Yesterday in Aspen by Black Rock Tractor

[ Join Free! ]
(No Spam mail)

dots

<< | >>

Submission Name: Yesterday in Aspen dots

--------------------------------------------------------

Author:	Black Rock Tractor
Elite Ratio:	3.84 - 553/787/125
Words:	149

Class/Type:	Poetry/Misc
Total Views:	436
Average Vote:	No vote yet.
Bytes:	983

Description:

Yesterday in Aspen dots

-------------------------------------------

Yesterday
in Aspen
your excitement turned to ashes
and the birds in your chest
never found their way home
I asked you to look at me
but my words lost to your feet
and you walked into the snow
on your own

The pages turned through the night
as the walls danced with candle light
and I paced through my mind to find you
but in the attic of my emotions
you had sailed many oceans
and pirated the good times we'd had

I wish you hadn't

So tomorrow I suppose
I'll buy some new clothes
to replace the ones you had dressed me in

and as I'm scratching
where I don't itch
just to scrape you
out of this
rhapsody of me, my darling
my excitement turns ashes
and I think "tomorrow
I'll be leaving
on the next flight to my home"

Submitted on 2005-01-28 15:02:29 Terms of Service / Copyright Rules
Submissions: [ Previous ] [ Next ]

1: >_<
2: I dunno...
3: meh!
4: Pretty cool
5: Wow!

||| Comments |||
  Yesterday in Aspen
-------------------------------------------

Yesterday
in Aspen
your excitement turned to ashes
and the birds in your chest
never found their way home
I asked you to look at me
but my words lost to your feet
and you walked into the snow
on your own

The pages turned through the night
as the walls danced with candle light
and I paced through my mind to find you
but in the attic of my emotions
you had sailed many oceans
and pirated the good times we'd had

I wish you hadn't

yeah i liked it up to here...damn you're good...
| Posted on 2006-11-24 00:00:00 | by ruejacobs | [ Reply to This ]
  Hey you...

This is definitely a different approach for you. I'm sort of stuck in the middle on this. I think that maybe it did not need the length, that it may fare better in your more mnimalist style that I'm used to, but maybe it's just that...that I'm so used to it. It's a passionate piece and I like it. I felt that the rhymes in a few areas seemed that they may have been a little forced, e.g.

The pages turned through the night
as the walls danced with candle light

And the candlelight line was one of those lines that seems unlike you.

I feel like dieing=dying

After a reread or two (I LOVE the opening stanza btw), it tends to flow a buit more freely, as I become more comfortable with it. I still get the feeling that it could be said with less.

But it is quite good, as usual for you.

Hope all is well,
-Kristina
| Posted on 2005-02-09 00:00:00 | by Kristina9178 | [ Reply to This ]
  Hey :)
It's been too long since I stopped by for a comment on your work, even though I read regularly. Anyway, I like this. I thinkthe rhyme is fabulous in some places, and contrived in others. The "night/light" one was waaaay too obvious for me... but the "itch/this" worked reaaaally well. I think you paid consideration to where you cut these lines up, and it shows.
But punctuation... yeah, it'd be good.
And then, I think...
On1eday says that this sounds like everyone else's work. And yet, punctuation is kind of "modern" cos not many older poets use it. So if you take my advice and add punc, you could be digging yourself into that niche.
All the same though... someone here said that there are no new ideas or new methods, just individual interpretations.
We've all got to do the best with what we've got, and not sweat the small stuff...

Yesterday
in Aspen
your excitement turned to ashes

I like the "ashes". They give a really strong image of how... dead and devoid the excitement became.

and the birds in your chest
never found their way home

That's too abstract for me. What birds? what
bloody birds?

I asked you to look at me
but my words lost to your feet
and you walked into the snow
on your own

I liked this as soon as I read it and it grows on me more each time.

The pages turned through the night
as the walls danced with candle light

That is just, blah. That's like, The Raven, or something that's overly contrived and it totally sounds like something I've heard before.

"and I paced through my mind to find you
but in the attic of my emotions
you had sailed many oceans"

Ehh... this as well seems a bit over the top, it seems that you dipped your pen in an olde-worlde inkwell for a moment, before picking up your plastic biro again. How did you jump from attics to oceans? I like the soft alliteration/rhyme...

and pirated the good times we'd had

Like that :)

I wish you hadn't

So tomorrow I suppose
I'll buy some new clothes
to replace the ones you had dressed me in
What I like about this piece is that you've actually followed many rules of poetry in this, such as not just telling, but explaining. You explain why you buy new clothes; most peeps here on ES would just say there were going shopping.

and I'll walk down a new road
lined with new houses
and search
through a vacant lot
for a four leaf clover
remembering how once
when I was a boy
I had found some in a cluster
*this is good, for the same reason as the shopping thing, but I still wonder "what's the point of the clover line?"

But now that I'm over
with that joy as I'm older
it's more than I can muster
to crack

"butnowthatI'moverthatjoynowI'molderit'smorethanIcanmustertocrack"
Niche or trends or whatnot, I think some punctuation could really help.

a single smile
And tomorrow seems a thousand
horrible deaths
away
*sighs* I hate picking holes in things. But this is one of the lines where you don't explain, like you did with clover and shopping. You just say that tomorrow's a thousand deaths away, and that did stop me in my tracks to think "wtf does that mean?"

I feel like dieing
"Dying" :P

My focus isn't much
of a focus
at all
it's more like a fever
pitched down a lonely hall

This isn't working for me either cos...
How the hell does a fever get pitched down a hall? Come on, Rees...

and refracted to pieces
in low-hung crystal balls
that bounce up and down

and up and down

I love the sound of this. Bouncing glass balls and smashings. but it goes from a focus to a fever in a hall being refracted into pieces of crystal balls. o.O O.o That does NOT make sense.

I'm scratching
where I don't itch
*liked this :)*
just to scrape you
out of this
rhapsody of me, my darling
The reason I'd see punctuation as a good tool in this piece is because you've just written four great lines. But before they have a chance to sink in, I've been shoved into the next four, and I get confused, and don't appreciate what I'm reading. So my mind
*blinks*
and I have to go back and read it again.

I don't want to go skiing
my excitement's turned to ashes
I really like the way this has been brought full circle, and also that the repetition is not the title.

I think tomorrow
I'll be leaving
on the next flight to my home

I liked the ending, a lot... I personally think that the "to my" is unnecessary and that it'd sound better as "next flight home".
| Posted on 2005-02-08 00:00:00 | by Learah | [ Reply to This ]
  Rees, there seems to be a refinement in this. Not really a departure from the way you used to write, but this seems more solid to me than I found your work in the past.
In another group we are studying the work of Dean Young, and I think you would enjoy his writing. This poem reminds me a lot of how he writes. That would put HIM in pretty good company.
Take care,
Dave
| Posted on 2005-02-03 00:00:00 | by Sandburg | [ Reply to This ]
  Well, this starts out kind of surreal. I like the association of ashes with Aspen (since it's named after a kind of tree).

and the birds in your chest
never found their way home
I asked you to look at me
but my words lost to your feet
and you walked into the snow

It's like she's sending you love, but you won't receive it. She must've been angry to have walked away alone.

I really like "and I paced through my mind to find you" and "pirated the good times we'd had." I've searched for those vestiges of someone too. I like the idea of you making illegal copies of good times. Perhaps she doesn't want you to recall them, but you do anyway.

to replace the ones you had dressed me in
and I'll walk down a new road
lined with new houses
and search
through a vacant lot
for a four leaf clover

Well, that sounds like she tried to change you (since she dressed you). I like the idea of trying to "walk a new road"to forget her and searching through your vacant heart for something worthwhle.

And tomorrow seems a thousand
horrible deaths
away

I feel like dieing

Well, that's very true. Losing someone does make you want to die (You misspelled dying, by the way).

My focus isn't much
of a focus
at all
it's more like a fever
pitched down a lonely hall
and refracted to pieces
in low-hung crystal balls
that bounce up and down

Well, that reminds me of Conor Oberst's use of fevers as a symbol. That stanza is abstract as hell, but it makes perfect sense to me. I know that fever of sadness and the vision that's inpossible to decipher.

I'm scratching
where I don't itch
just to scrape you
out of this
rhapsody of me

Well, that's kind of a productive scratching. You're trying to scratch out that unwelcome woman. I actually like that you left her. It's quite a show of strength,
| Posted on 2005-01-29 00:00:00 | by cuddledumplin | [ Reply to This ]
  I'm scratching
where I don't itch
just to scrape you
out of this

Awesome lines! Kinda like eww at first but it makes its point. I wouldn't listen to that first comment you got... it really didn't offer much help at all, just his views. Kinda like what my comment will do, only I will be nicer about it and I'm not offering help cuz I don't think you need it. Basically I'm just saying that I liked your poem. I like poems that rhyme more than poems that don't... gives me something to work with, a rhyme, I can understand it better and quicker, and all that. But then there are poems like these, that don't have a super definite rhyme scheme and I think I prefer those most of all. They make me happy and I really enjoy reading them cuz it's a good go-between of rhyming and not rhyming. A nice little mixture of both. Fun to write, fun to read... a plus on both ends. So, good job. Tells a story also, those are always nice.

Well ok I do have a bit of a deal with something... the lines about the fever being pitched down a lonely hall... I just didn't really get it. Seems like it wuz just thrown in to add some words that rhymed, like it wuz time for a rhyme. I dunno. But other than that, yayness
| Posted on 2005-01-28 00:00:00 | by WaxingPoetic | [ Reply to This ]
  i dont know what it is about this 'style' of poetry that has become so popular right now.
and i dont know whether it is co-incidence or if the people that move in their circles are rubbing off of each other
onto each other.
but your stalk list holds no co-incidence to me, because this has many similarities to the writing of cuddledumplin and girlinthephoto. there is a very breathless feel in these writings, onethingsaidafteranotherafteranother like they just fly out of the brain like alison hannigan's character in american pie. like driving around the famous arc de triomphe in paris where the road rules are 'opposite.'
for example:
'So tomorrow I suppose
I'll buy some new clothes
to replace the ones you had dressed me in
and I'll walk down a new road
lined with new houses
and search
through a vacant lot
for a four leaf clover
remembering how once
when I was a boy
I had found some in a cluster
But now that I'm over
with that joy as I'm older
it's more than I can muster
to crack
a single smile
And tomorrow seems a thousand
horrible deaths
away'
incidentally, i like and can relate to the first three lines in this extract.
very pognant and well written in your abstracted depressive way.
but i have seen this verse a squillion times here.

to some, this may be a nice little ring a ring of roses, and i can accept that some would see the benefits of this, but not me.
to me, and this is just the way i see things, the similarities are not a good thing. but it happens. it happens here a lot.
this way, which some have called 'new,' though i dont see that. is and has become overused for me here and i tire of it. you have your style of dejection and melancholy even when the words are not necessarily so, but i just read and meander and think to myself yeah i have read this a 100 times only someone else is telling me this time.
and amy posting 10,000 poems a day may not help this.

this is what you may wish to do, in my opinion.
put some fu-cking punctuation in it. even if it is as rebellion to everything else. it does not have to be much, but take the time and detail to do it and do it well. and make people think.
do something about the following:
'The pages turned through the night
as the walls danced with candle light,'
becuase this belongs to the 15 year olds, and not here.
give your piece come direction. meandering and procrastinating and artyfarty pansying the way around a piece of poetry is all too common, and feminine, and a little boring now for me.
have a concept. for example a journey from a to b. this is the most simple form, but it can be effective and is something that people just dont do anymore. certainly move left and right and round and around, but get back on that straight line at the end and finish at b. and let a. and b. be clear in one way or another.
and that is just one.

i understand you may have a 'style,' and there are some nice things in your natural and whimsical, almost couldnotgiveafu-ck kind of way, and you dont want to lose the essence of this,
you have some good sh-it here;
'I'm scratching
where I don't itch
just to scrape you
out of this
rhapsody of me, my darling
I don't want to go skiing
my excitement's turned to ashes
I think tomorrow
I'll be leaving
on the next flight to my home,'
this is good. the changes in mood and direction and description work well.
but to have a 'style' is to restrict ourselves, and it all wilts into nothingness in the end.
i think more work is needed in this and i feel that there is a hole that you could be sucked into if you are not careful.
take care mate
on1eday.co.uk
| Posted on 2005-01-28 00:00:00 | by on1eday.co.uk | [ Reply to This ]
  it's always hard to follow on1eday's critiques. but what i want to say here doesn't really fall into the category of a critique anyway. because more often than not now i feel that there isn't much i can add to a poem in terms of telling a person what they should or should not do.

i can sit here and tell you that the line breaks were perfect to give that breathless sense that's already been mentioned. or that the imagery and metaphors were original. or that this line or that really stood out.

but i don't want to.

i saw something of myself in these words. that need to scratch a person out of your skin. or that feeling.. the best way to describe it would be if you've seen the film 'amelie'.. there's this scene where her disappointment is reflected by her body turning into water and falling to the ground. my description doesn't do it justice and i hope you've seen the film so you know what i mean..

but that's exactly what this poem is like. realising that you have to let go even if you didnt want to.. even if what comes next is painful. but at the same time.. because you're going "home" .. it gives it a sense of hope where the rest of the words are so bleak.

this is beautiful. in a sad, lonely 'bright eyes' kinda way..
| Posted on 2005-01-28 00:00:00 | by girlinthephoto | [ Reply to This ]

Full Anime Episodes Streaming Free
5 million youtube videos all rated over 4.7 stars with 40+ ratings

[ Copy this | Start New | Full Size ]

Enter your search terms Submit search form

Web www.eliteskills.com

[ Chrispian ] [ Write Forum ]
[ Friends ] [ SNESroms ] .

[ Quick Signup ]
[ Lost Password ]

January 10 07
131,497 Poems
Posted

I have 14,000+ Subscribers on Youtube. See my Video Tutorials

[ Angst Poetry ]
[ Cutters ]
[ Famous Poetry ]
[ Poetry Scams ]

FontSize:
[ Smaller ] [ Bigger ]

This user has been inactive for more than 5 days.