate this way,
face-to-face, fading
into each other.

Recently I have dreamt of us,
woken to the sound of us,
walked through nothing
but ourselves
and have found nothing
but a plenitude of thin grass.
You have hesitated
through my dreams,
an atmosphere infused
with a limited joy.

Every ending I propose
is more immaculate
than what really was.
But the past is too slow,
too careless and forgetful,
too much like summer noons
emerging from the night.

[dara.cv]

Very evocative.

I was wondering if it is about the writer being dead, searching for their love and only finding "thin grass" or if their memories of their love are what is ethereal and dead. Nice blend of past meets present resulting in an odd state of limbo.

Love the phrase "too much like summer noons emerging from the night." Though, I think I would have enjoyed a concluding reference here to the grass, being that it was in the previous stanzas.

Thank you for the enjoyment.

[blank|verse]

Great opening line, Lykren and there are several strong elements and images in the poem (as so often with your writing) which also works very well rhythmically. Overall though, it’s a little too much on the wistful side for me, the diction of ‘spirits’, ‘dreams’, ‘infused’ and so on aren’t really for me, but that’s a personal thing.

Perhaps you might consider dropping the third line:

Thin, like grass,
you invade the room.
Face-to-face, fading
into each other.

which stays ‘in the moment’ as it were, without any distracting cogitation or narrative explication. And, although it would upset the rhythm a bit, perhaps consider dropping the weak ‘I have dreamt of us’ (line 6) and just cut to the stronger ‘I have woken to the sound of us’. I wonder if a concrete noun like ‘fields of thin grass’ would work better than the more abstract ‘plenitude’ in line 11. As a word, ‘plenitude’ stuck out for me a bit, like the poet’s trying a bit too hard; likewise with ‘immaculate’. Without checking, they both sound like Latinate words to me; but more importantly, because they’re polysyllabic, they work against the flow of the poem somewhat and seem a bit ponderous in context.

I also found the last stanza a little over-written, although it does work in terms of cadence and rhythm to bring things to a climax. I agree with dara.cv that it contains a great image (and the suggestion of including another mention of ‘grass’ is certainly worth considering). In fact, you could go for a ‘less is more’ approach and bring the strongest image to the fore, letting it do the work:

Every ending I propose
is more immaculate
than what was.

But the past is
summer noons
emerging
from the night.

[Lykren]

Thank you so much for your ever-thoughtful commentary, blankverse!

[blank|verse]

That's quite alright, Lykren. If you ever feel like responding to some of the points I or others raise, then I'm sure we'd be glad to hear them. That's up to you though, you might not want to 'explain' your poems, and I can understand that.

However, I certainly feel your poems are worthy of greater comment and consideration from others. Fit audience let you find though few...

[Lykren]

Yeah, I'm sorry that I don't really respond with commentary to your responses. The tricky thing is that I feel as if the best way to explain one of my poems would be with another poem.

Also, just because I don't incorporate your suggestions into my poems doesn't mean your suggestions aren't helpful. It feels weird changing my poem using someone else's ideas (even when those ideas are very good, as yours usually are), but I try to think of them when I write my next poem. Restraining myself and taking my time are things I struggle with, and keeping your comments in mind helps me work on my discipline! So thank you for that.

[blank|verse]

Thanks for the reply, Lykren, and that's fine if you're willing to take any comments and suggestions on board but don't feel compelled to make any changes - it is your poem after all!

I wonder if you've considered sending your poems off to magazines for publication?

[Lykren]

I haven't tried that much before, only with real long-shot publications like Poetry and The New Yorker.