October by mara

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Submission Name: October dots

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Author:	mara
Elite Ratio:	6.38 - 65/74/20
Words:	123

Class/Type:	Poetry/Love
Total Views:	338
Average Vote:	No vote yet.
Bytes:	843

Description:
Needs work. Sigh.

Nov. 16 9:12 PM:
edited according to Phantom Pen's (who should come back. Seriously.) suggestions. I guess everyone who was annoyed by the "cling" line loses. Nyeh. Can't please you all.

October

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Five Octobers and four Aprils
the slow collide, collapse of a
knock-knee-elbow dance.
The silence silver-tipped
with the sibilance
of the gas turning on.

Drinking cold coffee and eating stale buns
The fridge unstocked
the drapes unwashed—
I think it’s time we both moved on.
But we cling and we cling and we
cling and promise ourselves
Another October, and we are done.

And April comes to dance on our graves
She’s an October who’s thrown her rags away
To cavort naked in the filmy sunshine
spinning ‘bout in her mist-filled repertoire—

Things aren’t so bad now, are they? Things aren’t so bad.

Six Octobers and we are done, I swear we are done.

Submitted on 2005-10-27 20:51:22 Terms of Service / Copyright Rules
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1: >_<
2: I dunno...
3: meh!
4: Pretty cool
5: Wow!

||| Comments |||
  hello,
i think that there are good aspects of this poem. your tone works well in partnership with your words, and i find your concept quite original in terms of how you convey a dying relationship.

there are things i think you could look at though, things that did not work for me as well as others; so how about looking at the following changes and seeing what you think:

'Five Octobers and four Aprils
the slow collide,
the collapse of a

[the words collide and collapse adjacent to each other fights too much in my opinion]

knock-knee-elbow dance.
The silence silver-tipped
with the sibilance
of the gas turning on.

[not sure of the relevance of this above]

Drinking cold coffee
eating stale buns
[that line is too long in my opinion
The fridge unstocked
the drapes unwashed—
I think it’s time we both moved on.
But we cling and we cling
and we promise ourselves

[how about just two clings, i think it is enough and sounds slightly better]

Another October, and we are done.

And April comes to dance on our graves
She’s an October who’s thrown her rags away
To cavort naked in the filmy sunshine
spinning about in her mist-filled repertoire—

[Things aren’t so bad now, are they? Things aren’t so bad.]

[ i dont think you need this line. i think you have conveyed well to this point the feelings of a stale relationship that you cant break free from. i dont feel the need for you to spoon feed us the meaning]

Six Octobers and we are done,
I swear we are done.'

hopefully this gives you something too look at, i enjoyed your words and the way they related to your concept.

do take care
on1eday
| Posted on 2005-11-30 00:00:00 | by on1eday.co.uk | [ Reply to This ]
  Hi there. I was just randomly reading through posts and came across this one. This is a strong piece, I think. The emotion seems genuine, and the way you portray this troubled relationship seems original to me. I particularly like the first stanza ("the sibilance/of the gas turning on" is a great image). No ideas for how you might improve the piece come to mind right now. I'll take a look at it again when I'm more awake and maybe I'll think of something.

You write well,
-Chris
| Posted on 2005-11-17 00:00:00 | by DevilDinosaur | [ Reply to This ]
  For some reason this actually reminded me of cummings (anyone lived in a pretty how town). I like the wordplay here and the juxtaposition of October and April works very well. Excellent work. Only one very minor nit is you choice of ''bout' in the last line of stanza 3. I not very fond of that technique anyway, but it doesn't seem to work here. Just me 2 cents; feel free to ignore it. Nice work here.

Peace,

Joe
| Posted on 2005-11-04 00:00:00 | by joeyalphabet | [ Reply to This ]
  a Baby Plath to brighten up this little poetry site! i was quite expecting verse of a less brilliant nature. i was pleasantly surprised, to say the least. i especially loved the October who threw her rags away line and, of course it goes without saying, the one about the knock-knee-elbow dance. astounding use of alliteration. this is a fave for me. keep 'em coming,kid!
| Posted on 2005-11-03 00:00:00 | by ruejacobs | [ Reply to This ]
  Hey.

The 'knock-knee-elbow dance' line is my fave. The alliteration on the two k's works well as they 'knock' into each other.

The 'a' at the end of the 2nd line seems a bit weak to me, especially as all the other lines end on stronger words.

Also, I reckon that it would work well in six three line stanzas. The last couple of lines by themselves don't seem strong enough. I like the last line, but feel that it would work better as the final part of a stanza.

Cheers
| Posted on 2005-10-31 00:00:00 | by Paradelle | [ Reply to This ]
  Mara, I have to agree with Phantom Pen and say that the 'we cling' repetition works well in this poem and it would be a shame for you to take it out. It gives it more earth for the roots to sink in, if you know what I mean. But I think you knew that already. And I think Phantom's advice about enjambing that line is a good suggestion.

In terms of other ways of improving this piece, I would format this differently to get your emotions across better. Some lines are too long and it's a bit too up and down and boring for me, you know?

I really liked your first stanza. The opening sentence was quite quirky and threw me at first, but I like it now. But, I do have to ask about this - don't you mean 'slowly collide' - or perhaps punctuation is needed to separate that out more cognitively. I dunno, it still does trip me up even though I like it. Just a bit more focus on that would definitely smooth this ride along.

Looking back on this piece, you actually have quite a bit of repetition but it works well somehow. Don't ask me why I think that, it just does.

I wish I could help further but I think I've given you enough to chew on, don't you think?

These are only suggestions of course.

Jase
| Posted on 2005-10-31 00:00:00 | by alteredlife | [ Reply to This ]
  you are a true talent! I really liked this one... I'm not sure what exactly is the reason for the liking, but I felt that it had a feeling of sincerity tied to the words. That's rather impossible, I know, but I hope you get what I mean. It didn't sound like you were forcing the words, rather, it was just like the persona speaking... I guess, t o cut a long story shot, it had a very conversational touch to it, but it managed not to be cheesy. Most people try writing in a conversational style, but end up with something not as good as this, I suppose, so I praise you for that! And I don't agree with Kierkegaard that it was repetitive, in fact, I think it was written with the right amount of everything. There are just a few things I'd like to ask though, what exactly do April or October signify? I read the previous comment, but we don't have seasons here in my country, so I wouldn't know about that. care to explain? and also, the phrase "knock-knee-elbow dance."... didn't really get that too. However, despite those minor phrases that I didn't really get, I still think this was quite a good write! Hope to see more! :)
| Posted on 2005-10-28 00:00:00 | by zhi wei | [ Reply to This ]
  I like this a lot Mara I think the concept is well developed and works...so there's my review :P

I'd look at trimming the fat from some of your phrases....since the story is fairly straight-forward some sentences are surplus to requirements because the seed of thought has already sprouted.

Five Octobers and four Aprils
the slow collide, collapse of a
knock-knee-elbow dance.

I'm not really keen on the 'knock-knee-elbow dance' phrase...I'm not familiar with it although I understand you're describing something that was doomed to fail.

The silence silver-tipped
with the sibilance
of the gas turning on.

loved this...great images.

Drinking cold coffee and eating stale buns
The fridge unstocked
the drapes unwashed—
*It’s time we both moved on
*and promise ourselves
Another October, and we are done.

And April comes to dance on our graves
She’s an October who’s thrown her rags away
To cavort naked in the filmy sunshine
spinning ‘bout in her mist-filled repertoire—

I'm assuming April is spring & October is Winter. I feel that the above passage carries the point well...they hold on for another year to see if a withered relationship can rebloom. So I cut the last sentences that followed out.

Six Octobers and I swear we are done.

Five Octobers and four Aprils
the slow collide, collapse of a
knock-knee-elbow dance.
The silence silver-tipped
with the sibilance
of the gas turning on.

Drinking cold coffee and eating stale buns
The fridge unstocked
the drapes unwashed—
It’s time we both moved on
and promise ourselves
Another October, and we are done.

And April comes to dance on our graves
She’s an October who’s thrown her rags away
To cavort naked in the filmy sunshine
spinning ‘bout in her mist-filled repertoire—

Six Octobers and I swear we are done.

use or lose...

Thought this was pretty darn good DB
| Posted on 2005-10-27 00:00:00 | by Daniel Barlow | [ Reply to This ]
  Wow, I love it. I will agree that it does need some work, but only on basic wording issues. There was actually only one place in particular that irked me:
"But we cling and we cling and we cling and promise ourselves"

Just too repetitive is all.

But otherwise I really like your work. Very deep and descriptive. You have such a good way with words. In this work, it seemed like you were describing the scene in a very formal way using very informal langauge. I don't quite understand what you did or how you did it, but it was great!

I hope to read more of your material!

-k
| Posted on 2005-10-27 00:00:00 | by Kierkegaard | [ Reply to This ]

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