Word Prompts:
Bereft: the topic of the poem
Alligator: used randomly
Perforate: metaphor
Bereft of Whore
(Another Sad Poem, I’m Afraid)
Lady alligator lips,
you’ve bitten out my teeth. The enamel
powder soothes your cramp. I dribble metal, damp.
My tongue catches on your cavities. Stiff
(Although all of these images have to do with the mouth and teeth, some of them seem a little incongruous - particularly the pairing of lips with biting (which theoretically could work, it’s just a weird mental image), and the dribbling metal. If they are fillings, I would expect them to do anything but dribble - shatter, crunch, whatever. If it is to represent blood, I think there is probably a slightly better word to describe it.)
and wired, in the dark, I await your claw upon the stair.
(However, this pairing with “stiff” enjambment above, is awesome.)
No more paper for your envelope, myself I perforate, I shred, I await
the scratch of your claw upon my
stair.
(Why the repeat of this phrase? If you are picking one or the other, go with the first - it ties in better. Also, on that same note - the sudden turn to paper doesn’t really work. After the blood and mouth images, this one just seems a little stale.)
I ink your walls with crimson dribble—
(I like the inking, but I would go for the metal dribbling, over crimson. Also, inking walls seems more sturdy and connected to the rest of the piece than inking paper.)
Metal.
(I definitely wouldn’t put this word on it’s own line. It creates a focus on a word that isn’t really tied into anything more than that single line above. I also feel that it has the same out of place feeling here, that it does above, but I couldn’t tell you why.)
Lady, see the letters I have inked and tore.
Alligator, won’t you come in,
you whore?
(These last two lines really don’t do anything for me. They add a particular overarching rhythmic effect through the stanza, but other than that, they flop)
That’s not funny, see what I’ve left, the veiled gray view illuminate,
(This might be grammatical issues (which I am bad at) - but I think that “illuminates” with no comma might read better. Otherwise I get totally lost - the first half of the sentence seems to bring only voice, while the second half gives me a half-formed image that is instantly replaced by a solid one. Tying this half-formed image with the sentence after, however, would make it feel more like the half-formed image was solidifying into something tangible.)
my shadowed hand, a steel-tipped pen—
Watch them shake. My neck
(I know that “them” is grammatically correct, but because both the hand and the pen are singular, separated out by commas like that, I keep reading the pen as a metaphor for the hand (or vice versa). I would either replace the comma with “and” (which would throw off the rhythm tragically), or “, a” with “grips” or somesuch verb - again, tying it together as two separate objects.)
once set in your tenderizer clamp, droops, Dis-
Con-(You Are)-
(I know that Con is supposed to be playing off the “thief” idea - but we either need the thief to be introduced before this line, or lose it. Technically, I would pull Con up to pair with Dis - and keep the fantastic pairing of “you are/so late” without the grammatical awkwardness of “I am” following “so late”)
So-Late—(I am). You thief, gone you’ve left my evenings
(This sentence is awkward enough that it draws attention to itself. Try finding a way to rewrite it that doesn’t skew the sentence around in weird ways. It could also be a comma problem, I suppose. The simplest solution I can find would be to drop the first “You”, and instead have the line read: “Thief, you’ve gone and left my evenings...” - Something like that.)
cheap. I trace “Dear Love, Dear, Dear, Love,
Again,” And Again you refuse to mark my space.
(Normally I would hate the dear dear bit - but somehow using again in the following sentence redeems it. I wouldn’t capitalize the second “again” though. Also, “mark my space” feels like it should give me a better visual, but it doesn’t.)
How am I to lie and sleep?
My brain, you’ve left hanging on a perforated stem. How
am I to sleep again?
(Of all the uses of perforated in this piece, this is definitely the strongest. (if you are going to use it as a word in the poem, rather than just a metaphor))
Alligator, Lady, Whore, You Thief,
I taste your gun between my teeth.
(Although neither of these lines seem particularly great, that pseudo rhyme really hits perfect.)
Come in, come in, come in
quickly, do. It riddles me with holes, strong-jawed, prickly, you.
Lady, Thief, Alligator, Whore—
(this hole stanza seems... perforated. Lots of disconnected images, that we have no ties between. Maybe perforated to the point that it has been shredded... Just tying a few of these images together would help to make it seem more consistent.)
remember this room we filled before? Your footsteps mock the boards,
(I love this line, especially contrasting to the rest of the stanza. It’s so - whole.)
harden, set eyes to them, they moan, (Remember?)
—I remember— your:
“‘His blood he’d give to paint my lips
if I wished them red’”
You swore—
(I am ambivalent about this quotey bit. On the one hand, painting the lips ties in beautifully, and with this piece feeling so disconnected, I would hate to lose any piece that fits well. But, on the other hand, it is probably the only part of this poem where the rhythm of it seems to falter.)
I scorn. Punctured, I leak from every corkscrewed pore. This scarlet ink spurts
my nerves sing sore, I lie, I write dissent
upon the floor.
(pretty, but suffering from a lot of the problems of the earlier stanza. We have a lot of disconnected images, that don’t really build together to create something stronger. However, I would actually keep the “write dissent/upon the floor” if only because... well, it is needed to give that last line the kick that it has.)
Your work is not wasted; yet, you’ll taste it:
(you lose me here. Maybe “you’ll taste it yet”? Since it isn’t wasted, it seems obvious that they’ll taste it, making the “yet” superfluous unless it is referring to time.”
(READ):
My dissent
dries black upon the floor. (Like I already said, I like this line.)
(I have a feeling that there was supposed to be a pattern to the repeating images/words, but it just made me feel like I was trapped in some sort of cycle. You play with some great variations on phrases with it, and you are able to create a very continuous, flowing sound - but it kind of drove me crazy. I would definitely look at some of your repetitions and see if they are really necessary. If they aren’t building up to a greater picture, drop them.
That aside, this piece is beautiful. I read it aloud ... a lot more than I probably should have. You build up almost a sing-song aspect with all that internal rhyme, assonance, etc. Your cadence is dead on. It really is a delight to hear it, as well as read it.
But, don’t let that get you carried away from the other aspects. (like imagery, and meaning.) This piece could probably be halved, and not lose any of the imagery or meaning - which means that that is a LOT of words going to sound effect. I know you are hesitant about the piece, but I think that you have got a lot of good stuff working in here - now it’s just a matter of paring out all that excess so that each lines is building toward that climactic end. If you decide to keep with this one and revise it, I look forward to seeing it finished. (and reading it aloud finished.... I’m geeky like that.))