fever dream
on my mother’s doorstep, i wandered the earth —
i traversed the landscapes behind
my eyes as a vagrant king, bowing to none
save my own weariness.
memories passed in the flits of serpent tongues,
paying no honor to my throne of dirt.
in the morning, the hills invited me to trek
their beaten footpaths, and i walked for a year
before the sun went down.
the ground ahead of me flattened with nightfall,
and i watched the animals creep across the moor.
they had human faces, and their howls
mixed with the incoherent babbling of
their chimeric newborns.
they batted at the stars,
yanking them from
the sky to sate their
endless hunger.
the flatland gave way to fields of kitchen tile,
littered in broken plates
and bits of telephone.
if i spoke, the words hung in the air as fog,
audible only when passed through. harsh,
spiteful, never voiced quite the way they
were intended.
when i opened my eyes, the driveway seemed
more foreign than the world
that i left behind.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/8c6fjt/my_dresser/dxcxztg/
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/8c2b3x/a_light_in_the_dark_matters/dxcxwvz/?context=0
Posted Apr 14, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC
Some bits of it are HOT and other bits of it are awkward.
Like, I would have liked to have seen "That I had left behind" in the last sentence. Somehow, past perfect tense seems needed there.
This whole segment was the bomb
they batted at the stars, yanking them from the sky to sate their endless hunger.
Maybe change batted for another verb.
The first stanza.. you need this to flow better so it can be comprehended. Especially the second line and the meter doesn't make it clear what you're saying until the second reading. it could be easier to follow.
Second stanza; Throne of Dirt is a cliche So is the hills inviting you
You can work on flow, but i love imagery. The fifth stanza is a perfect example of this.
thank you very much!! i appreciate your thouroughness with this response. i will take it all into consideration. cheers!