Description: so Imadjinn gave me the line 'this is [not] home' and the idea was to write whatever came to mind when i woke up* but i kinda cheated so i wrote all the time instead of just upon waking and it kinda turned out quite autobiography like so... yeah... theres 2 more posts coming of 'this is [not] home' inspired words...
*there is not meant to be any connection between the pieces except that i wrote them.
this is [not] home. [# 1 - 4] -------------------------------------------
#1
and this shell doesn't fit
so well - like they promised
it would feel snug
like a second home
but rather it's too tight
like a second hand corset
these bones aren't
substitute ribs
they're whips
ripping at my flesh
but i can still smile while
stealing each breath
they train their penguins well
#2
YOUR HONOUR!
ARE YOU CRAZY!?
so what'd ya get?
i didnt get nothing
just this crummy old cell
with a urine crusted mattress
guess it would be worse...
I'M INNOCENT!
the guards are so slimey
they're god now
it's their urine on my mattress
i just know it
could be worse...
I FOUND GOD...!
#3
she turned to me and said
"may god convict your music taste"
while i sat there listening
to The Doors
Jim Morrison
...sigh...
but me and god...
we got us an understanding
god says yes to me.
#4
you know...
i never actually saw my grandfather smoke a cigarette. usually he just lit them for company and sat there as they burnt down out of habit
and a killer habit it was
i never saw him in his coffin. i wanted to. but she said i should have lunch first. well... in the end i missed seeing him by thirty minutes and i never got any damn lunch.
cigarettes dont make for good company... they rarely ever talk.
My first impression was a giddy ride on emotions turned on high. Your references to this life as I experience the poem is not having a good ride but a bumpy one – not out of control but not nice. There is of course the undercurrent of life not lost but struggling to get there. I am privileged to be anointed in a very special disposition (will not specify on that) from whence life and circumstances can be viewed objectively and what I have found is that to combat and overcome the strangeness of this life, I have to enter through the door of darkness and become emotionally part of it to be able to push it away and battle through till I find the Light and this darkness dispersers. Not easily done but I have always survived to fight another day and another battle. Well composed piece and very informative. Luv u. Joachim.
And this shell doesn't fit so well like they promised...
Upon completion of reading this discovered, my verdict is you are one of the best writers I know!
The words you say are monumental..they should be in some African syllabus of poetry.
I could go on and comment about all you have written and my reaction would be- amazement.
However, I find myself disagreeing a bit on the views you put across- in this and other poetry. I guess theya re your personal views, would not want people getting the wrong picture...or does the poem steal you away...
These were all very interesting, and I especially enjoyed the contrast between them all. The most memorable moments were when you mentioned the corset, as well as the "killer habit" line. The habit line was very witty. That said, since this is a critique site, there are a few things I would change.
First of all, I did not enjoy #2. I felt that the rest of the vignettes were much stronger, whereas #2 almost dwelled in clichés. The rest of the pieces are so strong, that it would be silly to leave such a weak spot.
Finally, and this is just a little nit-picky thing, but the amount of ellipses in the last piece almost detracted from its effectiveness. It is so strong (my favorite, I think) that I would prefer a line break in the last line instead of the ellipses. Overall, great work! Thanks for sharing!
prison cells and cigarettes
slimy guards are god
obey?
betray?
see you say that you've never been good at the whole God thing, well with writing. is god the metaphor here?
well anyway. no connection?
idk, i guess i'm just looking for one.
maybe everyone else is too, or i'm not understanding your description, which would make one wonder how i could understand this, but hey, i can fake it.
ladada...
i forget where i am.
mid-comment
yes there i was.
this seems so all over the place, but like, over the same place. idk. it's like, you know those shows with the sarcastic dialogs, like....internal reactions. to something of a trial, well i suppose what isn't something of a trial. but anyway. very very diffrent than one would expect from this is not home.
favorite lines
they train their penguins well
"may god convict your music taste"
but me and god...
we got us an understanding
god says yes to me.
i think i've heard that said so many times, just never out front. very quotable line.
the whole number 2 put's me back in the prison concept of the timmy writes, i know, egomaniac. but hey, it's the most fun kind of maniac. well besides the animaniacs.
anyway, i like these, i think bunching them together kinda leads one to find a path through the words, and everyone kinda comes to their own conclusion. don't know how literally to take any of it either. but it's very interesting and thought provoking to say the least.
Interesting little vignettes. They all seem as if you wrote them when you woke up anyway: dreamy and imaginative.
#1 - a real out of body experience. You are viewing parts of you as seperate entities that are there to torture you ("they're whips
ripping at my flesh"). But the last line really leaves me puzzled. It is so odd that I laughed for the sheer randomness of it. Random is funny.
#2 - What is this characters sentence? And why are the guards so scuzzy and mean? I'm gonna slap them all. *KA-SLAP!* Not sure what to say about this.
#3 - Who said this? I'm going to slap them. *KA-SLAP!* The Doors are excellent! This person is obviously an anti-60s and 70s music person. Shame on them.
I don't think God has to be part of this though...
#4 - This one, to me, had the most meaning to it. Cigarettes kill. And people smoke cigarettes. And they smoke cigarettes because they are stupid enough to start in the first place.
Therefore, stupidity kills.
Cigarettes are dangerous company! The only words they say are "poison! lingering death! have a taste!"
Sorry about your grandfather. No one should have to lose someone they love because of cigarettes. If it were of natural causes, then its blow would be less.
And I'm not saying that your grandfather was stupid. I'm just saying he made one bad decision that cost him his life.
you know...
i never actually saw my grandfather smoke a cigarette. usually he just lit them for company and sat there as they burnt down out of habit
and a killer habit it was
i never saw him in his coffin. i wanted to. but she said i should have lunch first. well... in the end i missed seeing him by thirty minutes and i never got any damn lunch.
cigarettes dont make for good company... they rarely ever talk.
Was it your intent to wander from robotic conformity to surreal self-recrimination to molding God in the image of man/woman to the neck-snapping reality of the last section? This could easily be a spiritual pilgrimage from unquestioned obedience to guilt-ridden autonomy to an exploration of pleasures to a sobering truce with Deity. I could be wrong...but I believe the intent to portray motion and growth is present throughout the write.
The first two have a bit a humor, the second almost a manic energy. I wasn't expecting that, though your writing always has a certain sort of defiance that I admire; at once plunging the depths of human trials and despondencies while still carrying on despite (or in spite) of all of it.
I have to say, the first one is fully loaded... over-sized load... lots of things packed into there. Lots of metaphor with no time to step back and put it all into perspective, and the penguin line comes off as a bit absurd at first.
Honestly I can't figure out the predicament, but it makes me think of dressing rooms and nice clothes and personal (gag) shoppers.
And the second one... well, I totally relate. I like the contrast betwen the bouts of "HEY! WAIT! #%$&%$(#@(!!!!!!" and quiet resignment. Cause that's exactly how I've felt these past four months. Every week or so I'd say "f*ck it, let's go to trial. They won't have the balls. and if they do, f*ck em anyway, this isn't fair, I'm calling the press..."
and then I'd go for a run.
The irony of "I found God!" is awesome.
3rd one. Convict or condemn? I like the way convict carries over from the last one but meh, maybe it's not the best word. It had me confused, at least.
Ummm...I love it when people write how they think during the course of the day:
"they train their penguins well"
Penguins are easy to hunt.
"god says yes to me"
[censored]ing PERFECT line. Thats so simple and sounds like something you should have heard or read before, but sadly...I dont think I've ever heard it until now.
Cant critique, just gotta marvel in your brilliance.
This reminds me of my idea of a prison cell. A tight little home away from home but a darn hard and smelly mattress. Perhaps innocent by the way jurors today bring the politics of consummation so that there can be a verdict.
Well , since nobody believes in innocence of one before a judge it is just as well to smoke a cigarette and hope death gives a better erdict.
Number two reminds me of Salad Fingers. Did you ever watch the video where he is trapped in a cage, and his finger begins to bleed? He starts hallucinating, and it flashes back to him in a cage, and so on, until the video returns to him in the cage, pale, stoned, almost. It's sad. That is what they call humor. Oh well.
Jim Morrison? Jim Morrison! Jim Morrison... Jim Morrison,
I had a friend named Jimmy. This reminds me too much of him. He is dead. Both of them are dead. It is sad to recognize the behavior.
God has nothing to do with agreements and acknowledgement. But let him be the resting place, so to speak. It could be worse. You could have remained in the cell.
Cigarettes are wonderful playtoys. I like taking them apart. It is relieving. Creul, in certain ways, but overall, they have components which are, to say the least, interesting. It's a shame that its darker side became both a murderer and a muse.
Interesting concept. I wrote a piece called "Welcome to the Unhome", and this instantly reminded me of it. Almost the same. Just not as explicit.
This whole entire thing kinda just blew me away. I always wish I could write like this. But, I can't. I fear my writings are much too...blunt. I don't leave anything to the imagination. And, you do...yet you don't. It always amazes me...your writings.
I'll reckon this'll work best if I go through them in order.
#1
So, that penguin line. It's growing on me. The way the image of penguin doesn't seem to fit reflects how you don't fit into that metaphoric shell, emphasises how different you are from them. And yeah, it also has a charming oddness to it. And who would want to be a penguin, stuffed so tightly into a little suit they can only waddle ridiculously about. I think "second hand" needs a hyphen.
#2
One tiny typo, line 7 ought to be "guess it could be worse". I really like this poem, it's maybe even my favourite out of these, though I don't quite know why. There's something kind of childish (in a good way) about it, but also a bit of deepness, God pissing on your matress shows that you really ain't having much luck in life, and what hope is there when God leaves heaven to becomes a slimey guard? It feels like there's a sad story of deprivation and heart-break behind the narrator's joking.
#3
This one is probably my least favourite, to be honest. I'm not a big fan of the ...sigh..., I think it's a bit overused in general and seems poetically a bit of a lazy way to convey emotion. But that may just be a silly personal vendetta I have against sighing. 100 cool points for mentioning The Doors though.
#4
I always find having a cigarette give a wonderful false sense of purpose and something to do in a way a lot of things can't... it's possible to sit doing [censored] all for hours if you've got enough cigarettes. And yeah, the final line makes me think of him as lonely but not knowing how to really deal with it other than find refuge in deadly smoking, and it's really quite depressing. I think there ought to be a full stop after "killer habit" because i think the bluntness of the statement demands one.
wow, so number 1: so many times have i felt like everything i do comes back to bite me, like i don't belong where i am, and this is what that poem means to me. which is probably off base from you. but the second hand corset line was lovely. the entire thing was lovely, and heartbreaking.
Submission Name: this is [not] home. [# 1 - 4]
