Lost Signals and Recalculating [Day 16]
Check into the room
promptly throw your key away,
swallow all your pride
before asking for free toiletries,
hand-outs and needles
in the alley-way.
Bagels by the door
for the curious passerbyer,
expired cream cheese spread thin
part of an independence preamble.
Hand over your heart,
one foot yours one mine;
step into the light,
color outside the lines.
Strolling through the yard,
knives smuggled up sleeves
and daisies scaring daffodils,
lack of regulation killing bees
and tattoos of morning after pills.
Chameleon culture changing colors,
pack of smokes on the curb
lazily burning into ashes,
black spots in the snow.
Gum stuck to your shoe,
the mouse is a metaphor
cheese at the end of the maze,
hubris on the cutting board;
bandit’s bandy showing cards,
solder soldiers to a doily;
fold because you’re on fire,
fold because you’re origami.
I Was Eros Once
"I stuffed my throat,
eyes,
and pockets full of roses.
I tied myself up with heartstrings.
I set myself on fire."
-Nick Dunn
Written for free-verse poetry maven @d-pend's revolutionary poetry initiative The 100 Day Poetry Challenge [Advanced Group] undertaken for Steemit School where @d-pend will be hosting a daily poetry show at 6 PM GMT.
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I always know I've checked into a good hotel because there's sketchy fellas hanging out in the alleyway behind it haha.
It's hard to feel at home in a city, even one you've lived in for years. They're designed to facilitate the rat race and little more - beating hearts of human imperfection. The film 'Lost in Translation' sprang to mind when I read this, and I think that's telling.
Thanks for sharing with us.
easily one of my favorite films - the most honored!
"fold because you’re origami.'
I think we waste a great deal of time worrying over our identity who we really are, indulge in addictive and dominant behaviours so we might release our inhibitions or see an impact made by our presence. But we are only ever who we are in the moment and in the next moment we are something ... indeed it might be better to fold like origami before we find ourselves in the flames:) Just a perspective.
A masterful write, carmalain:)
Wow, @carmalain. Like Picasso, you paint a whole world that suggests encounter, casting, paper. Phoenix of fire; let me try to follow your step. Excellent work.
be reborn from the ashes
To me this speaks so clearly of the oppression machine, the waste and neglect that humanity has fallen into. Wow!
Ok, let's start with a question, what is a bandit's "bandy"? That can show cards.
Now, we spoke of it in critique class, so I have to point it out, the near-rhyme of "doily" and "origami" at the final stanza was distracting.
You need to use more commas. You use them, so there's no excuse for not using them everywhere, really. Especially when there are a couple of instances such as "one foot yours one mine" where you need one in the middle of the line.
"Chameleon culture changing colours" is a lovely line, and full of alliteration, but considering alliteration doesn't really return until the final stanza's first two lines, it's a bit weird.
"passerbyer" is incorrect.
"Hand over your heart" is probably my favourite line here due to the ambiguity of being part of the Oath of Allegiance or of being a command to hand over your heart to someone else.
If we compare this poem to the prior day's (Celibacy is the New Ecstasy), then it begins answering much of my criticism about that one - it is clear and direct. It has teeth, and it uses them to bite.
But then it keeps going and it loses it.
"Daisies scaring daffodils" is a non-sequitur saying nothing.
"Lack of regulation killing bees" straddles the line between conveying both the literal meaning and hinting at the gun-control issue, and not being clear about that.
And then we get into lines that are again disdainful without being clear. "The mouse is a metaphor" - and I spoke of it a bit in Plainclothes Prophet, with using "metaphor" and "proverbial" being weird when that is itself a metaphor, and here it feels a bit lazy, to point it out in case someone will miss it, and to point it out to not be accused of using a cliche while using one.
The start of this poem is great. Then it folds.
I really feel as if all of these disdainful poems, or somewhere around 4-5 of them could be mashed into one incisive poem that really conveys what you want to say, without all the twee fat.