in black turns of polo cloth
his four legs fleetly reign,
proudly reading his imprisonments
as the alphabet of this language he must learn.
jet they colored him to
jigsaw boldly his breath, stumble his head
with flecks of thorny will and fluttering
resistance,
as wings envelop the storm,
his breaths come gutturally as protests
of white and panicking ink.
he was born to bright blindness and yet
to work this geometry full of sharp perimeters;
he spends exhausted days in
lather, trying to hide the laughably contrasting drops of white magic.
upon his thin cannon bones the
pale quivers of
his nostrils empty stingingly
and checkers paint
the black legs.
he stands on hard and undanced tiles.
reaching for dictionaries,
dissections, his chest longs to follow as his
hooves splay into a hundred
shards; black and white,
the sockets shiver irresponsibly;
fixed shapes crack their edges
into his Roman nose.
exhaustion has a rhythm
but inequalities will only grow
and never balance,
until they
fly like laughing
flags of
harlequin.
charmingly he writhes
and becomes the floor
beneath the useless polygons;
he wears them as soldier's colors.
Author notes
http://rain1man.deviantart.com/art/Young-man-65697839
A contest entry
- Unplanned - Round 5 by Never Fall in Love.
700 points, ended June 29, 7 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 9 of 9
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Portrayal of Character:
--Background of character - 7/10
--Emotions of character - 10/10
--Image of character - 10/10
--Personality of character - 8/10
--Expression of character's present life - 10/10
--The character feels real - 8/10
Poetic Upkeep:
--Title - 3/4
--Form/format - 4/4
--Clarity - 2/4
--Poetic tone -4/4
-- Balance - 3/4
--Personal reaction - 10/10
--Poetic devices - 10/10
Total: 89/100
Your images, your abstractness, your surrealism, your power with words....never ceases to amaze me.
I had read this quite a few times, and it seems like you ... majorly... renovated this poem since. I really loved the changes.
The way you went about describing the character in this piece felt very abstract. It worked out really well in conveying his emotions, the "image" of him, and the expression of his life... Unfortunately, the same thing that made those so great was what made other parts of the character so difficult to analyze. Some parts were unclear and it was hard to really capture his background, personality... and it took away from the realism of him.
Still, this was able to stun me and I was able to really love this poem, this contest aside. I just think it is a round where rawness and simplicity become very important, and it would've done well to use some of those.
Spectacular, still.
~ Ryan ~ -
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Thanks for the encouragement,and for pointing out where it didn't work so well.
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Portrayal of Character:
--Background of character - 7/10
--Emotions of character - 7/10
--Image of character - 10/10
--Personality of character - 10/10
--Expression of character's present life - 10/10
--The character feels real - 9/10
Poetic Upkeep:
--Title - 3/4
--Form/format - 4/4
--Clarity - 3/4
--Poetic tone -4/4
-- Balance - 4/4
--Personal reaction - 10/10
--Poetic devices - 9/10
Total: 90/100
Your imagery never ceases to blow me away.This was more than amazing.
My only argument is that although this was good, the character is presented a bit vaguely. Like what does he feel and why is he the way he is [background].
Stanza 3, I don't understand at all. It sounds incorrect and awkward.
Other than that - amazing.
Chandni -
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Thanks. I think the "wings envelop the storm" line doesn't really belong, but the rest of stanza 3 was supposed to be a description of his exhaustion as he tried to solve the 'geometry' and 'inequalities' of why he's different, and that was where i introduced the idea of the 'white ink protests' that *make* him different.
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I think i was on crack or something, I meant stanza 2
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Ahh haha. oh okay. i wanted to say how he was supposed to be one color, he was supposed to duck his head and fit in. oh well what doesn't work out, doesn't. thanks tho.
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You come up with some very cool imagery!
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Hey thanks.
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Not really the same poem any longer....
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