eclipse Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 Death in a dream placed emeralds in my eyes, placed me inside a diamond and the jewel inside an angel's eye. Singing in a tongue I did not understand- wearing the false teeth of time death had the moon in his eyes, his tears were rock as I woke, I could not see for dust and debris, the clock face was coated within, fully, I could just see a time fixed. The next night dreaming there was a diamond in the sky and a moon in my eyes, death was vexed as he cleaned the clock face I could see the night reveal an angel and moonlight ravish a diamond, as an echo and an apparition my presence was brief, slight, safe inside a jewel as death's dour hands polished time's false teeth and rolled up the night time sky like a carpet. The reaper he stitched a rug with a tapestry of angels circling the moon, the hands were formed from emeralds, eleven angels dreamt of me powering the hands, from the twelth I could see where hands would fall. In the reaper's gaze one last dim moonrise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcmarti1 Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 death's dour hands polished time's false teeth and rolled up the night time sky like a carpet. THAT is great imagery. And love the SO seldom used "moonrise". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eclipse Posted April 4, 2015 Author Share Posted April 4, 2015 thanks Marti Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 Interesting personification of death with some diverse dream-work imagery to consider... I found "false teeth" incongruous in a humorous way. Perhaps in the same way that a black eye, or 'shiner' evoked a certain kind of humour when I was a boy; though nowadays it would be inappropriate to think that way. But then that's just me. There's a typo: "twelfth" on your penultimate line that you may want to fix. Best..G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David W. Parsley Posted April 26, 2015 Share Posted April 26, 2015 Hi Barry, this poem has a misty supernaturality evocative of your most moody atmospheres. Much original imagery moves here hinting at a stubborn symbology moving just outside the grasp of conscious thought. Another dream, Death and Time and Angels take familiar places consistent (if repetitive) with your prior work. My main problems with the piece stem from a detonation of repeated words (moon=5, death=4, angel=4, time=4, eye=4, hand=4, see=4, dream=3, clock=2, diamond=3, emerald=2, jewel=2, reaper=2, false teeth=2, night=2, sky=2) and phrases (eight times some sort of rock is named, ten times something to do with time or time-keeping, angelic beings all over the place, etc.) It seems like more meditation is called for, on the qualities and aspects of these entities, and how they inform the experience. An instructor once challenged me to write initial drafts of my poems without a single repeated noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. It often proved too hard, but I got the point! One more perplexity. There is a floridity of expression, unusual for you, sapping power from what is intended to be a surprising, even somewhat disjointed, narrative. I think the piece would benefit from a ruthless paring down to about two thirds its current length or less. - Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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