Deliver us from everything

  Who are you?
  they ask
  faces hidden behind their masks:
  sheets of cellophane used to cover their vague and unformed souls.

  I answer.

  I remain your best nightmare,
  the brightest one you had --
  the silent thought that fell from the dark sky with all the screaming
  mass
  radiation
  gravity
  of a collapsing star.

  The nightmare where:
one) everybody died
two) lined up gladly hand-in-hand
three) with your name upon their lips.



  And they felt joy,
  for I would make something
  of them.

Reviews

[Harley]

Like aforementioned, this poem has a creepy crawly, deeply-rooted and sweetly enjoyed feeling of revenge to it. I love how the nightmare is almost mockingly smirking at the audience, saying "Haha, I may be an evil b*****d, but I'm your best choice." I adore that the audience, so like the human race in general, is described (in an undertone sort of way) to be mindless, like cattle. They gladly hand over their fate to this nightmare, and I shiver because we as humans so often create our own demise. I love the line breaks in this poem especially, I feel that they really bring out the narration and slowly-moving but strong build up of destruction. Well done, friend, well done.

[TLK]

I think you know more about this poem than I do ;)

[Harley]

Just my own personal interpretation. :)

[TLK]

I am very glad that you have taken the time to give it: it has enriched my own understanding of what this could mean.

My very favourite thing about writing is to re-read after a few months. You can edit it and make it entirely fresh again.

[Harley]

I'm definitely glad to hear that. And now that you mention it, I feel like I could probably go over some of my older stuff and renew it. Hmm.

[TLK]

When you can't write, re-write. And when you can't re-write any more, un-write. And when you're done un-writing, it will be time to recycle all those reclaimed words.

[Anastassia.S]

We all want to become someone....dear Creator ;)

[Ben Walker]

Im quite confused by this piece of writing, it gives me horrible vibes of cult suicides and massacres' - full blown Jones town http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown feelings. very effective though

[TLK]

I don't know where this came from, or what it means. It wasn't a clear image, I think it was just a feeling. But, taken as a social group accepting some extremely harmful possibility, it does give off feelings of Jonestown.

This is the best doc I've ever watched on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQYoHiM-Uko

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this feels like an "end of the world" poem...please deliver us from this misery...anything that would come after has to be better than this.

i like the way this is "delivered"

i find the last two stanzas almost a poem in itself...
there is freshness in the way you use language.

jacob

[Emily B]

I haven't tallied up reviews given and received for a while. I know the ration is generally three reviews given for every one received. I think you have not quite received your fair share of reads. I may make that my next challenge. There is certainly no good reason not to read you. This work, itself, is top shelf work.

[TLK]

I have not quite received my fair share of anything, except for belly fat. :(

Thanks for the support, Emily!

[Emily B]

alas, there was a time when i could favorite something and watch poets flock to it in droves, i've heard i have spot on taste, but these days, i am old hat, left to rattle around the dusty corners of the cafe :)

[TLK]

The poets have flocked elsewhere: where the words zang more snappily from their elastic pages, the weblinks are bluer and double underlined, the pictures of young poetesses pull you in deeper with their cleavage.

But here, you and I remain, content with the black-on-white words falling from behind blinking cursors.

[Emily B]

"She burns for art,
enjoying cheap puns and
Shakespearean soliloquies alike-
for what they are, and are not. No pretension here,
but great respect for the theater of the heart."
quoting Zatoichi here, "Emily, Maybe"

[Justice Smith]

This poem has a feeling of revenge to it. Something which most people have ties to and experience with. I like the oxymoron of "best nightmare". It gives a sort of creepy evil to it. The fourth stanza almost feels as though it's part of a weird love poem, but it ties the rest of the poem together quite nicely. There are few things you could do to make it better in my eyes. Nicely written. Good job.

[TLK]

This whole poem grew out of that oxymoron. I'm still not sure what it is about, but the way that the nightmare addresses its audience chills me.

[tamsen grier]

The title drew me into this poem. I wasn't sure what the poem itself was going to be about but the title made me smirk and wonder.

In the first stanza the music of ask/masks is lovely. I have a personal (and therefore perhaps preposterous) dislike of the word "see-through." Your speaker is prophetic, articulate, arcane. It seems more likely that that voice would say something like "transparent" or even "tenuous." I also wonder if the music could be improved by dropping the "and" at the end of the fourth line. I love the idea of "unformed" souls: it elaborates the "they" in a very real, very eerie way.

2nd stanza: The period is a good choice. I've seen a lot of colons, or even commas, after speech tags in poems but a statement like "I answer" needs a stronger pause.

3rd: I love an oxymoron, and they're so hard to coin! This one works: it's not overdone and we all know, somehow, what it means. We lack more precise vocabulary for it: a terrifying but wonderful dream. I'm unsure about the tense shift in the second line--from "am" in the first to "had." Do we still possess our "best nightmare"? Should it instead be "have"? This is perhaps a philosophical rather than a poetic question. Besides that, I like placing "mass/radiation/gravity" on their own lines in lieu of punctuation. It give each its appropriate weight. The only problem with that, though, is having "the" at the end of the line. It's hard to pull off: have you tried rephrasing the stanza to see if you can end on a heavier word?

Fourth and fifth stanzas: Change nothing.

Very intense poem. Well written. I look to reading more soon.

[TLK]

THIS ONE BRINGS BOOK LEARNING.

BURN HEEERRRR.

This is probably the single most useful review I've ever received on this 'site. If only I had time to celebrate it before I walk to work.

[TLK]

I've made some changes which, if you squint, are in line with what you suggested. I feel like it is something else now. Burnt sienna hues are coming to the fore more. There is more malice in the 'they', and less in the nightmare. And, at present, I like that.

Thank you again for an excellent review -- much appreciated.

[tamsen grier]

Oooh, cellophane! I really see that line now. Good edit!

[.]

ooh,..stirring and weighty.
this one will adhere to me for some time!

[TLK]

I like the concept of a 'best nightmare'. I assume I was thinking about the more common 'worst nightmares' and went from there...

[Carol Cook]

Very good, moving, will read more. Thanks, CC

[TLK]

Thank you for reviewing.