Free verse № 137260
Best left unsaid (trust first instincts edit, w/thanks)
My tongueâs loose slide
would soon let slip
this truth,
bruised blue,
behind these sentinel teeth.
We meet. Touch. Fuck.
We seldom speak much
more than surface gloss--
from niceties to wordless
heat, we move.
With your hand
warm on my neck,
I swallow words
thick with promise,
glistening like larva trapped
in tissue webs, my palate
ridged as a whale's.
Words grow
pallid as mushrooms
in the echoless dark,
slick with the sweat of caves.
I want to devour you,
a carnal glide,
deep as a worm,
down,
down,
in my rich earth.
23 comments
I'm not that happy with the layout though. Play with it for a while(pun-alert!) and see what comes out.
Like:
My tongue's
loose
slide
would soon
let slip this truth,
bruise-blue,
kept fast behind
these sentinal teeth.
We meet,
touch,
fuck;
we seldom speak much more
than surface gloss.
From niceties
to wordless heat
we move. Here
with your big
hand warm on my neck,
I swallow
words thick with promise,
glistening like larva
trapped in tissue webs,
a palate ridged as a whale's.
I'd consume you
whole, take you deep,
sliding
soft as a worm,
down
down
in a sudden
gasp.
Yeah, I think many english teachers make a mistake in teaching free verse before conventional poetry simply because it's easier.
You must first learn to paint like Michelangelo before you can paint like Picasso.
You've got a great foundation to build off from.
I only wish you had a more comfortably addressable screen name.
I just remembered reading an article somewhere about how that's the way english teachers are doing it now.
I do remember being taught metaphor, simile, etc. in school though.
When first I left, i'd check the site occasionally for anything worth reading, but we all know what a shot in the dark that is.
I haven't visited the site in about 10 months. How serendipitous. The poem is good. "Sentinel teeth" has a complexity of meaning and it's placed wonderfully between bruising & fucking. (Oh how our bodies do betray us)
It's an honest poem. I can feel it. It's human.
"Trapped in tissue webs" is sensual, that along with the following line is spot on. Anatomically accurate and emotional all at once.
The words are perfect. Maybe you can mess around with the structure so you're happier with it, but the images are powerful and consistent. The first time i read this I understood the palate to be compared to a the whale's ribs somehow. now I see it's to the whale's own palate. I just automatically pictured a rib cage just under the whales skin.
Hmmmm.
Is the last verse in future tense? The rest seems all present. In the fourth line it's future tense. Maybe instead of 'would' 'will' might work there a little better. Maybe 'a palate should be 'your palate' or 'my palate'.
My tongueâs loose slide
will soon let slip
this truth, bruised blue
behind these sentinel teeth.
We meet, touch, fuck.
But we seldom speak
more than surface gloss--
From niceties to wordless heat.
We move
With your hand warm on my neck.
I swallow words thick with promise,
and glistening like larva
trapped in tissue webs,
my palate ridged as a whale's.
Words that grow pallid
like mushrooms in that echoless dark,
made slick with the sweat of caves.
I devour you,
A carnal glide,
soft as a worm,
down,
down,
in my rich earth.
Why do you think journals are rejecting workshopped poems? Is it the sameness of voice, do you think? (Is there a sameness of voice? It seems to me as if there is, but I don't read a lot of poetry journals; most of what I read is in non-poetry-specific mags like The New Yorker and Yankee Mag, etc.--i.e., pubs w/ a history of, but not a focus on, poetry.) I don't mind longer, "nontrad" layouts or odd breaks if there's a purpose to it, but I think you're right that it's done more for "shock" value or "to be different" (though it's been done and done and done for ages now) than for any purposeful, thoughtful reasons.
I'm not saying don't workshop. I'm saying put something out for the first reaction, like or dislike, and to catch big mistakes. When people say they want shorter lines or more sex, don't change the poem you posted; write another one using their ideas, see what they think of that. Even then, half the time you'll get one responder who hates your poem for every one who loves it - so that, after all the workshops in the world, it's still the loneliest profession.
and see what you could come up with. I'm more likely to nitpick a better poem like this one than a bad one.
Btw--your stuff is good (lowball votes notwithstanding).
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