The Poets' Graves Workshop

Tonight I will kiss you with my mouth my tongue will be fire, my arms serpents to restrain you my hand will kiss you with my mouth the taut star of your body its jewel-islands rising my nose will plough the secret earth of you petals will fall open at my breath; the hot gold of my heart will enter t...

I also like this a lot - up until the last three lines.

Mic

I'm in.

Mic

I especially liked the ambiguity of the ending, Mic. Is the whole body waving because the person is warmly wishing them well, or because they are (given the roll call of misery) rather glad to see them go on this occasion, or bit o'both. Perhaps N does not really know. I think it nicely expresses a...

The end doesn't work, though know exactly what you're doing and it is a good idea. The word 'and' at the start of the last stanza needs to go I think cos 'On the bus home, I'm not really listening......and when I get off...I wave' doesn't make sense. You could put 'so' instead of 'and', but I think...

Hi Iain, My thoughts on this before looking at other critiques: It's a bit of a 'curate's egg' for me - some nice lines, a good atmosphere, interesting voice, but... it doesn't go anywhere (and I'm not sure that is a 'but'), and there is some awkwardness to the phrasing in places (e.g. 'here is samp...

There are references in this I don't get ('brownings' 'corkscrew port') but I don't think it matters - I get the feeling of it, and it has atmosphere.

I stumble a little over 'ears shrill as birds' and '...in his head I see now'

And the last two lines seem too 'telly'.

Mic

when she tells me she's tired after getting up at midnight to watch Andy Murray in the US Open, then golf somewhere else in the world – those white balls making strange trajectories through air and into holes; when she tells me about the garbled letter from her older brother, the medication for his ...

@ Suzanne - I was hoping that the bracketed bit would hint at the broader political issue....

Yep - agree.

Oppression?

The pride theme this year is 'freedom to live' - and reflects the lack of freedom gay people have in certain cultures and countries. So the the idea of freedom being uncompromising (taking no money, or gifts, not surrendering) is meant in that broader political context, as well is in the more day-to...

Thanks Suzanne.

With that last stanza I'm perhaps being a bit too tricksy-clever - I'm imagining the shape two bodies make as a kind of cage. Perhaps 'cage' would be a better word to use here.

Mic

Thanks Peter.

I had thought similarly to you about the ending, but felt it didn't really quite stand on its own, and also hope that the lead up does add something!

I realise this morning that I have a problem with the 'surrender for' construction. The grammar is wrong, isn't it?

Cheers,

Mic

will not sit down to breakfast with them, it would rather eat earwigs, than tyranny's feast; see how it grows our love skywards, takes no money or gifts, surrenders nothing, though it will surrender to the lavender dust on your lips to the distance that knows what close is to the light our parents c...

congrats!

Mic

I agree with you both!

Mic

If I were to put all my atoms into a machine that could make a perfect copy of every single one of my atoms, would it be a perfect copy of the original me, you ask. I say, the original would have the quality of the original; the copy would be the copy. My answer is too pat, you say, and, perhaps, mi...

Thanks Nash and David. Very different for me. And glad you like it.

Thanks Pauline - interesting feedback. I suppose this isn't an especially 'representational' drawing (it's called 'mythology') - I think of the other hands emerging out of the darkness as belonging to someone, something (?!) else. I do, like you, feel it is a bit top-heavy. I like the top bit best. ...

A distinction!

Mic

Thanks for coming back Luke.
I'm now inclined to agree with you about that first line, and will re-consider it.

Thanks Luke. Interesting points. I'm trying to somehow say that time is nothing more than, well, a trick of the light (and the line is hackneyed, although I'm not sure that the comparison is) - i.e. that somehow there is somewhere beyond it, through it (where the snowy field, tree and swing are?). T...

is a trick of the light;
a word scrawled
on a window pane
in receipt of warm breath—
beyond it: a snowy field
an oak tree, a swing.



* 'and' cut from before swing, as suggested by Seth over at 52

Hi Zimbowman, Going against the current, I'm afraid this really isn't doing anything for me: too abstract, clunky meter and line structure, trying too hard to sound poetic. I can't picture any of these 'images' - 'sowing farms of a different green', 'reaping sin from withered roots' , 'hanging thoug...

A new drawing (with close up).