Poem Help Requested

[Rybka]

This is the start of a poem about a woman who has just been told that her lover just died in a light plane crash. I started it when this happened to an old friend of mine. In this first part she is receiving the phone call. I am stuck; have been for several months. I need to decide what to chop from/how to edit this part, and where to go from here. - Any constructive criticism and/or suggestions are very welcome.. (And if you are Senna Jawa you can be as hard and unsympathetic as you want.)

Regards, Rybka


ICE AUGU/ER


The pain expanded in/from her/the chest till it exploded from her eyes

Water for/of a/the dying love ran down her cheek and dripped/fell upon a/her fear ful/filled bosom

Icicles forming on her frozen feelings/heart

The cold extruded from her/the heart/lump like dough/clay escaping from a closing/clamping fist that squeezed her freezing heart/mind

 

[HomerPindar]

This is the start of a poem about a woman who has just been told that her lover just died in a light plane crash. I started it when this happened to an old friend of mine. In this first part she is receiving the phone call. I am stuck; have been for several months. I need to decide what to chop from/how to edit this part, and where to go from here. - Any constructive criticism and/or suggestions are very welcome.. (And if you are Senna Jawa you can be as hard and unsympathetic as you want.)

I'm not a good one for editing other peoples words (I have a hard enough time with my own it seems) but I did think of a general piece of advice that may help in editing. If there is a part that is not working, go back to the part that is. Delete the part that is working, and start reworking it from there. The part you think is working led to the part that isn't, and hence, it too may be in need of as much work as what you don't think works.

HomerPindar

 

[_Land]

This is the start of a poem about a woman who has just been told that her lover just died in a light plane crash. I started it when this happened to an old friend of mine. In this first part she is receiving the phone call. I am stuck; have been for several months. I need to decide what to chop from/how to edit this part, and where to go from here. - Any constructive criticism and/or suggestions are very welcome.. (And if you are Senna Jawa you can be as hard and unsympathetic as you want.)

Regards, Rybka


ICE AUGU/ER


The pain exploaded in her chest till it erupted from her eyes
(picture the force of a volcano)

Water for a dying love ran down her cheek and dripped upon her terror filled bosom

Icicles forming on her frozen heart


The cold extruded from her/the heart/lump like dough/clay escaping from a closing/clamping fist that squeezed her freezing heart/mind

Now im stuck on the last line too, and would it be appropriate to metion some of the warm feelings that she might have had flashing through her mind?


Perhaps I have overstepped what you have asked for, if I have im sorry....... but that is what came to my mind as i read what you had written. _Land

 

[Senna Jawa]

***



    face flattened against the window pane
    her gaze froze in the sky high up

    eyelids shut
    let the fire reign inside
    she kept her eyes open

    every careful breath
    clash with explosions
    inside

    she hardly breathed at all
    collared by the frozen sky



-----------------
(Well, Rybka, I tried. If you don't like it, I understand)

Regards,

 

[Angeline]

the initial reaction might be shock or rage, or maybe a combination of them. also might work in the first part to focus on what she actually did rather than metaphor. did she cry initially or maybe she carefully slipped the book she had been reading back in the bookcase, turned off all the lights, whatever. the little actions in the context of the tragedy can be powerfully suggestive.

senna, i like what you came up with a lot. i can feel the woman shutting down emotionally in the storm of her grief.

thinking about your ideas gave me this poem.

phone slips
drops in seeming
slow motion and
crashes to wood floor

you startle
a newborn in loss
not yet aware that

six months from now
you will realize
that word will be
ever imbued

and in a year
recognize the odd feeling
you get when you laugh
as guilt

but tonight
confusion widens
to concentric pools
of shock and you crash

into a mercy of vacancy
tonight you are a stone

 

[Rybka]

Thanks, any and all

Senna Jawa, I like your poem very much. It is not in "my" style in this instance, but it has given me an idea or two.

eyelids shut
let the fire reign inside
she kept her eyes open

every careful breath
clash with explosions
inside

I might change 'explosions' to 'implosions' - her world is collapsing after all, but I really like the imagery.


Angeline, I like your work too.

phone slips
drops in seeming
slow motion and
crashes to wood floor

That is just what is going on and is probably the template/theme for the next part. Matter of fact, each of your stanzas deals with a state I want to explore.

Also, the "drops in seeming slow motion" is exactly the theme of the current Pretty Please, Play with Me.

Thanks, everyone.

Regards, Rybka

 

[Unmasked Poet]

Rybka,

Taking into account your style (I had to read a good deal of your poetry to absorb it.) Especially paying attention to how you manifest emotion in your work. I came up with this. Borrowing as much as possible the essence from your poem and words were possible. Then combining that with words and phrases you tend to use more often in your poetry. Then taking into account the somewhat analytical quirky view you use to express pain.
Now that you are bored read the edit.


Original

ICE AUGU/ER


The pain expanded in/from her/the chest till it exploded from her eyes

Water for/of a/the dying love ran down her cheek and dripped/fell upon a/her fear ful/filled bosom

Icicles forming on her frozen feelings/heart

The cold extruded from her/the heart/lump like dough/clay escaping from a closing/clamping fist that squeezed her freezing heart/mind [/B]

Edit

ICE AUGU/ER

The pain expanded slowly, traveling from recognition in her mind
Until it found home in her chest, exploded from her eyes.

The gift of water for the dying, down her cheek followed the path of pain, fell upon her fear.
Numbing her filled bosom.

Cold extruded from her, freezing the drops, freezing her heart so that she could continue.



Ah the life of an editor, always borrowing the dreams of someone else. Of course the true Rybka style would lose the punctuation and insert back and forward slashes or space or line breaks or whatever. It is a promising poem, do not abandon it.

U.P.

 

[HomerPindar]

Re: Re: Poem Help Requested

ICE AUGU/ER

The pain expanded slowly, traveling from recognition in her mind
Until it found home in her chest, exploded from her eyes.

The gift of water for the dying, down her cheek followed the path of pain, fell upon her fear.
Numbing her filled bosom.

Cold extruded from her, freezing the drops, freezing her heart so that she could continue.

U.P. [/B]

Is the transition from expanded to traveling back to exploded intentional? Mind you, U.P and Rybka, you might not agree here



HomerPindar

 

[TheDR4KE]

my advice

go to some grief support web sites and read about people's experiences, about the stages of grief that people such as Kuebler-Ross describe and don't forget about denial particularly.

Ultimately when faced with anything we either accept it or spend the rest of our life denying it. That goes double for things we can not change. So don't be afraid to throw in a stanza of reminiscing, of living in alternate futures that help your friend survive a little more even though they will not come through.

The expression is yours, I don't think I'd try to have a go at that. The experiences that lead to the expression is where your poetry has to originate from, so I'd suggest you go back to there.

A brave work you are building. All the best with it!

Quack

the D

 

[karmadog]

How another poet dealt with a similar theme.

I knew I had a poem that dealt with this theme. I thought you might be interested so I looked for it. Took me a while, but here it is.

Pilot Error
(For Juliet Leventhal Balgley 1914-1965)

Ann Z. Leventhal

The phone rings on a Sunday afternoon.
"There's been and accident," Juliet's
husband says. I go on folding laundry,

matching every corner, every seam
exactly, caressing terry velvet
on Sunday, after the phone rings,

I stack the towels, make
of them four piles, four
pillars. "The plane went down,

Juliet's not expected..." I shake
out socks, press them flat together,
roll them into neat, tight fists.

"I'll get back to you," he says.
I go back to laundry, the white
sheets I pull from the line--day-

filled blanks--stiff, cool, I
stretch them wide across my breasts.
Juliet is not like her name, not

fourteen but fifty, and thickly warm
as the furnace that holds off winter.
The phone rings. I carry inside

my basket fo clean and the phone talks
funeral, me asking when as if there is
still a clock and there is still time.

Not at all like your style, Rybka, but I thought there might be something you could use for inspiration.

 

[TheDR4KE]

wow

powerful words. Great poem, well remembered karma. Thanks for posting it.

the D

 

[Rybka]

Thanks U.P., H.D., K.D. and The D!

Your suggestions are all being taken seriously and have given me quite a bit to think about. Maybe now I will be able to work through or around the block I have encountered.

Thanks again everyone.

Regards, Rybka