The Thicket by Magnolia

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Submission Name: The Thicket dots

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Author:	Magnolia
ASL Info:	31/ F
Elite Ratio:	6.14 - 402/377/27
Words:	312

Class/Type:	Poetry/Misc
Total Views:	664
Average Vote:	No vote yet.
Bytes:	1985

Description:
born from a feverish dream...

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So, she has captivated you has she?
My, how quickly you are taken.
And in the time it took
for you to fall in (and out of) love
I half blinked.
When my eyelids made the full journey
and returned to their widened state,
you were gone--

But I saw you everywhere
and smelled you on the wind,
( heady and moist)
and in the thicket
where you had left me
to wait...
The sky's light stolen
a hundred times over,
and I realized you weren't coming back.

Tell me how you first found her.
Was she coquettish in her flirtations
or did she dismiss you sullenly
proving only to fan the flames
of your appetition?

No matter that her hair
was flaxen or umber--
the strands lie across your pillows
from where mine of raven
have taken flight from that nest.

Compare her eyes to mine.
Can hers see through you as mine did?
As mine do?
You can stare into those pale moonstones
for an eternity but you will never
witness the creatures of magic,
the Garden of Eden,
all the colors of the rainbow
that you swore were contained in mine.

When I see you in the street,
your hand laced with hers
you look away.
Translucent in this skin,
I am an apparition-- she is your life.

So go on and be rid of me.
Be rid of this body
once soft and pliable
under the weight of you.
I will return to the thicket
and make my home there among
the briny slugs and centipedes.
I will live out my days there
drinking foxglove tea
and lying in wait...

Some day your children
will happen upon my den--

and I will eat them.

Submitted on 2005-06-22 19:26:22 Terms of Service / Copyright Rules
Submissions: [ Previous ] [ Next ]

1: >_<
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||| Comments |||
  hmmm...okay, I'm really late getting to this one and I never read comments before commenting, so I'm sorry if I'm stirring up old dust...I have to start at the ending...First off, no need to offer advice on changing it. You've recieved oodles of comments so I'm sure this is as it will remain. The ending really threw me. The meat of the piece is so reflective and sorrowful and eloquent...and then BAM! I'm not saying it is not good or doesn't do justice to the piece, just that it completely changes the emotion of the piece. In fact, I don't know why I'm bothering to struggle so much with my feelings about it...as I said, I'm sure it is here to stay and it should be, because this is the effect you wanted to relay. You are sad, you are disappointed you are angry.

as for the rest of the piece...pure beauty...wonderful word choices. Let me stop there. Word choices - me and Vancrown had a conversation the other night about that topic and how this is exactly what separates good poets from great poets, bad from good, etc...you always seem to think each word through and usually make excellent choices on which ones to use. I could break this all down and point to dozens of them but instead will simply take one stanza which I found to be particularly stunning -

No matter that her hair
was flaxen or umber-
the strands lie across your pillows
from where mine of raven
have taken flight from that nest

Perfect! So many diferent words you could have chosen throughout those five lines...

okay, I'm rambling about something that has been rambled about and surely not giving you anything new or helpful in the least. Let it be known that I am so impressed with you and the care you take in assembling your work. You are growing in leaps and bounds and you started from a pretty good place anyway...you are a joy to read and I am proud and honored to consider you a friend.
| Posted on 2005-07-27 00:00:00 | by deadndreaming | [ Reply to This ]
  hello there,
a long time with no interaction.
or action.

i hope you are well. it would seem so.

the best way for me to get back in to critical appraisal is just to tell you what i think worked and what i think did not.

so what i think you could work on should you wish to look. i notice this piece must be quite old and you have had 8,000 comments so perhaps the time has come and gone:

i dont think you need the following lines:
'When my eyelids made the full journey
and returned to their widened state,'
all you are doing here is repeating the previous line that you had blinked but you are adding nothing of consequence to it. we know what blinking is, and you have taken two additional lines to explain it,
in my opinion.

'smelled,' sounds really awkward. i know that is is as correct as smelt, but i think smelt fits in better in terms of the space it takes up in the line and the fact that it does not prove as much as an obstacle. to be honest smelt sounds like a fish and there is probably a better word for both.

you dont need the last part of the following line:
'Was she coquettish in her flirtations,'
...in her flirtations. again your are double-describing the event, and coquettish is a great word and should not be undermined by semi explaining it by adding another word that means exactly the same thing.

perhaps i am being overly picky here but i think it is a mistake to have the words appetition and apparition in the same poem. they are so distinctly close that i was immediately drawn to it and thus taken away form the rest of the diction.

which leads me to my next point that relates to diction. i think there are inconsistencies in your voice. i like the first two stanzas best [not that that matters at all] because they are more honest and descriptive and detailed. once you move on your voice seems to change into someone who is no longer recounting the event with all the colour and sh-it stains, but someone who is sitting in a library with a thesaurus and a distant memory or an attempt at creating an event that has not happened to them. the straight faced and hidden but no so hidden bitterness that comes through just as it should in the first two stanzas becomes more dilute as the piece goes on and more contrived,
in my opinion.

i think you could do much more with your punctuation. there is some inconsistency, and as i see it you have chosen to punctuate your piece in a fairly conventional way, and if you decide to do this you need to get it right.

so this is what i like and what i think worked well;
your first two stanzas apart from the repetition, reason stated above.

the overall mood of the poem. all in all you have very effectively portrayed restrained bitterness and jealousy. this is by no means as easy as just shouting and sh-itting on your page, and you have done this with intelligence and control.

[your use of the words heady and moist and in the brackets] very much reminds me of jeff buclkley's line:
lilac wine, so sweet and heady. and it fits well and evokes music to my ears.

the rhetoric. i am generally highly critical of rhetoric and the fact that it is used without care like peas and carrots to bulk a piece. but your use of it here works well because these really are the kind of questions you would ask in the state of mind your protagonist is in. it is easy to get swallowed into sounding poetic and arty and flowing and ya but for me poetry is not about that. it is the mix of the images you provoke and the colours you give them. very often the best way is to just say it how it is because the things that happen in our lives is what has inspired poetry since the day that poetry was first written. poetry should not be unrealistic and inaccessible, and it is the things like this that make the poem real.

your ending is appropriately savage and bitter and abrupt.

as is my commentary, because i am seeing double.
as is my commentary, because i am seeing double

take care
on1eday.co.uk
| Posted on 2005-07-22 00:00:00 | by on1eday.co.uk | [ Reply to This ]
  I think vancrwn said it best Mike Tyson really would be proud...you might even get a call from his lawyer wanting risiduols. Mags I must say ..your poetry has grown --when I remember you writing youtr 1st posts they weren't anything like this....This is a definate step up and a step up from everybody else as well. I mean this is poetry mags,,,and you are an excellent poet.
Lamemansterms
| Posted on 2005-07-17 00:00:00 | by LameMansTerms | [ Reply to This ]
  *frantically waving arms*

the ending?? the ending?? everyone is talking about the ending, but what I wanted the end to be was where you KICK HIS ASSSSSSS! LOL

j/k this is amazing my friend...you have just put into words how i feel about my last "fling"? i guess that is what you would have to call him...grrrrrrrrr just let me at him! LOL

ok ok i WILL be serious dammit! this was an amazing piece...i reread it several times and kept getting the same reaction...you are soooo cool and collected, and the ending is so shakesperian in how it was executed...unexpectedly! Brilliant!

ok...let the silliness continue...LOL

-Nikki
| Posted on 2005-07-15 00:00:00 | by stolie77 | [ Reply to This ]
  heheheheh... dude, aww man. I love how you build up that energy of torment and jealousy throughout the poem, then ended it with a simple "and i will eat them". I'm sorry if i got the wrong view on it, and i really don't want to insult you or anything, but i think it's hilarious. I don't know, I just love the sinisterness(<- is that even a word?) of the piece. Thanks a lot man, seriously, i had a [censored] headache but that one line just completly chased it away.
| Posted on 2005-07-10 00:00:00 | by randomscreams | [ Reply to This ]
  Ah, mags, before I tell you what I thought of this, let me offer up this observation about these two lines:

from where mine of raven
have taken flight from that nest.

*where once mine of raven
graced those clouds of nestled nest.*

I make the suggestion because of the entire poem, these were the only two lines that jangled for me and seemed ungainly. The rest is beautiful.

<maybe predation for appetition, but I kinda liked it as is>

The ending makes for a superb departure from the rest of the piece. I mean, you set us up beautifully and delivered the knock out punch with authority! I can't crow enough about that because the effect was tremendous and I'm a huge fan of strong finishes, and this one was one of the strongest I've read in quite some time.

Loved the imagery of that. And added another favorite to my list.

Thank you for the wake up call! Owww, my poor eye! Did you HAVE to hit me so hard?

hahhaha.

PS Mike Tyson would be proud!

<he once told Lennox Lewis he'd eat his children! and he had a good knock out punch in his prime!>
| Posted on 2005-07-10 00:00:00 | by Vancrown | [ Reply to This ]
  Jeez...alia's weird...hehehe :)

Your sticky-sweet veneer gave way to all out contempt there in the end. Nice.

Just gotta say that for some reason 'appetition' seemed to not fit so well. Might just be me...but i did a double-take on that line.

The set up for the ending was punctualized (for me) by the image of you huddled in the thicket. I immediately thought of a rabit or small rodent hiding from a bird of prey...meek right? One would think so. Then that 'killer' (hehehe..) ending...the prey became the predator. Nice .

see you later, kc
| Posted on 2005-07-09 00:00:00 | by twacky | [ Reply to This ]
  I love the voice you have created in this poem. I liked the poem from the beginning when it lulls you into just thinking that a woman is complaining over a lost love. I like the lines

You can stare into those pale moonstones
for an eternity but you will never
witness the creatures of magic,
the Garden of Eden,
all the colors of the rainbow
that you swore were contained in mine.

but the end is just brilliant. The return to the thicket

the briny slugs and centipedes.
I will live out my days there
drinking foxglove tea
and lying in wait...

and the wild and wicked fairy who devours the children - poor little kids what did they do?!

Some day your children
will happen upon my den-

and I will eat them.

This is brilliant and a definate fav
peace and love
Comrade nessie
| Posted on 2005-07-07 00:00:00 | by comradenessie | [ Reply to This ]
  damn it, I always come in late and everyone else says what I'm thinking! Well, I'll do my best to be original in my comment, but I'm not promising much.
I thought this was great. At moments it was caustic and a tad bitter, other's it was sad and melancholy. (lord I hope I spelled that right). It brings out all the emtions one has when facing a break up where the other has another almost before it's over.
And, if you want to eat the kids, let me know, I make a great hommade bbq sauce lol
Traci :)
| Posted on 2005-07-06 00:00:00 | by onetruesmartass | [ Reply to This ]
  Terrific! Hell hath no fury, like a woman in the thicket! At first I thought you were just singing the blues over a lost love, but no, you were planning revenge. Asking him to make comparisons, fired up your anger, til in the end, the woman became the beast. Great ending, great lead-in to that ending. This began as what I thought was a brutally honest poem on lost love, and then morphed into an allegorical poem on unforgiven pain.

This poem certainly has emotion, originality, a surprise ending, and some wonderful phrases, such as:

"in the thicket
where you had left me"

"sky's light stolen"

"pale moonstones

Just terrific language! I must say that I was lost by the word "appetition" and cannot find it anywhere. Did you mean appetite? The meaning comes across, even through my ignorance. Again, the language that you use is so perfectly fitted to the intent of this piece, that one reads it and rushes to the end. The images are of loneliness, being ignored, transparent, and then at the end the character becomes most assertive.

Great poem. I loved it!

Phil
| Posted on 2005-07-05 00:00:00 | by phil askew | [ Reply to This ]
  Wow. This poem lulled me into a state of grieving nostalgia. "Oh" I thought "There she sits, grieving for her vanished love. Feeling for sorrrow for his passing than jealousy fro his new lover. See how she takes herself off into nature, vanishing with a shattered heart like Echo..." And then I read the last line I didn't know whether to gasp in horror or laugh. This is fantastic and I am amused at this creature you have created.
~VanillaLeaves
| Posted on 2005-07-04 00:00:00 | by VanillaLeaves | [ Reply to This ]
  I have read this before, when you first posted it, and I thought I had replied, but who knows, maybe the dog ate my homework or something. This reminds me of what Alanis Morissette would have written if she'd had a great education, instead of "You Oughta Know"
And although I don't like to comment on comments I'll add that this gentleman prefers what is inbetween the ears over what is below the chin any day.
Dave
| Posted on 2005-07-04 00:00:00 | by Sandburg | [ Reply to This ]
  First of all...wow! (had to get that moment of stupidity out of the way)

I love how, all through the poem, you subtly compare yourself to various animals.

"But I saw you everywhere
and smelled you on the wind"

Makes me think of a wolf, hungry and hunting; senses sharp and aware of everything that surrounds you.
And then the line about your raven's hair, fluttering from that nest.

"Translucent in this skin,
I am an apparition"

For some reason, that line makes me think of a dragonfly...something beautiful and wild and little wings like little razors. Even without the comparisons, this whole poem is very animalistic. It draws back to primitive human nature...the person is no longer a lover, as we think of them now is modern time. It's suddenly transformed to "my mate", and I think about clans of rugged people. I have no idea if that makes any sense what-so-ever
It's a common genre; the scorned lover, the bitter one who got left behind, but with a fabulous twist at the end. It reminded me (the ending) of the story about the girl raised by wolves, turning into some God-forsaken half woman/half wild animal.
I suppose, in a round about way, I'm trying to say that I truly enjoyed this piece. I look forward to reading more.

Be Well
~Rachel~
| Posted on 2005-07-03 00:00:00 | by nebnim | [ Reply to This ]
  Remind me never to make you angry...I mean it. This is the best piece I've come across in almost a week. It's anger, and scorn,and ire, barely contained. I love it!

I would like to know it the foxglove was a metaphor for stewing in the bad feelings from the break-up. It felt that way to me. The other thought I had was of some old witch (no offense to anyone- talking the evil wicked ones in children's cartoons) who is injesting poison so that, when the time is right, they can bite and poison their victim...

Either way, metaphor, or staight forward, I really liked this piece. I have always felt some of us let some of them off too easily. JK!

Thanks for sharing!
-Chell-
| Posted on 2005-07-02 00:00:00 | by Chell | [ Reply to This ]
  This is really great. I can't believe I didn't read this earlier. :) This is so vengeful. I like that you wanted to know how and what the other woman was like. This is filled with questions of why her now and not me. Every woman has felt this at least one time or another. This flowed really well. I love the part about her hair and yours. The ending is really good. It describes the pay back for cheating on you. Great job. :) You are beautiful by the way! :)

-blt
| Posted on 2005-07-02 00:00:00 | by borderlinetears | [ Reply to This ]
  I have to say that it's cool how this seems like a typical "You left me, and I'm sad poem" to be really disturbing and spooky.

will live out my days there
drinking foxglove tea
and lying in wait...

Some day your children
will happen upon my den-

and I will eat them.

For some reason, this sounds like an alternate ending to Romeo and Juliet. I'm sure this is how it would end if he spent that one night with her and hooked up with someone else. It also makes me think of Sisyphus, but she's some sort of being that poisons herself every day (Isn't foxglove poisonous?) and comes back to life instead of all of that rock moving/ liver eating stuff.

This has some wonderful images. The first stanza reminds me of a quote that read in a book about Celtic mythology: "Everything new seems fair."

I half blinked.
When my eyelids made the full journey
and returned to their widened state,
you were gone-

I like how you made that blink sound far longer than it actually took.

No matter that her hair
was flaxen or umber-
the strands lie across your pillows
from where mine of raven
have taken flight from that nest.

"Translucent in this skin,/ I am an apparition- she is your life" is my favorite image. Being shy and rather pasty, I feel like an apparition most of the time.

In a few places I thought you might be able to makes this a little tighter, but this reads like a soliloquy, so I'm not sure that changing that would make it better. It might ruin the conversational tone.
| Posted on 2005-07-02 00:00:00 | by cuddledumplin | [ Reply to This ]
  What an amazing piece! I have sat here this half hour, re-reading it and am still spellbound. I liked the odd (but effective) setting of the thicket juxtapostioned with the modern street scene, and the shock at the end is perfectly staged by this flitting back and forth from the real and actual scene, to the Brothers Grimm fantasy. A really compelling and captivating blend of a woman scorned and nasty wicked witch.

I liked the way you warped time in the first 2
stanzas,- you say how quickly he fell out of love,-like in the time it took to "half blink", and yet - "The sky's light stolen
a hundred times over,
and I realized you weren't coming back." This is the first of the series of jarring contrasts, the real versus the fantasy, the gentle images of romantic love versus the stark, nightmarish images of the thicket, slugs, and carnivorous evil hags. I also enjoyed the wordplay of the raven hair-fleeing the nest.

I loved the dreamy stanza about the moonstone eyes, -and I especially liked the street encounter where you say
"Translucent in this skin,
I am an apparition- she is your life."

There is just a lot to like here. and i am sorry that i can't be more constructive, but I am fascinated with the whole concept and can only babble that I truly and thoroughly reading this one. A Fave
Sally
| Posted on 2005-06-28 00:00:00 | by Silverdog | [ Reply to This ]
  Damn! The ending of this poem is great. My first impression as I was reading your poem was that it was a loss loved theme, however when you turned it around at the end with
"Some day your children
will happen upon my den-
and I will eat them."

Everything seemed to make sense to me, meaning you had created a fairytale character of sorts. A creation of the haunted woods and things that creep in the night. A bio of sort to those characters who roam the dark forest.

Great Job.
| Posted on 2005-06-25 00:00:00 | by childs | [ Reply to This ]
  Sweet woman don't you know how intelligence drives them away, no one would choose partner who wasn't up to par..
or would they?

Compare her eyes to mine.
Can hers see through you as mine did?
As mine do?
You can stare into those pale moonstones
for an eternity but you will never
witness the creatures of magic,
the Garden of Eden,
all the colors of the rainbow
that you swore were contained in mine.

brilliant lines, my dear but I knew this was in you

yes and would you take the power that is is yours?
for this, I am proud of you also

Some day your children
will happen upon my den--
and I will eat them.

no, she isn't deserving of these children
as your subject once was
this is magnificent work, and a fave
every line, each stanza a rant in fine art
you rock honey child,
Nan

| Posted on 2005-06-25 00:00:00 | by nansofast | [ Reply to This ]
  i like that you should write of torment from the low root steps of this thicket, with what feels like arms crossed and feet tapping not alternately but with a cadence that will madden first the owner of the feet and then anyone left within earshot.
I'm immediately given to thinking of Brer Rabbit and that briar patch - how he begged not to be thrown in.
and in he went as did you and no mention of ownership just theft but what has been stolen for is asked for back in a plaintive and broken way.
So increasingly it seems, clever choice of and use of doing words (George dubs should come to you for no more than 3) gives us landscapes to thrash around in.
the feral quality of the last few lines is a well executed step change of pace and tenor and it serves as a most effective means of literal and spiritual punctuation (I know, someone else is writing this...)
odd.
but on the money.
Later,
K
| Posted on 2005-06-24 00:00:00 | by Awkward | [ Reply to This ]
  i am so glad you posted this. it has incredible depth and seductiveness, the sinister ending is brilliant. a feverish dream indeed.. i can feel it.. this is one for the faves magpie. incredible.
@ peace&pies @
!Cat
| Posted on 2005-06-22 00:00:00 | by magnicat | [ Reply to This ]
  I absolutely love this bit -
'You can stare into those pale moonstones
for an eternity but you will never
witness the creatures of magic,
the Garden of Eden,
all the colors of the rainbow
that you swore were contained in mine.'

It has such flow to it, my hat is off to you, magnolia.

I can really find no fault with this one, in fact I think I might add it to my growing fav's list lol.

Is this dream poem based on real life?
It seems like you've just broken up with a partner recently, seen him with someone else, and from your subconscious dream-state, written of it.

Even if it wasn't, I still think it was a poem to describe a situation like that perfectly.

Again, thank you for writing this, and sharing it with the world.
| Posted on 2005-06-22 00:00:00 | by alteredlife | [ Reply to This ]
  Oh my....that ending...I mean.....its just.....wow.

See what you've done to me, Sorceress? You've rendered me speechless, that last line still simmering on my skin like a hot iron mark......

Its fantastic.

Brilliant.

Evokative, destructive and raw and powerful and delicate....a whole big poemful of juxtaposed emotions, organically blended in the cauldron of your mind, to a recipe that only you know.....

I wish you only the sweetest of dreams, Lady R....

xxKatiaxx
| Posted on 2005-06-23 00:00:00 | by Katia | [ Reply to This ]

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