Lentement, Grave, with much feeling
The water moved lazily along the reeds, the glassy winter sky riding upon its slight ripples, the curves laden with the sleeted clouds so perched as to seem ominously permanent. In its ripple, in its gargle and whispery splashes the air watching it rode simultaneously, inexorably a separate entity, a detached and unconcerned spectator and a limb of the water, a finger trailing listlessly, ever so tender upon the banks, testing the alkalinity volume very composition age density and fertility of the soil; past one year's brittle fallen leaves and stalky debris through to the very fillaments of immortality, the feathery hyphae of the beginning in the world's womb.
Along the banks barefoot and drunk they walked, hand in hand, fingers clasped and bones exploring new shape, weaving ways; perhaps random, unintentional and coincidental, feet leading away from dark chasms and rocks unknowingly, a wending path of happenstance; perhaps spun from the fate's skeins, threads tugging in heady assurance, their steps written somewhere deep within the grass blades uncovered by Freya's own apocalyptic hand searching, intent, the dead, searching intent the courage in such an avariced mire.
Just atop the trees the moon sat, in lovely loneliness, all white clad melancholy and keening a dirge, a strange wind unraveling from the ether the river traversed to perch in the ears of the drunkards. From their laughing mouths it flew forth rearranged and nonsensical uttered without weight to become slurred promises, stuttered but suddenly intense professions, the word fluttering now all about the night like a dew-weighted moth. It lit upon the water, upon the hallowed raw branches like so many angelic thoughts, upon the crowns of their heads; it tangled in their hair as though in a sparrow's nest, tucking head underwing to sleep for the night (or the week, month, decade, all floating seasons upon so much water).
They fell, inebriant, upon the ground, elves inundated upon the slow-spoken ptolemic secrets unmawed this night, mossy and primordial; their heads, so latent with the dark stuff cradling stars as to be dizzy, rested heavily upon the last desperate drifts of snow, hardened from the foul-tempered wind, their limbs sinking cushioned to the loam. Upon their lips plum danced, a distant remnant of stolen and empassioned kisses so performed as to be the last the moon saw in her mysterious years. Tey laughed leaves and blooms and blossoms unto the dead ground, their legs consumed as vines sought the hallowed air. Laughing they burrowed further into earth's new and rampant wilderness. Gasping the water moved ever east glancing back to see their boisterous ecstasy as the fungal clearing took them into itself, the moon pale and vain above, her song ceaselessly funereal, their skin now ceaselessly sepulchral in its pulsing life, their voices hauntingly and hauntingly joyful.
Author notes
Not a poem, not a story.
The piece is perhaps not complete without the music, I'm not sure. Needs grammar editing; needs a purpose, perhaps, a plot, a climax, I'm not sure. Honesty would be appreciated.
Comments
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Nienna - Well, one thing's for sure, we're in Satie territory. There are some extraneous words that blur the sharpness of the descriptions. But, the main thing I see as lacking here is a positive ID on the characters. I make out a young couple and a set of drunkards. Are the couple running from something - disapproving parents - girl pregnant? The tone and mood of the piece as it sits now would suggest some kind of desperate flight. The characters need to be drawn in the first stanza, even if you don't describe their plight and hold off until the second stanza for that, but they should be mentioned somehow in each stanza so as to complement the landscape description.
Possible plot is: drunkards get the couple drunk, couple collapses - drunkards try to rob them - boy fights and is killed - and it ends with girl watching them approach. I did some editing on grammar etc. and will PM that to you. It's an interesting read, but I think it could be much more skeletal, less is more, and be more powerful. Cheers, MJ -
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Hey, MJ.
Haven't yet had time to rework this one (school, show, music, etc) but your suggestions are going to be invaluable when I do! Just a quick thank you note for now, and a promise that I'll let you know when I do have time to go over it and can answer your questions and hopefully have a better sense myself of what's happening.
Thanks very much; hope you're well!
N
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Because of the title, i found myself listening to Satie's Gnossiennes no.1 while reading this for the second time. It is clear that the music is the best accompaniment to this work. I suppose this was written while listening to it, because the images DO come alive as you listen to the music and read.
At first, it felt that each paragraph/stanza didn't create any whole. As if the images were just words and more words. However, re-reading it, i can feel how this came about. It molds perfectly with the music. The scenes you describe in each stanza felt like perfect images to accompany the music (again, i think in cinematic scenes), but that's what it evoked. This reminded me of Dante's Divine Comedy for each stanza felt like another place (or in Dante's case another level). The unfolding is cohesive by the image of the moon, water and references to mythology.
I don't know if its completely poetry/prose or maybe somewhere between the two. The way this is written can easily fall into the poetic category. Whether or not this needs purpose, i have to say it depends on you. As it is, i do not see anything wrong with it. It's still images captured in some point in time, but if you wish to unfold it into something with a proper story and end, then a climax or plot might be needed.
Personally, i think its a poem. Beautiful read as always Nienna.
-iphios -
This is a beautiful piece and I can definitely feel the music flowing through it.
This isn't a poem and it isn't prose; it's a mixture of the two: poetic prose. Very poetic prose. So poetic, it's drenched with atmosphere, metaphor, personification and imagery; for example 'the glassy winter sky riding upon its slight ripples,' and 'Just atop the trees the moon sat, in lovely loneliness, all white clad melancholy and keening a dirge, a strange wind unraveling from the ether...'
Are you sure you only want to write as a hobby? I think you have some real talent here. The only thing I would say is that I have no small vocabulary and even I was looking up words in the dictionary whilst reading. There are also a lot of obscure references to mythology. I used to do a lot of this in my writing too, but then my teachers pointed out that writing has changed for a number of reasons, one of them being that we are living in the age of the short attention span partially due to the advent of film. Also I realised that I was mimicking older writers instead of developing my own style, but this is a process all writers have to go through.
It all depends upon the reason you wrote the piece. If you want it to appeal to a mass audience then you have to dumb it down (and I would recommend simplifying it anyway), as all the metaphor and imagery is a little overpowering and will make most people feel lost at sea. It will also, dare I say it, remind them of how stupid they are.
However, I don't think you wrote it to be a conventional story. Therefore I don't think it needs a plot and and a climax. For me it seems more like a self-indulgent exercise. So, if this is the case, it's fine as it is. After all, there is a beginning and an end: the lover's birth and subsequent 'death.' By the way, I liked that element. It was a happy death which wasn't exactly death; just a kind of absorption into what originally made them, like being taken back into the womb.
I am continually impressed by your writing. This little piece really shows your potential. Well done.
Sam
Suggestions:
'testing the alkalinity volume very composition age density and fertility of the soil...'
This sentence kind of loses its self, so I would suggest 'the alkalinity, volume and composition; the very age, density and composition of the soil...' or alternatively you could just lose 'age, density and fertility' altogether. It seems a lot to swallow.
In paragraph two the word 'intent' is repeated in the same sentence.
In paragraph three did you mean 'confessions' instead of 'professions'?
In the second half of paragraph four there's a typo ('Tey').
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