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Post by James on Jul 14, 2014 5:13:48 GMT -5
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Post by JMDavis ((Silver)) on Jul 18, 2014 12:23:10 GMT -5
A blinding field of ice.
Spring and summer have gone.
Drifts of snow devour bright flowers.
The world is frozen.
The land is cold.
A virgin white waiting to be born anew.
Each day the light blinds us anew,
Its harsh glare reflecting off placid ice.
The wind bites to the bone, cold
Cutting us until it has gone,
Once we step back inside frozen
To smell a home filled with winter flowers.
The warm air is mingled with the smell of faux flowers.
The scent and touch of fire revitalizes us anew.
The window is frosted, crazed and frozen,
The glass a flimsy barrier from the ice.
The wind howls, the shutters gone
Flying away out into the cold.
The storm rages dark and cold.
The pressure of night like a foot crushing flowers,
Beneath its heel. The glass is gone,
The cold reclaims us anew.
The wind whips ice,
Inside where we huddle frozen.
We shiver and curse, frozen.
The winter winds blow their cold,
They gnash with their ice.
Gone is the scent of flowers.
The icy smell of frost freshens anew.
All feeling is going, going… gone.
The wind dies down until it is gone.
We shiver, alone together and frozen.
The dawn greets us anew,
Feeling returns to limbs gone cold.
We smell the freshness of flowers,
Through the drifts that held ice.
The ice has gone.
The flowers are no longer frozen.
The cold has left, the world is born anew.
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Post by Kaez on Jul 18, 2014 23:18:22 GMT -5
sound and the fury, Two-Thousand
dropped its New Years ball and in the streets men
cheered and roared in drunken bliss beneath white
artificial snow, the asphalt and frost
the lights and camera flashes; and silent
lovers kissing, explosions in the sky
the stars hung low in the sky
smoke and wind through the pines; near a thousand
troops amassed in the Ardennes and silent
prayers were offered up in desperate hope, men
using corpses for their warmth - and yet frost
without discern turned even shadows white
Roanoke, in all the white
as roared a ruthless storm and thun'dring sky
naught could be done but watch as claimed by frost
and sickness was the last of a thousand
lives to be lost in freedom's name; when men
perished in vain, how could God stay silent?
though now the highway's silent
in memory still could be seen the white
of marble in the sun for all the men
from Orient to Africa, the sky
above was all the same, and the thousand
names for Rome reached farther than could the frost
once, tribute was made to Frost
without You there could not be the silent
time for flick'ring flames beneath a thousand
dancing stars; without You there'd be no White
no Harvestime nor Spring, no rhythmic sky,
for Frost, like all things, is a part of Men
carve the bone to look like men
and pile the stones-for-the-stars before the frost
prostrate the sun and howl into the sky
meditate on moonlight, wild and silent,
hunt and mate. awe at the trees snowed with white
divine is the world, one of a thousand
ten thousand years ago, before were men,
'fore even gods, the white of winter's frost
sang silent hymns beneath the sky. |
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Post by James on Jul 27, 2014 5:06:39 GMT -5
Silver
That was an entirely satisfactory poem. You managed to stick to the sestina format well, which isn't necessarily an easy feat.
It was a little sterile, though. You told a pretty typical tale of winter and you didn't experiment much with trying to paint an imagery beyond it. I liked some lines, like night being like a foot crushing flowers. But mostly it was just painting a very good picture of winter, but not doing much beyond that.
I feel like the third stanza was your best. There was a flow there that was missing from the rest of the poem. Obviously, the sestina is a non-metered poem, but still, you want it to read cleanly (or challenge the reader for an actual purpose). Also, you clearly gave some thoughts about the visual aspects of the line. There was a layer of thinking there that maybe wasn't so readily present in the other stanzas. Also, think about the use of capitalisation and having longer sentences flowing across multiple lines to give the poem a little more flow.
But overall, a pretty decent effort. Well done.
Kaez
Loved it.
Like Silver, you had no trouble with the form. I'm a little surprised that both you and Silver went for an envoi of (1-2, 3-4, 5-6) but the repetition wasn't quite so noticeable as it was in Silver's, so well done.
I really enjoyed the subject matter. You took winter and you did something just slightly different with it by spreading it out across different times and then bringing it right back to winter itself. Each stanza painted some form of a distinct image, which was great. It was almost like lots of little mini poems being told in a far larger one.
And what you did excellently was get a pleasurable flow. You used punctuation with precision to create a poem that moved exactly how you wanted it to. The visual element of it was also appealing (though we both undoubtedly favour that uncapitalised form).
I just really loved it. I want you to write a book of poems and publish it.
I feel for Silver because I'm a bit of a Kaez fanboy when it comes to poetry (we also have a somewhat similar style which probably exacerbates the problem). But I don't think I'm being blind when I say Kaez takes this round. Silver's poem was good but a little stolid. Pete's was excellent.
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