Aphotic Exposed

i didn’t find you

               

i ran my thumb along

the senescent edge

of my creosote-tinged

    soul

and deciphered the fear stained

rorschach my palm left

    floating like alarmed jellyfish

    through my eyes

 

i tasted the words

   as they slid petulantly backwards

bemused conquerors

   nothing left to do

   once their etching

was done

 

epistles last daggers

                coaxed forth crimson

                from the bundled corpse of hope

                bled free

words to shatter thin lines

   incandescently exposing

   gentle pillars of deft lies

 

you haven’t looked yet

 

my eyes no longer breathe

but my ears won’t stop

  feeding my submerged heart

tales of tarnished

  rebirth

Reviews

[Girl Friday (Sarah W.)]

There is a message here...a very deep message. I must take it with me out into the world today; allow it to breathe in the sunlight, digest in my core, and then perhaps I will get the complete picture. As of now, I am only getting brilliant flashes of something I can't quite decipher. But, needless to say, this is going into my favorites. Amazing, my friend :)

[Quill~]

"bled free

words to shatter thin lines

incandescently exposing

gentle pillars of deft lies"

I sense a contrite spirit in your words... It stirs the my thoughts. Nice work!

[eglantine]

oooo another poet who sometimes enjoys not capitalizing! Nice! Great use of vocab here and that last stanza--just wow! Structure is interesting with just the right amount of organized chaos. Thanks for sharing.

[absent]

I love when poetry seems so personal that I can't quite understand it, but I simply absorb a *feeling* from it, a tone. There is some powerful, haunting imagery here: "and deciphered the fear stained / rorschach my palm left / floating like alarmed jellyfish /through my eyes".

My one recommendation is something I say a lot to poets, and it's that you might want to utilize more punctuation. The poem can read like one long sentence, without any pauses or time to process. I think that punctuation is really overlooked in the poetry world.

Despite that little nitpicking I did, I really enjoyed this poem. Also, I had to look up the word "senescent" so it's always nice to have a new vocab word, haha.

[ChemicalMadness]

Thanks for the kind words...re: the punctuation, as you've noted, many writers make liberal use of the absence of punctuation....I'm one of those. We I DO use punctuation, there's generally a really good reason. Otherwise, I break lines and play with structure to guide the readers ear where I'd like them to listen - doesn't always work, but the absence of punctuation is not always something to be frowned upon ;)

[Steven]

'you haven't looked yet' and the notion of breathing ears as one device in a spliced line fckd my head up. So good there. Feeding my submerged heart tales... It's like when Van Gogh puts black on his bristles. Another piece of natural complexity which arises from its depth. Great.

[ChemicalMadness]

Thanks for the kind words!

[Ees]

I don't know what say, but I enjoyed the sensations of reading this. It's well done, dippy and divey along.
Nice work.

[Frieda P]

Holy I don't know what!! Okay, this one needs much digestion...wild, bat shyte crazy good!

[ChemicalMadness]

I've definitely called a few people batshit crazy in my time....but I've never had it bestowed upon me as a compliment - and I think I like it :)
Thank you.

[Frieda P]

Ha take it with the greatest intentions of saying this was off the charts phenomenal!!

[Emily B]

oh, oh

will take a moment to recover my breath

[ChemicalMadness]

in through the nose, out through the mouth. unless you're underwater.
Thank you so much, though.