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Melancholy

by Midnight_Sun 

Posted: 26 May 2011
Word Count: 223
Summary: From an exercise in avoiding abstract words in poetry


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(Edited Version)

With worn down lips
its brittle smile won’t stretch
to softly brimming eyes
that sing a dirge inside.
It wilts at my fingertips;
the delicate bones shy
under
moth wing skin.

With the scent of withered
roses, an empty wake house;
wreaths and incense;
its laboured breaths echo
half remembered things.
Its gentle sweetness sours
on my tongue, leaves me thirsty
with a salty aftertaste.

It feels of waste, and ragged regret;
But I can’t let go of it
yet. I hold it in my afterthoughts;
it will love me in death. I let it go.
It slips into the solitude
of silent grey. In the chill
of veined marble
it will wait.










(Original Version)

Soft with wilted bristles
and brimming
liquid eyes that wet my fingers;
the delicate bones shy
under
drooping skin.

It smells of withered roses,
an empty wake house; wreaths and incense.
It whispers aching sighs
of words that make no sense.
Its gentle sweetness sours
on my tongue, and leaves me thirsty
with its salty aftertaste.

It feels of waste, and ragged regret.
But I don’t want to let go of it
yet. I hold it in my afterthoughts;
it will love me in death. I let it go.
It slips into the solitude
of silent shadows. In the chill
of veined marble
it will wait.






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Comments by other Members



James Graham at 19:09 on 27 May 2011  Report this post
Hello again, Patricia. I have a problem with the first paragraph of this poem (see below) but not with the other two. The middle section channels melancholy very effectively through three of the five senses, a good choice of imagery I think. I’m a little unsure of

It whispers aching sighs


as being not very original. ‘Aching sighs’ might come from a not-very-good love poem, and I wonder if you might revise the two lines referring to the sense of hearing, and come up with something more surprising.

The last paragraph is very nuanced, very subtle. I like the idea of a reluctant letting-go, especially the sense that even after ‘I let it go’ and consign melancholy to the grave, it’s still ‘waiting’. It waits in ‘veined marble’ - the word ‘veined’ suggesting a vestige of life, even if only figurative. I also like

I hold it in my afterthoughts


- a fine, resonant phrase. Every line in this last section contributes to a tension between holding on and letting go, interwoven with feelings about death. It’s almost uparaphrasable, as good poetry often is. A quality piece of writing.

I have a problem mainly with the very first line. I can’t help visualising a worn scrubbing brush, but can’t see how that relates to the subsequent lines or to the rest of the poem. Do you mean that bones - the bones of the melancholy person - are soft? They’re ‘delicate’; are they soft too in some sense? The presence of this ‘brush’ (if that’s what it is) and its ‘bristles’ puzzles me.

There are unnecessary words in

brimming
liquid eyes that wet my fingers.


Wetness is mentioned three times, so at least either ‘brimming’ or ‘liquid’ could be
omitted. Perhaps even both.

‘Veteran’ group members know that sometimes I slash a poem or stanza rather brutally.
Now it’s your turn!

Eyes wet my fingers; bones
shy under drooping skin.


Now I know that’s probably far too drastic. Yet, if we credit our readers with enough
imagination, maybe we can expect them to infer from these two lines everything that’s in
your original six lines. Well, maybe. Often in writing poetry you have to be aware of just how much a few words can convey.

I’m sure something needs to be cut from this paragraph, and especially I think it could do without the first line - unless it has a meaning I can’t see. It would be worth revising the first six lines (as well as those two lines in the second stanza) for the sake of the whole poem, which has great strength and vitality.

James.

purpletandem at 08:26 on 28 May 2011  Report this post
I tend to agree with James - I found the second and third stanzas easier to 'get' than the first.

I stumbled over -

But I don’t want to let go of it
yet.

How about?...

But I cannot let it go, not yet.

I like the image of an empty wake house, and I like the final line, which is somewhat chilling.

it will wait.


Thanks,
pt

FelixBenson at 10:36 on 28 May 2011  Report this post
Hi Patricia,
This is an interesting poem, I like the way you have imagined melancholy, and especially that part which expresses a reluctance to let melancholy go - this seemed true to me. I tend to agree with James about whispering sighs, I think that weakens the effect of the language elsewhere in the poem - which is very strong and very much your own.

I've re-read the opening lines a couple of times and I can see that there is some elusiveness here. I thought the bristles suggested a dead flower/plant of some kind, or one of the wreaths referred to in the second stanza. As though melancholy is a plant that was once spiky and alive (which would be the initial sharp grief, perhaps?) hence the sharp bristles. But that first stage is passed, so the bristles are wilted and the plant is soft - because this is the melancholy stage of grief?

I am not sure if I have read that right, but that is how I interpreted it. And I liked this elusiveness...but it's always worth commenting on your intentions here.

Having said that I agree with James about the unnecessary words - repetition of liquid/brimming/wet in the first verse. There is one image here, and the image will be stronger if you refine it.

In the final passage - I very much like the idea of melancholy waiting in veined marble ...I'm not sure about 'silent shadows' but overall I think this poem has a lot of strength, and it is definitely worth working on to refine those images.

I enjoyed this. Thanks for posting, and I look forward to reading more of your work.

Kirsty



Midnight_Sun at 10:09 on 31 May 2011  Report this post
Thanks very much everyone for taking the time to read and comment on the poem.

Taking on board all the very helpful comments I will go back and revise the first stanza extensively. I agree that 'aching sighs' should be taken out, now that I have the confirmation, it is something of a cliche.

To be honest there was a bit of automatic writing going on with this poem from an exercise in the creative writing module that I am currently finishing off, so the wilted bristles just popped into my head and seemed to have stayed in after several redrafts.

Will post a revised version in the next few days.

Thanks again everyone.

Patricia

James Graham at 14:13 on 31 May 2011  Report this post
Creative writing exercises can produce poems (or part of a poem in this case) that are a little skewed because you're following guidelines given by someone else. But faults can usually be rectified, and this poem isn't far short of excellence. Looking forward to your revision.

James.

James Graham at 15:30 on 15 June 2011  Report this post
This is certainly improved in all the lines you’ve revised. I like

its brittle smile won’t stretch


because it’s a logical image: we know anything that’s brittle won’t stretch. The image works by using this common knowledge of brittleness and applying it, surprisingly, to a smile.

‘Moth wing skin’ works very well visually, suggesting both colour and fragility.

‘Laboured breaths’ is better than ‘aching sighs’, though maybe you should keep the line that follows in the original as it’s more concrete:

its laboured breaths echo
words that make no sense.


However, now that I’ve got to know this poem very well, I’m left with a strong impression of two good stanzas and one really brilliant stanza. The third stanza works in every detail. ‘It feels of waste’ has a sharpness that comes from turning a common phrase (e.g. it smells of) into something new. ‘ragged regret’ performs that mysterious magic that integrates sound and sense into a unity. There’s a fine balance between ‘I can’t let go of it/ yet’ and ‘I let it go’. ‘I hold it in my afterthoughts’ is a wonderful phrase, and the same can be said of the next two and a half lines. The ending

In the chill
of veined marble
it will wait


is inspired: it’s a concrete image signifying death, yet ‘veined’ retains an echo of life and the living body. All this put together makes a poetic stanza of real depth. The words and images interact with one another in a way that’s hard to analyse; as with much of the best poetry, you reach a point where you know that analysis can only go so far, it won’t capture the whole essence. Only the poem itself does that.

What I’m leading up to is a suggestion that the third stanza makes a poem by itself. Or else, a shortened version of stanzas 1 and 2 could serve as a prelude to it. I think you wanted to stick to regular 8-line stanzas, but this is free verse and they don’t need to be all the same length. What I’ve done below is pick out what I think are the best lines in stanzas 1-2, and then of course leave stanza 3 unchanged. I hope you don’t mind my messing about with your poem in this way; if you prefer me not to, in future I’ll just generally suggest (assuming it’s necessary at all) ways a poem might be cut.

Its brittle smile won’t stretch
to softly brimming eyes.
It wilts at my fingertips;
delicate bones shy
under moth wing skin.
Its gentle sweetness sours
on my tongue, leaves me thirsty
with a salty aftertaste.

It feels of waste, and ragged regret;
But I can’t let go of it
yet. I hold it in my afterthoughts;
it will love me in death. I let it go.
It slips into the solitude
of silent grey. In the chill
of veined marble
it will wait.


(Which, as it turns out, is in two 8-line stanzas.)

As I say, these are merely the lines that strike me as best, and you may not agree. Even if you keep the poem as it is, you still have what I said at the beginning: two good stanzas and an inspired one.

Let me know what you think.

James.

Midnight_Sun at 10:16 on 17 June 2011  Report this post
Thanks James,

your feedback is really helpful. I think 'worn down lips' and 'that sing a dirge inside' are probably superflous and I do understand your suggested stanzas, it's a habit of mine to overwrite as I love the internal rhyming schemes and sounds words make so i do it for purely aesthetic reasons and obviously I still have loads to learn, but I still feel even with the cropped version the first stanza is missing something for me as it flows too fast like a sudden bout of depression instead of what i would consider to be the gentle seep of melancholy if that makes sense.

With your suggested version I will going away and work on it further just to perfect the flow of it.

I really appreciate your taking the time on my work so thank you again.

Patricia

James Graham at 11:48 on 19 June 2011  Report this post
I see what you mean about the shortened stanza flowing too quickly - being over too soon - to reflect melancholy, making it more like a sudden bout than a long-term thing. So probably a compromise is the answer - something longer than my slashed version, something that dwells more on the theme. I hope it turns out well - it should, it’s a very good poem just waiting to be rounded off.

Sometimes it's better at this stage to leave a poem for a while and come back to it. This is what I find anyway. After a break, maybe writing other things, you look at it again and see more clearly what to do with it.

James.


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