Senna Jawa
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- May 13, 2002
- Posts
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Shadow Theatre by darkmaas
I am not the right person to review the darkmass' poem. Others may understand it better. I am not even ready to write what I do know. I will write a little to make up for my earlier "typo", and I invite others to share their knowledge of the times and of the allusions and references in the poem with all of us.
The poem covers a long period of time, from the pre-WWII depression to now. It combines the global scene and personal experiences.
To appreciate this poem in full one needs a good humanistic background, one needs to be well read, and it's not me. Why, I even had to check on word "maudit", which I did encounter in the past but didn't absorb. Now I did for good, I hope
I don't know about the significance (if any) of name "Armand".
Lines 3 & 4 give a nice and rare example of humor serving poetry rather than getting in the way of poetry. I like the melody of intensity of these two lines: the quiet "whisper", the punch-like strong "Fuck" and quiet "hum" again, it's great. I am not much into vulgarity, but here it doesn't even feel vulgar, it feels musical.
Unfortunately (for me), I don't know about the church of St. Jerome des Ombres.
The third stanza is unfortunately (for the poem this time) a bit talkative and the next one a bit too general but not too bad. I mention it out of duty mainly. I am talking about the 2nd stanza of "2: Opening Narrative" and the 1st stanza of "3. Fallen ushers".
"were" in "We were gods" is another slight weakness, it's better to use active verbs only, and to avoid nothing verbs like "were", so that each word carries poetry, does something poetic, contributes.
"fading flowers" phrase performs nicely a double duty task. It works directly, as is, and it is also a refernce to the "flower children" movement. Harmoniously.
The stanza which starts with "On the balconies..." is great despite cliched "fires of lust" and "drank... to decay". But "We toasted to fires of lust" improves the situation and introduces even a humorous tone. And the final two lines of the stanza are great:
We wrote the diary of our love
In stains on faded seats.
And I liked the final sections: "4: Last Chorus (Everybody sing)" and "5: Finale"
The poem is almost uniformly strong, and has some extra exquisite moments. It gives, time wise, a panorama but from a special, personal angle, not universal--it's not about railroad workers, soldiers, farmers, businessmen, politician... it is about artistic types, hippies and bums
A lot of appealing imagery, literal and symbolic.
I hope that others will say more and better than me.
Shadow Theatre by darkmaas
Best regards,
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