hi, i'm new, and this is for you

[Electra_Napoleon]

Salutations. I'm new and I'd love any thoughts or reactions to a poem I'd like to submit to the site. (Also can anyone tell me how strict moderation is about the 700+ words mentioned in the submission guidelines?)

Landscape of the End Times

Tonight I will get down on my knees
and worship you with my whole body.
I have sectioned off my mind with rope
bound it
bundled it with twine.
I hold it, discipline it
to pay you homage.
Tonight I will dream of you
in you, upon you, for you.
You are the whole world.

I camp out on your skin
on the shoreline of your waters
to watch the sun smolder and set
and fill the sky with smoke like burning paper.
I bury my toes in your sand and bask
in the warmth of the universe dying all around us.

I found the only safe perch that ever existed
here on this corporeal landscape where my thirst
is quenched through slightly parted lips, eyes closed.
I tilt back my head and thank the sky for its gift of scorching heat
so that I can truly taste the cold water coating my throat.

On this horrible, wonderful evening:
I am the alpha and omega,
I am god and I am the unveiling
as well as the ultimate visceral armageddon,
I am perfect oneness and a distraught, sloppy mess.
But I am here with you so I lay down
all my heavy pride
then revel in that weightlessness like a pagan priestess
who just can't stop cumming in the woods…
A scene much greener than here.

Thunder rolls across your curves,
it's balmy like the summer.
I reach up to pull lightening through me and ground it
down into you.
Anything to share a sensation with you,
all the better if I can serve as transmitter and receiver.
If it rains tonight
you will make me a believer.

I don't mind saying how you make me suffer,
I writhe, fixated on the stimulation,
I become something intangible
just a series of vibrations in your ether.
The sky or something strangely like it
purrs, echoing and approving of my pleasure
amid its otherwise antagonistic roars.
Your battle above, your body versus the heady clouds
it ripples vicariously through me.
I squirm against the fleshy ground
burning even while I drink.
You quake beneath me,
I feel your desperation on top of mine.
Then the heavens split open with rain
drenching both of our terrains.
I caress you with palms flat
bracing myself against your planet's surface as we
hurtle through time and space together--
soothing and searching, aching and satiating.

After the landscape and I are both drenched through to the bone with summer storm rain
smoke chocks the air and hugs my lungs.
You are ambient but dark
full of invisible dreams, seemingly barren
but I feel you with me more closely than ever
as I close my eyes on the edge of the Ultimate Surrender of Sleep.

For a moment I reflect on the conflict that has just subsided inside of me--
but euphoria seizes my already exhausted senses
I'm already drown in my unconscious

 

[UnderYourSpell]

my advice is to edit loads of that especially where you are slipping into prose with line breaks. Some people may like long poems but you have already lost my interest long before the end. Take stanza one .... far too many I/you/its, even the first line only needs 'Tonight on my knees' . The reader already knows you have to get down.
Lines 6/7 'I hold, discipline to pay homage' ....... do see how much better it flows?

Oh and welcome to the board

 

[twelveoone]

Salutations. I'm new and I'd love any thoughts or reactions to a poem I'd like to submit to the site. (Also can anyone tell me how strict moderation is about the 700+ words mentioned in the submission guidelines?)

700+?
sounds like stories (I guess that is why we get some, authors petering out after 500 words)
Poetry can be one word (better make it a good one)
You can't use funkafuckadelious. I just submitted it. I used your title. You can do that.

Second what UYS said. Recommend read all Senna Jawa threads.
Do what he says.

Halfway.

 

[simply__me]

Thank goodness, someone to take my place as the newest newb. If you stick around and can take criticism, you will grow. All folks offer is their opinion, but many of these opinions are from knowledgeable readers of poetry. It is JUST THEIR OPINION. You make the final decisions.

BTW, you need to whittle that poem down.


And Hello, nice to meet you.

Look at the thread called "New to Poetry" by twelveoone. It should be still on the front page. There are a some good links, and the info aint bad neither.

 

[Electra_Napoleon]

thank you for the respective welcomes and checking out my wall of text. i was definitely feeling the clunkiness of the poem but wasn't sure where to start cutting. it was originally prose that i'm trying to reformat, and i will definitely be editing out a bunch of unnecessary pronouns and joining some lines to get better structure.

i can't believe i missed that New to Poetry thread! should have lurked a little moar. thanks for humoring me :X

 

[Electra_Napoleon]

Lines 6/7 'I hold, discipline to pay homage' ....... do see how much better it flows?

Oh and welcome to the board

That streamlines it nicely. I'm excited to edit through this and cut lots of filler, but damn, I can't believe how much of it ends up being filter, and I didn't even notice. Yeesh. But thank you!

 

[champagne1982]

I do believe you got lost in this because you're editing a story. It is far easier to flesh a poem out into prose than it is to whittle a story down into a poem. Maybe you should decide the theme, circle the passages in your original that inspire you most and then write a new poem or series of poems using those bits as a theme or metaphor.

Don't be discouraged and do continue to solicit advice and to query the poets for information. Never accept anything as gospel since some rules (once understood) warrant bending and some credentials are not neccessarily qualifications.
Welcome to the forum. Remember, "Read then Write then READ EVEN MORE!"

 

[UnderYourSpell]

You're very welcome and I wish you luck ...... I detest editing too

 

[butters]

welcome to the forums, electra

can't really stop right now or i'll be late for work. enjoy your time here and enjoy your writing!

 

[twelveoone]

On this wonderful horrible evening,
I am the alpha and omega,
I am the god and the unveiling,
the ultimate visceral armageddon,
of I, the perfect oneness,

A distraught, sloppy mess.

Couldn't resist. Modified. These lines are so over the top, they work with the last line. That is always a high risk maneuver, going over the top. Has a tendency to offend poetic sensibilities, and is very tricky to do.

wonderful horrible - a contrast, a cue, that you are going somewhere else.

poetry at its very basic level, relies on the establishment of a pattern and then the disruption of the pattern. Go back and look, there is a pattern of four and pattern of three as lead ins.

Just playin'

 

[twelveoone]

Tonight I will dream of you
in you, upon you, for you.
You are the whole world.

Here is a pattern, because it goes to the same place, it spins its wheels i.e you are saying the same thing. Redundancy is not a bad thing...

in you, upon you, for you. and 1 and 2 and 3
You are the whole world. cliche!

...but it can be a killer.