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A Drowsy Sun
Morbidly gathering life to myself.
Standing upon skeletons
Hoping something could be reborn to me.
Searching out fables,
In spite of traggic endings.
Endings which offer fate a rest.
Longings that are killed only after spirit is.
Loss is conceded,
After stature is recognized
As something pleading.
My shortcomings go far,
In imagination though they are stunted.
In your imagination
I offered strength.
In mine,
I never called it rape.
Dear Lord,
I prayed to you.
Dear Lord,
The locker-rooms,
They were so evil,
In their light-hearted designs.
Just play a game.
Be a good sport.
Exposed to hell then.
And to think,
I would have stayed away from porn.
Well, you asked for a critique. I don't understand any of this. You use a title that has nothing to do with the poem, start off standing on skulls, wander off to talk about loss, longing and rape without saying anything about them, then you curse the locker room, and say you would have stayed away from porn. What are you talking about?
So I think it is a rambling, incoherent work. Pick a theme, develop it with coherence, embellish it with suitable imagery, finish it with a fitting conclusion. This is much more difficult than it appears, and is the basis of work that other people can understand and appreciate. Anyone can string together random ramblings and claim it's poetry ... but it's random ramblings like this that you can read on nine out of ten poetry pages on the Net.
I could have said, nice work, write some more, but you asked for a sincere critique on the message board, this is what I think.
Ken
My Secret River
Straight up...you hooked me in the beginning with the complexity...seems like maybe you don't "know" how to finish...so you fall back on theory and insecurity. I dig the thread...and I do understand that an explaination would probably clear things up. It's still very beautiful.