Quote:
Originally Posted by The Shademan
Stranger Sacrifice
Kissing fiends found respite in an alcove.
Painfully, we ran through the motions
until mastery left us with beliefs so secure.
Russian Roulette engaged with emotions
We’re deep throating daggers in a cemetery grove
Practice proceeded in hopes to succeed
beyond impassive limits that…
Care for us not--
Love us lovers not--
So the frame surrounding passion rots
like an ancient coffin returning to the Earth to
seek out new forms from formlessness.
Apologies, all you intense believers.
The stranger abstains from psychodrama
And is no more or less stable than you.
You know I'm just particles in your billion suns
Watching us carbon cartoon characters scream
"How could I lose...?"
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Okay...while I'm trying to think of what to say overall about the piece, let's examine a few nitty-gritty things:
Quote:
Kissing fiends found respite in an alcove.
Painfully, we ran through the motions
until mastery left us with beliefs so secure.
Russian Roulette engaged with emotions
We’re deep throating daggers in a cemetery grove
Practice proceeded in hopes to succeed
beyond impassive limits that…
|
While the line "Russian Roulette engaged with emotions" is probably a favorite of mine, it seems...somehow out of place in terms of flow. You have two complete thoughts on either side of it. Perhaps, if it had connected to the next line or so, it wouldn't have been quite so jarring.
The use of "we're" is also jarring, I think. Since it is "we are," that is the only present-tense verb used in this stanza, and I'm not really sure why. I don't think anything would be lost if you were to use "we were" to keep your tense parallel.
I don't like ellipses in poetry. X3 So, if I'd written this, I wouldn't have used those there. But that's just me. Since it seems that you want that last line to flow directly into the next stanza, perhaps you could leave out the ellipses and turn "care" into a lower-case word.
Quote:
Care for us not--
Love us lovers not--
So the frame surrounding passion rots
like an ancient coffin returning to the Earth to
seek out new forms from formlessness.
|
I like this stanza very much. I wouldn't change a thing.
Quote:
Apologies, all you intense believers.
The stranger abstains from psychodrama
And is no more or less stable than you.
You know I'm just particles in your billion suns
Watching us carbon cartoon characters scream
"How could I lose...?"
|
The only suggestion I have to offer for this stanza is to consider not capitalizing the first word in every line, since you don't do that in the rest of the poem.
Overall, this is an intricate piece with a good bit of enriching imagery. Sometimes, it is hard for me to know exactly what you're trying to say, but most of the time, it doesn't matter since you have a gift for putting words together in ways that tease both the intellect and the emotions. I like that you don't write poetry in which there is no question as to what you're talking about. That leaves much room for readers to draw their own conclusions and form their own interpretations without fearing they'll be completely wrong. Wonderful work.