A covered guitar holds up his bookcase
while a cigarette ash tips to the floor.
The crooked eye of Jean-Paul Sartre
on a jacket-cover,
a bottle of pills spilled on a table.
His songs will be forgotten,
his face will be forgotten,
his heart will forget how to push.
Ivy has overcome his window
slowly. Green filtered light flits
on the floor in time to Nico’s
tambourine—
all tommorow’s parties will soon
be over.
There is no one to hold his hand.
There is no one.
An ant crawls on his cereal spoon.
All the passion, the agitated moths
of his soul that brought him to
this moment have settled.
He would like to reach the phone…
Please tell me what you think
Sorry, you cannot respond to an archived poemReviews
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I like it for the most part, but it just dies and has no ending, of any kind. Like why would he like to reach the phone? Were the pills to over dose or something and he wishs to call for help or to prove he will live? Or is that just to show his messiness?
I undersand it's a roughdraft. I'm simply trying to give you options on how to improve.
The overall idea is nice though. The beginning is great!
good luck,
Ashley
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I like its bleakness, Brandon.
I think those first 14 lines are, for my reading, skilfully drawn in a minimalist style which says plenty about the poem's subject, overcome by Sartrean world-weariness. I like that you connoted all that existentialist 'no exit' feeling with just that one word: 'Sartre', and its barely-there embellishment of a 'crooked eye.' The covered guitar, the ash, the light, the pills, the forgotten songs - strong stuff resonating a lot.
But at line 17 things turn a bit mawkish, in my opinion. Lines 17-20 seem redundant to what's already been strongly imaged. My thought: omit lines 17 through 20 and replace them with something akin to "It is settled." Then line 20 would cry out even more with its "He would like (etc.)..." but can't? won't? Any possible answers to those supposed questions don't matter. Things are already 'settled', 'useless' as is the 'Passion' of the title.
I think it's a fine draft, and I'd like to see what you do further with it.
Lad -
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Hey thanks
for reading. I couldn't agree more. I got to a certain point and just didn't know what else to do with it.
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skipeople
August 13, 2007
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