Good Times - (critique please)

[Zhuk]

sigh - you people are at it again - ugh

-

 

[Angeline]

Good Times

Dawn, magic city materializes
from smoggy wasteland. The wide avenues
lined with big black bubbling bottles,
lead to
leaning tower of pizza and not-so burgers.
On low-roofed, trampoline-paved sidewalks
our future, with oxygen sucking tobacco
dangling from mouth
smokes signals to the other side
of life. As brazen as invisible lingerie, flux
from opposite poles charges the air.
Air so sharp, that hair in upturned noses
traces history of spewing progress.

With sun at its peak,
roosters’ coops
melt at sight of predatory felines.
In the afternoons,
mobile wombs coalesce in paint shops,
giving birth to picturesque masterpieces.
Evenings and nights -
dark-glasses lights and hearing-aid sounds, in collages
of detached limbs, advertise
a good time.


Zhuk (Feb, 2004)

This is a very good descriptive look at a modern, industrialized city and a very restrained suggestion about how "good" of a time one really finds in such an environment. That's my take on it anyway, zhuk.

I'd pare it back a bit. I thought that some of your images were absolutely arresting, others though seemed unclear--at least to me.

For example, I'm not sure what this represents:

big black bubbling bottles

and this:

trampoline-paved sidewalks

which I'm thinking you're using to sort of suggest "standing on shaky ground" or "walking on eggs" (if I can be idiomatic )seems too happy for me, given that it's then associated with cigarette smoking.

and here:

As brazen as invisible lingerie, flux
from opposite poles charges the air.

"flux" makes me envision medically ugly stuff that doesn't seem to fit with the sort of empty post-modern feel of the rest of the poem. Could you just say--

As brazen as invisible lingerie,
opposite poles charge the air. ?

Two more that I'm not quite sure of--

mobile wombs coalesce in paint shops,
giving birth to picturesque masterpieces.

this one I'm totally missing, maybe...do you mean a paint mixing machine? But how would that create a masterpiece?

and

dark-glasses lights

is this an advert with sunglasses? maybe neon?

Your poem is wonderfully written, and while I think it's more impressionistic than narrative, I'd still try to clarify some of the vague imagery. I know you can.


Ange

(and now you owe me a critique!)

 

[WickedEve]

Two lines I personally don't care much for:

leaning tower of pizza and not-so burgers
oxygen sucking tobacco

The tobacco line seems cliché and the other line just... not right, somehow.

Those two small things didn't work for me when reading this through the first time.

 

[sandspike]

I had trouble.....

with much of the imagery and had to get the dictionary out
twice. Look, I'm only average on a good day, but Angeline
seems to know her stuff. Polish and simplify for average
folks like me, it will widen your readers greatly. Sandspike

 

[champagne1982]

Good Times

Dawn, magic city materializes
from smoggy wasteland. The wide avenues
lined with big black bubbling bottles,
lead to
leaning tower of pizza and not-so burgers.
On low-roofed, trampoline-paved sidewalks
our future, with oxygen sucking tobacco
dangling from mouth
smokes signals to the other side
of life. As brazen as invisible lingerie, flux
from opposite poles charges the air.
Air so sharp, that hair in upturned noses
traces history of spewing progress.

With sun at its peak,
roosters’ coops
melt at sight of predatory felines.
In the afternoons,
mobile wombs coalesce in paint shops,
giving birth to picturesque masterpieces.
Evenings and nights -
dark-glasses lights and hearing-aid sounds, in collages
of detached limbs, advertise
a good time.


Zhuk (Feb, 2004)

In the first stanza, I see a carnival midway. The trampoline paved sidewalks being all that cheap, stained canvas that covers the shill booths. In the second, I see the meat market world of the seedy side of town, the bars and clubs full of predatory pussy and hearing-aid squeals of really bad music.

Just my take. .. You could clarify that imagery and make it more appealing though. Perhaps, if I've got it right, you could try to make that back bass beat bounce out over those trampoline pavers and add some short, stacatto phrasing.

I liked it.

 

[thenry]

Uses a lot of vivid, dischordant images without saying very much. To finish the feel, a 50s feel, you could do it in one more line, something like:

Air-condition the librarians, barbie dolls are dying.

 

[Zhuk]

Thanks

Thank you all for your invaluable comments. I am sure they will help me improve this piece.

Regards,

Zhuk

ps: Angeline, while I am no good at doing critiques, I am ready to return the favour. Just pm your poem to me.

 

[Angeline]

Re: Thanks

Thank you all for your invaluable comments. I am sure they will help me improve this piece.

Regards,

Zhuk

ps: Angeline, while I am no good at doing critiques, I am ready to return the favour. Just pm your poem to me.

Ah thank you, Zhuk--I don't have one now for critique, but when I do, I will. You have insight into poems, so I'm sure whatever you have to say will be helpful.

 

[Zhuk]

Re: Re: Thanks

Only God can save you then!!

Ah thank you, Zhuk--I don't have one now for critique, but when I do, I will. You have insight into poems, so I'm sure whatever you have to say will be helpful.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Hi Zhuk,

your piece belongs to the city dark poem genre. I can't provide off hand perfect examples in English but Eliot's famous (and overrated) The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is at least somewhat related to it. Also several of my own poems, including "monk", on which you may click in my sig, below.

Your poem is like a strong, potentially healthy man, who is very sick. The cure is: haiku standards. Poetry and haiku are exactly the same except for the minimality requirement in the case of haiku. Since you are in the enviable position of knowing what haiku is, I don't need to write about the details at this time. Have an extremal fear of violating haiku principles and your longer poems will be true poems. Otherwise write with confidence.

Best regards, always,

Senna Jawa

PS. Hm, I look at my sig and see that each of the poems listed in it is a city poem. But "monk" is the darkest of them I am a city boy and no wonder that so much of my writing is about cities.

PPS. "monk" used to be formatted nicely, but that ugly Literotica had to spoil it! Now it has that idiotic double spacing between the lines.

 

[Zhuk]

Guru ji,

Thank you for your comments. I need to work harder.

I was away from Net for a few days and now I will go and read your poems on city scenes. I am sure they will help me a lot.

Zhuk

Hi Zhuk,

your piece belongs to the city dark poem genre. I can't provide off hand perfect examples in English but Eliot's famous (and overrated) The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is at least somewhat related to it. Also several of my own poems, including "monk", on which you may click in my sig, below.

Your poem is like a strong, potentially healthy man, who is very sick. The cure is: haiku standards. Poetry and haiku are exactly the same except for the minimality requirement in the case of haiku. Since you are in the enviable position of knowing what haiku is, I don't need to write about the details at this time. Have an extremal fear of violating haiku principles and your longer poems will be true poems. Otherwise write with confidence.

Best regards, always,

Senna Jawa

PS. Hm, I look at my sig and see that each of the poems listed in it is a city poem. But "monk" is the darkest of them I am a city boy and no wonder that so much of my writing is about cities.

PPS. "monk" used to be formatted nicely, but that ugly Literotica had to spoil it! Now it has that idiotic double spacing between the lines.