In Judgment Time

[Lykren]

The season draws out bitterness,
a pale fragment of rising lust.
The fruit tree by my window
has begun to keel over,
its waist is rippled, its arms
about to touch the ground.
Heavy, they echo against
the sky’s curve.

Cold hammers on the body.
My skin tightens, hearing
the wash and walk of the sea.
Paths intersect and circle back
through furious brush
and trampled, thorny grasses.
When I drift and stray I meet
these shadowing, shadowed surfaces.

[NikolaiI]

It's quite good.

Dour, it reminds me of some Vashti, and Poe, and "World of Pain" by Cream
(Outside my window is a tree,
and it stands on the grave of the city
No time for pity
For the tree or me)

If I had to choose one word to describe what feeling it evoked, it'd have to be melancholy.

I know I probably never notice all of the subtleties of a poem, but one I do notice in reading it carefully is that "the sky's curve" seems to brilliantly render this effect. . .
there are a few lines that really stand out to me.

All in all, enjoyable poem.

[Lykren]

Re-working this one.

[Lykren]

Let's try it this way:

The fruit tree by my window
has begun to keel over,
its waist is rippled, its arms
hang an inch above the ground,
echoing the sky’s open curve.

The grass that blooms
beneath those leaves
in middle darkness
slowly froths uphill.

The wind there is full of feeling,
hurriedly it wraps around
you and then flies on,
fateless as troubled faith.

My skin tightens hungrily
with the catch and pull
of this untidy human whirling.
Our paths intersect
through furious brush
and trampled, thorny grasses.

[NikolaiI]

I like them both quite a lot, well done. I don't know which I would say is better. Each is stronger in some ways. At first I preferred the first version, but now I like the second one better.


Any poem that enriches your life in some way is a success, I believe.