Source
r/OCPoetry•
Gummyfail

Working title, work harder (If you have Ideas for it hmu)

Feedback Received!
-Tesseract! Tesseract!
-Have mercy on me!
-Send Ms. Lazarus
-to touch the tip of my tongue!

There is a great gulf fixed 
in me. There is a great 
bursting star swinging
solar flares like blades.
There is a great burning,
tilting and rolling towards Us.

In That i hear the roaring of ocean’s currents
in a static vacuum. A shrill ringing breaks through
of sacred bells. Ringing throughout and therein.

Maybe space will wrap around space and wrap around time 
   and wrap around like a horrible blanket so that We 
   can sleep while drifting.

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lines that begin with a hyphen are normally italicized.

Posted Aug 21, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

35
walpen•

I'll try to get more complete remarks later on, but to focus on the first stanza.

The use of italics suggests that the first stanza is from a different voice (or at least from a different time/place/perspective/whatever). But the exact narrative context eludes me.

I like "Tesseract!" as a cry. The repitition in the first line creates this initial mystery about meaning: is the narrator addressing some person/thing named Tesseract, is he talking about a thing named Tesseract or is this some more expressive cry. Of course the second line resolves this as an address.

I also like the sonics of the first line quite a lot. It's got this interesting rhythm and the alternating /t/ and /s/ sounds are pleasing (reminds me of Xenophon's famous "thallasa, thallasa"). I think it would be cool if the rest of the stanza hued closer to the meter of that first line.

The way I interpret the narrator's call for mercy from Tesseract is that he is acting for a disruption of the natural orders of things (Tesseract being a fourth-dimensional cube and thus outside the natural order of three spatial dimensioned universe--if we're including time as a dimension than "Tesseract" could reasonably be read as a synonym for "universe", with a similar sort of implication.)

The reference to Ms. Lazarus suggests that what the narrator wants to be suspended is death (Lazarus being the New Testament figure that Jesus brought back to life.) I have not quite figured out the purpose of gender swapping Lazarus into Ms. Lazarus. My tenuous guess is that it would make a trio of sisters (Lazarus in the NT has two sisters Mary and Martha) and thus form a Christianized version of the Fates of Greco-Roman mythology (a trio of sisters who controlled in particular the life and death of mortals--furthering my interpretation that this is about a desire to have death suspended).

This slip into Greco-Roman mythology could be extended into the final line (if we associate the tongue with breath and thereby to spirit/life force and also recall the practice of placing a coin under the deads' tongues).

After making these (potentially spurious) connections, the first stanza does have a lot more appeal. But you may be playing your cards too close to your chest here, as the surface level reading leaves something to be desired. I would try looking to establish a clear rhythm. In particular I think "Have mercy on me" could probably be rephrased as something more imagistic and with a better flow.

Edit: forgot to mention obvious connection between tongue and speech. With that in mind the initial section can be read as an odd rendition on an invocation of a muse.

2
GummyfailOP•

It was a bit of a hail Mary attempt at multiplicity of meaning.

It's interesting how the the particular issues I was afraid of have been dismissed (tesseract), but other issues have budded up(ms. Lazarus). This gave me a lot to work with, so thank you.

My big issue now is how to also make someone think of the 'poor man Lazarus' as well as the 'risen Lazarus'

Also would changing ms. Lazarus to Lady Lazarus clear things up or would it be too on the nose?

The only reason I'd be reluctant to change it much is that it's structure is based on a particular verse. But I'll definitely tinker around with pushing Images more.

2
walpen•

Slightly embarrassed that Plath never came to mind. I guess that plays even more into the muse reading. What verse is this based on?

1
GummyfailOP•

Luke 16 24 KJV It's the parable of the rich man and Lazarus

1
walpen•

To have at least said something about the rest of the piece:

  • The repitition of the second stanza is effective both in calling to mind a biblical sense of parallelism (the word choice and repreated use of "great" helps there) and building this cosmic, apocalyptic imagery.
  • Specially fan of the ambiguity in "gulf fixed in me" between "located permanently" and "repaired".
  • The use of capitalizations and pronouns is interesting (Us capitalized I assume to refer to something grand like humanity in general, a lowercase 'i' to emphasize the relative unimportance of the narrator).
  • I wonder though if "That" is to be capitalized why its referent (presumably "burning") is not.
  • "A shrill ringing breaks through / of sacred bells" is a bit awkward of a sentence structure for my taste.
  • I feel like there's supposed to be a touch of madness or manicness in the repitition of "wrap around" in the fourth stanza, but it cuts off too soon for this to really come through.
  • As far as I can guess, I'm imagining some sci-fi narrative where the narrator is on a spaceship adrift watching some rogue star or something threaten humanity.
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