This is a piece that I wrote using the idea that Professor Davidson gave us in class about taking bits and pieces from Junkyard Quotes and Improvs and other work that we have done, to try and make a poem...I'd love to know what you think!
The Scent of Decay
She trembles to caress the light
by taking Ibuprofen like Skittles
and watching the salty compound drain down
her cheeks, creating puddles of life around her fingers.
The dreary faces of gaiety
make the people writhe
in what looks like pain-
all bunched up and pout-like.
But her feeling of intense humor,
a surge of sick happiness,
flows over, like the waves of dirt
flowing through the crevices
and hallways of the mind.
Their teenage embodiments of angry demons
slouch in their seats, throwing shards of glass, eyes gleaming
like remaining rain drops hovering on premature leaves.
While she lumps in the short hair upon fear
of every square inch of space swarmed
with feet and flailing arms.
The cement block of life wobbles
under the fear in her feet
as she watches him escape from the binds of the Earth,
wishing he'd take her with him.
There's a lot going on this poem, which works because it is all tied together under your theme of "decay." The biggest problem are abstractions in places that set up the scene. "She trembles to caress the light" doesn't give me a strong picture, but I do know what the character is doing in the rest of that stanza. And "as she watches him escape from the binds of the Earth," has the same problem. The reader can't see what you mean by escaping the binds of Earth. It is a good line, though, and could be fixed just by adding a solid image to the beginning of that line. And I like what you did with "teenage embodiment of angry demons" where you redeemed angry demons by picturing the slouching teens. But throwing shards of glass might make more sense after eyes gleaming.
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