A Season's Corner

A basement room

Silence fills it

What’s left to be said

It’s understood

The table speaks it all

A piece of paper with stains of rain

A mix tape drowned in ink

And a cd revealing the subtle truth

A staircase lined with pictures

Leads to an empty kitchen

Worn shoes that need to be filled

Sit near a door soon to be opened

The air hangs heavy with words unspoken

Beneath the exit a moment to embrace

I stumble down steps to a concrete path

A glance back to see what I’ve left

Behind thin glass a silhouette watches

You are a shadow that I cannot perceive 

Luminous lights line the pavement

While cars stretch down a vacant street

I’m drowning in my thoughts

A curb extends it’s greeting towards me

It offers me a port in the storm

Signs of no meaning line a bare road

They are disregarded daily

And I am in succession with them

I can be read, yet you fail to open this chapter

Just as they are ignored and passed by

To the corner I turn in hopes of an impulse

Second thoughts will always act first

And a moment shall be left unchanged

Above the sky the stars are masked

Except the occasional flicker

Caught through a hole in the atmosphere

A mackerel sky is what I reside in

An exodus is calling and if not accepted

I shall turn to an effigy left to ponder till dawn

The door opens as I am ready for course

I am going somewhere

Where you may ask I do not know

But the winds shall take me               

Followed by the faded sounds of a broken radio

I am going somewhere

Author's Note

What do you think? Analyze, interpret, and critique and overall thoughts.

Reviews

[Tim H]

I like the poem and many of the reviewers have some good and valid points. The number of reviews is perhaps a testament to the compelling nature of the poem. For me I read a story that has a beginning middle and end. Starting in the basement the deepest place in a home and figuratively the heart.
The lines : The table speaks it all

A piece of paper with stains of rain

A mix tape drowned in ink

And a cd revealing the subtle truth

Provide a motive for the narrator to leave, divorce papers? You may have to be smarter than me to figure it out.

The narrator then leaves with no place to go and no hope. My favorite line: Second thoughts will always act first

And commits suicide in the traffic maybe? So to me the poem is not all "all over the place," but telling a story.

As far as the technical elements of poetry I feel out of my element, being more of a story guy. I can't say I was put off or confused by the lack of punctuation. To tell the truth I didn't even notice until I read some the reviews. The consensus of the reviews seem to say that it would be better if it was shorter and some offer some constructive was to accomplish the goal. I also love the imagery in the poem. I like the lines: A basement room

Silence fills it

To me silence sometimes fills oppressive, like a pregnant pause and it makes sense to me.
I enjoyed the poem.

[Snuggles McClintock]

i felt this could benefit from separating your ideas into stanzas. you had some amazing imagery and ideas, but I would like them to be framed nicely into bits.

[Joel Alvarado]

Hmm, very interesting. I must agree with everyone else. Very vivid, very well written work. You have powerful creativity and yes this does have potential. And though this piece is good, I struggled to stay interested. Every new idea pulled me in to read the next line. It all seems so incoherent yet it all paints a picture in the end. Nice work.

[Nish Nish the Fish]

this poem's chocked full of awesome imagery, very well done! you bring a sense of serenity and peace to the reader's mind, thanks for sharing!

[Literature Writer]

A really good poem.

[John McGrael]

i think this is a very good poem!!!!

but i have to agree with everyone who said its too wordy... needs pruning... etc.

this poem has endless potential!!! ENDLESS, you are a very very good writer.... but not as good an editor

but overall this poem is very very very very well done and i throughly enjoyed reading it
if this was edited better, i could imagine studying this poem in a literature class or something along those lines

[Tate Morgan]

I WOULD LIKE IT A LOT MORE IF IT WERE SHORTER.THATS JUST ME.i LIKE THINGS THAT ARE CONCISE.i GET LOST IN THE SENTENCES THAT DON'T NEED TO BE HERE.i LIKE THE STORY
TATE

[Bennett Logan]

Thanks for the read request. I enjoyed the poem, though I do agree with Mr. McCrady. What you have here is a good start. I do like the uncertainty in this poem. Being unaware of what lies ahead is universal and is something everyone has experienced and understands. I like how you make it your own by adding imagery very specific to your experience, i.e. the paper, the ink, and the staircase lined with photographs.

I only have a few suggestions, should you be interested in revising:
1. Take out any words or lines that are not absolutely neccessary to the poem. It may help to create an extract of your original idea and it's a great way to start revising.
2. Punctuation: Use punctuation as you would normally. Emphasize pauses in speech and completions of thoughts. As it is now, the poem is a kind of long run-on sentence and is easily fixable.
3. The poem is all over the place: a silent basement room, lots of pavement/road/sign imagery, cars, shadows, a mysterious "you", chapters, books, pages, paper, drowning, sky (mackerel sky is actually pretty interesting), stars, holes in the atmosphere, an effigy, a broken radio... It's a wonderful collage of thoughts and you command the language well, but I, personally, would be interested in seeing a little more structure and organization. Focus in on a specific subject or object, using related language and imagery to get your point across.

In this case, the idea of a mackerel sky really caught my attention. I wanted to hear more about it!

I hope my review can be of some assistance. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message. Otherwise, definitely keep up the good work!

[deeps]

I love this such wonderfl imagery
I could see the whole write
This is very well written

[hannah]

A vivid imagery. Well done.

From what I understood in reading this poem, it's about facing the unknown. You have to move on and leave your past behind. Even though you don't know exactly where you're going to go next, you just have to go and move forward. How the future scares you because you don't know what's going to happen next.

I truly enjoyed this poem. But, please try to form stanzas when you make poems so as to not confuse the readers or so that it doesn't seem so long.