Poetry Forum

At the moment of birth
when you move into focus

my eyes burn
at deformities
and jaundice
the way you gulp for air.

The cord is broken
blood sponged up
and now you’ve shown them
far too much.

A flashing knife
and litter fills the bin.
My flannel wipes
the spittle from your chin.

Every orifice is plugged.
You lack a soul
and afterthoughts
just rot inside your skin.

Sprinkle scent
spread the shroud
count the mourners
bearing flowers.

You sink beneath
the weight of others
give or take
an occasional bump.

I’m already pregnant
once again.

.
Hi ray,
can you say bleak? But 'liked' L16-18 in particular, and the title.

Found the possibility of 'jaundice' as a verb a bit of light in the gloom.

'litter' (L12) introduced the possibility of 'pets' (momentarily).

Just a suggestion to push the two 'yours' (L12, L14) further apart

I flash the knife
your litter fills the bin.
Every orifice is plugged.
You lack a soul

and afterthoughts
just rot inside your skin.
My flannel wiping
spittle from your chin.

Lack of an actor in S6 is a bit distracting.


Regards, Not


.

Desperate, this. Not your usual style or substance, but highly affecting nonetheless.
I don’t feel the inclination or need to critique this. It is raw and uncensored and leaves me quite breathless.
Good to read you again.

FWIW, I didn’t get this verse

The cord is broken
blood sponged up
and now you’ve shown them
much too much.

Best,

Luke

Though the title gives the reader a steer, it feels a little limp, in contrast to the 'brutal' content, but perhaps that's the intention: there's more blood reality in the edit process once the write is 'birthed' on the page. Killing our little babies.

My Poor Poem Is Metaphor Hard

Just a thought. Either way the parallels in the poem work.

The cord is broken
blood sponged up
and now you’ve shown them
much too much.

Transparency : always a tricky one how much you 'clarify' for the reader. Also, triggered a thought on confessional poets (Plath etc)

Like the ending, reminded me of something in Paradise Lost, where Sin keeps on birthing. The evils of creativity

enjoyed

mac

Thank for the comments. I really need a more helpful title for this. It's a meta-poem.

The meta poem theme did come across with the old title.

Hi Ray,

I prefer "Submit" as a title, although I don't think the theme would have been clear to me (literary creativity?) without the previous title and your comment that it was meta. Lots of great stuff here, though it felt a bit samey at some point. Looking back through it, I'd suggest deleting the flashing knife and orifice verses. They felt the weakest to me, and it'd help to get to the slightly different tone of the "Sprinkle scent" verse sooner. I quite liked the use of jaundice as a verb, though not sure if it's the right word here (depends what you mean, and the meaning wasn't clear to me in this context). "give or take an occasional bump" also felt like it could be improved, and not sure you need the "already" near the end, but it's a minor quibble. Very good poem, visceral, interesting.

T