flowing, constrained, a lust surges up me
though damned to keep it to its hasty banks
its fleuves and rivulets spread greedily
beneath the fluidity a solid fear
unspoken and therefore ridiculous
imposes its bulk on worn thin levees
Posted Oct 23, 2022, 2:49 AM UTC · edited
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love this u captured a feeling that is so universal in such a concise manner it's literally incredible
Thank you!
Fluidity and rivulets is an awesome slant rhyme.
Thanks! I’ll uh pretend I did that on purpose
Very constrained. You’ve done an excellent job of handling the chain on this piece: letting the imagery ‘impose’ itself onto the page, and then yanking it back before it can overdo itself. The use of commas also are tremendous and really help create that craving for lust, that is ever flowing and fighting to break free.
Thank you!
the central metaphor of this poem compares lust to a river, which seems to say that lust (for what? for anything?) is irresistible. and maybe, because we tend not to think about a river's origin, the origin of that list is irrelevant: it's simply there and must be answered.
a secondary metaphor is a person as a vessel. fittingly, the water of this lust fills a person, which recalls lady macbeth's "fill me to the crown to the toe-top full of direst cruelty." maybe it suggests that a person is nothing if not filled with some passion.
this poem also suggests fear as an undercurrent to the river of lust - perhaps we lust out of fear that we will one day be unable to act on that lust.
if i could give any suggestion, it would be to attempt this draft with as few modifiers as possible. note that the strongest verb (and most interesting feature of this poem), 'surges up', could have been written as 'rapidly flows up', which would have robbed it of so much power and efficiency. if something is dammed and has rivulets, then we already know that it's flowing and constrained, for instance, and so on.
Thank you for the suggestion. I agree perhaps too many modifiers
I really enjoy the line "It fleuves and rivulets spread greedily". It really gives lust this power over you, like it is consuming everything in it's path, bursting through imaginary dams, dominating.
Thank you!