We shall while away the hours
in broken showers
and cheap hotels.
With hat girls hired [and uninspired]
to the nines in bells,
and whistles dressed to impress, dowsed
in cheap perfume -
sleeping with and sleeping in
an even cheaper room.
With a casual glance, I catch
the wrath
of your disapproving eye -
wand’ring far
from home alone
and barely making sighs
- - - - - - -
amongst the moan of mattress springs
pulled taught and tight, akin
eyelids soaked,
unbeknownst,
in lipstick, sweat and gin.
[And the sickly promise of
another
night-of-might-have-beens.]
A promise without whisper, utterance or sound -
till human voices wake us and take us till we drown,
upon this shore from which angels fall
through mascara smeared and spread
[your legs]
across the evening. All
as God wallows
in the hollows
of selfish self-excess
lingering between the cracks and cobbles
and holes in your night dress.
Painting truths upon your skin
that take root in your veins
seeping like a parasite,
in between you and yours tonight
amongst the coffee stains.
For I have tasted yellow fog
and freedom in the air
but beware, for this is not
not a prophet, but a prayer
to whom, or what?
[to whom, or what?]
that is lost it seems
but to which and why and where
there still lie facts and reasons
to declare
and revisions
[born from an overdose of indecision]
hanging from the beams
or tearing at the seams?
In any case the bones remain
although the names and dates may change
as panic happily exaggerates
a memory or two
and serves only to exacerbate
the casual afternoon
where
we shall while away the hours
and serenade with flowers
the night before the day
where I'll sleep beneath the table
as you slide beneath
the sheets
knowing you won’t sing along
not with me at least
till human voices wake us
and we drown in silent seas
far from solid ground
and far from silently
so where’s your love song now my love
where’s your love song now
I think you’ll find it lost my love
far from solid ground
Author notes
I have no fucking idea what this is to be honest.
In a list
A contest entry
- The Inner Circle [2] - Invite Only by Never Fall in Love.
1350 points, ended July 2, 2008, 11 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Suggestions?
Comments
1 - 23 of 23
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i love your rhyme, the flow, the words, this poem entirely.
you are one clever dude
.
silver.
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Wow, why do people keep coming to this one! Lol
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because they can sense its goodness
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take root in your veins
that line sounds familiarrrr..
I'm not normally a fan of epic poems, but this is something else. You took epics to a next level, a good level.
and you can rhyme. like really rhyme. perfectly rhyme. the kind that isn't forced and flows and makes the poem interesting and fun to read.
I'm seriously amazed by this =/
like left in awe.
wow.
I think this is one of those poems i'll read over and over again..
ElectricBloom
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Yeah, I like the first stanza, but afterwards...just no lol
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I like..
the first stanza
and the last stanza..
and everything inbetween.
i just love it ^.^ -
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ahaha, cool
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Haha, I knew I'd used it somewhere before. I do that a lot, a word or phrase gets repeated (like "hourglass")
This isn't one of my favourites. Originally I liked it...now...it's just eurgh.
Though I am really, really glad you like it
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oh
wow
that is
wow.
thats amazingly awsome
it reallly is. -
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haha, cheers
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aaaaaaaaaaMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAzzzinggg
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Haha appreciated
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THIS is awesome. Im glad you got such good comments on this piece, and im glad i checked your profile out. I hope you dont mind me saying this sounds lyrical almost. I could vision someone singing this. Anyways good write im glad i checked this one out.
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You know what - I should have hated this.
Because I love T.S. Eliot and the LSOJAP so much that essentially a poem referencing it should just have really irritated me due to it having not been written by T.S. Eliot.
But it didn't. I actually really like it. I think it's the fluid, fast, natural rhyme that does it - it carried me right through on a wave before I had time for any annoyance, and by the time I stopped to think about it I'd been won over by the realness of the voice: that kind of melancholy with a tinge of bitterness.
I personally, would end it on 'where's your love song now' because I just think that's a more powerful ending: the single repetition rather than having another 'my love' and another 'solid ground' - and it's a more acerbic ending too, which gives it a kind of bite mixed in with the vaguer, sadder air the poem already has. That might just be me, though.
I absolutely love 'this is not a prophet but a prayer' but I love it so much that the rest of the stanza just ends up seeming weak in comparison; I think perhaps the referencing feels more forced there. The 'prophet' reference is very subtle, and you develop it beautifully into your own idea, whereas the revisions and indecisions are a bit more obvious. And I know you have to say 'whom' to be grammatically correct, but I dislike the word 'whom' although since this is just a weird personal issue that probably shouldn't affect your poem...it's just that it can sound a bit pretentious. (Mind you; what with writing an entire poem based on a T.S. Eliot poem I suppose you're long gone already) I also think one 'not' would be better: you use repetition incredibly effectively in this poem, but you can have too much of it. I think that stanza would be very strong just as:
For I have tasted yellow fog
and freedom in the air
but beware, for this is
not a prophet, but a prayer.
Those lines, by the way, are one example of a moment when you used really subtle rhyme to link everything together and keep the poem moving.
"amongst the moan of mattress springs
pulled taught and tight, akin
eyelids soaked,
unbeknownst,
in lipstick, sweat and gin."
Do you mean 'taut' here? If so: I'm sure the tautology of 'taught' and 'tight' (not that they mean exactly the same thing; but they're similar) was for a reason, but I think it's a bit too much. This poem demands quite a lot of attention from the reader; which I think they're going to be willing to give because it's so lively and full of ideas and word tricks, but it does mean that you can't afford to bore them even for a second. I love the hammering, repetitive insistence of this poem but, again - too much of a good thing. I'd just have one of those words; or maybe find another more striking/weird word to replace the second. I do like the alliteration though, and cramming the extra word into that line makes it much faster, which is nice, as the speed of this poem is one of the things I like most about it. So perhaps replace the word rather than deleting it. (Not, of course, that you have to listen to any of this. Course, if you actually did mean 'taught' then that was an entirely pointless paragraph.)
Anyway, I'll shut up now, but...nice
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Wow, thanks for such an insightful comment.
I actually, having re-read this poem quite a few times, hate everything but the first stanza. It just doesn't sound like I want it to sound. But that's mainly because I don't know how I want it to sound.
I liked the "prophet/prayer" line too but...the wording around it is just bland.
And I probably did mean taut, yes
Ha, lol.
Maybe I'll get back into writing soon and knock off something decent. Thanks for the comment, it means a lot for you to go to such depth
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You're very welcome. And just to say - I mean, I know it's irritating when things don't sound how you want them to sound, but...sometimes you just have to try not to mind. Because if it's a good poem, it's a good poem, even if it's not the one you wanted to write. (Maybe I should try following my own advice one of these days...)
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Ha! Name me one person who followed their own advice! If we did we'd never have any problems
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I followed my own advice!
I was reading this book and my eyes were all heavy and stuff and I told myself:
Chandni, you should get to sleep.
And I fell asleep with the book on my head
I want you writing
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Why not?
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Your work, sir, is consistently excellent and this is no exception. The fluid rhyme and switch-up of rhythm from verse to verse is really cool. Great descriptions and unique word play as usual. I was a little “hmm?” as to what it was about, but strangely enough it didn’t seem to matter. This was like some sort of stream-of-consciousness word shower and it was easy and enjoyable to just give myself over to the experience of reading and imagining it. Well worth the wait, this was!
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stream of consciousness - I'm glad you said that cos that's exactly what I'd call it
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I remember writing a poem and having no clue of what was being said or where the emotions were coming from or ven how the words were forming. But they worked .. and this did the same.
I loved your internal rhyme - really added the extra beat. I don't like the repetitions ... any of them. Also, the stanza starting with:
"For I have tasted yellow fog"
was just not upto standard with the rest of the poem. Other than that, I need you writing more often.
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It's based on The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock by TS Elliot (where my quote was from) and that line was actually directed stolen
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