Self-preservation

Author: EternitysLyre ASL Info:    20/M/Taiwan. Elite Ratio:    7.13 - 152 /170 /42 Words: 153

Class/Type: Poetry /Serious Total Views: 1425 Average Vote:    No vote yet. Bytes: 1267

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Self-preservation

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~To Katherine Fuh. [- -this way] When the won’t, can’t Becomes 'wouldn’t, couldn’t' It’s not pain, it’s not betrayal (anymore.) When the lie, [—smiles] Or the words come [For the jags on the outside, Merely – cut - their way to the surface] To hurt you back. I’m not the plaintiff, not the culprit —I’m the corpse. So you can’t stand goodbye [and neither, neither can I] (And it’s not the pain, that’s dear But when the world feels like this) in a vicious plot (twist) You just—can't— be here. And "you know, the [damn, |damn| ] funny thing is" can’t cure the hurt, it’s not about today (Forgive me if my words are: te[a]rse) [We’re better off… -]

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Comments

I'm inclined to agree with Alia that the formatting is slightly overdone here. I think it was T.S. Eliot who said you sometimes have to go too far to know how far you can go, something that I think applies here. To me it seems full of ideas, but ideas that aren't yet perfected. As, for me, some of it really does work, and some doesn't, I'll go through the whole poem with a more in depth analysis if you'll bear will me. [- -this way] When the won’t, can’t Becomes 'wouldn’t, couldn’t' It’s not pain, it’s not betrayal (anymore.) When the lie, [—smiles] Or the words come The way you begin with the end of the ending is clever, the way it makes the poem an endless circle, the way the train of thoughts only lead back to the beginning because it's so hard to move on. The italics in the first strophe make "can't anymore" when put together, which works, and so does the "anymore" being in brackets, like it's an after-thought remembering. I'm not so keen on the "smiles" formatting - is it intended to show the poet smiling when writing that part? If so... well I kind of like it because it's like the reader is watching the poet and that's a nice intimacy, especially considering the subject, but I don't like the bluntness of it, the way it seems like a typed instruction for a robot to enact. [For the jags on the outside, Merely – cut - their way to the surface] To hurt you back. I’m not the plaintiff, not the culprit —I’m the corpse. Here it seems to me that the formatting is at it's most extraneous. The "- cut -" is good, makes the word stand out with a sharpness, and the small font for "I'm the corpse" also works, kind of like you're less than you were, been crushed by the weight of earth and farewell. However, I'm not too sure about the square brackets - the enclosed lines don't seem to really link with any of the other lines enclosed in the same way. For example you've used the same formatting for the start/ending and it just seems like too many people trying to squeeze through the same door. I think the same applies to the use of italics in this strophe as well. So you can’t stand goodbye [and neither, neither can I] (And it’s not the pain, that’s dear But when the world feels like this) in a vicious plot (twist) You just—can't— be here. Here again the formatting seems distracting and to be honest I don't really see why it's necessary apart from formatting "can't" - though I personally would just italicise it to make the link to the italicised "can't" at the beginning. I expect you do have reasons for all this though, reasons I'd certainly be curious to hear. And "you know, the [damn, |damn| ] funny thing is" can’t cure the hurt, it’s not about today (Forgive me if my words are: te[a]rse) By this stage I'm pretty much lost. I'm not sure about the "damn"s or the quotation marks. Also, at the end there are you trying to use both "terse" and "tears"? Because if so that pesky "e" at the end ruins the effect for tears and is probably worth dropping for something else. [We’re better off… -] And then of course it goes back to the beginning. Really, there's a lot here I find interesting and I think there's certainly a lot of worth in this poem, both in the meaning and the way in which it's expressed. So definetly thanks for sharing.

| Posted on 2007-03-25 00:00:00 | by Icarus | [ Reply to This ]

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