a generous display
of priceless acquisitions,
the seven-storeyed
shop is a utopia.
The crimson red hot eyes,
wait and watch with hunger.
Breaks out bright before dawn.
Soars higher and stronger.
Lisps with her fiery tongue.
She consumes the silk and linen.
Devours gold, diamonds and toys.
Unable to gulp in one stroke,
hangs on for days.
She smoulders.
Battles with the firefighters.
The flame rockets with prodigious passion.
The avarice rages.
She gobbles.with a craving,
contends with an intemperance.
Is it a trail to check the delinquent humanity?
Operations put her to sleep.
A ceasefire for now.
The silk burns and with that
Re: The Silk Burns And With That
M---
not following the pom.
plenty of word play, but to what end?
suggest focus, compression. I suggest opening shock, arresting statement.
Naked under my new silk saree,
waiting to burn for a husband.
The crimson red hot eyes watch,
wait with hunger for a bridal night.
Breaks out bright before dawn.
Soars higher and stronger.
Devours gold, diamond toys.
gulps in one stroke the nights.
I smoulder, battle firefighters.
The flame rockets with passion.
Operations put me to sleep.
A ceasefire for now.
i don't ask you to agree with my severe edit, but only to rethink the poem.
bernie
not following the pom.
plenty of word play, but to what end?
suggest focus, compression. I suggest opening shock, arresting statement.
Naked under my new silk saree,
waiting to burn for a husband.
The crimson red hot eyes watch,
wait with hunger for a bridal night.
Breaks out bright before dawn.
Soars higher and stronger.
Devours gold, diamond toys.
gulps in one stroke the nights.
I smoulder, battle firefighters.
The flame rockets with passion.
Operations put me to sleep.
A ceasefire for now.
i don't ask you to agree with my severe edit, but only to rethink the poem.
bernie
Re: The Silk Burns And With That
Thanks, Bernie for reading and editing.
The poem is about a shop, "Chennai Silks" in Chennai, India which burnt for two days. The fire posed a threat to the environment. People around were evacuated. The building crumbled but the flame was alive. Human greed has played a havoc. The building was built against the prescribed norms.
The poem does not depict man and wife relationship.
Anyway,
Meena.
The poem is about a shop, "Chennai Silks" in Chennai, India which burnt for two days. The fire posed a threat to the environment. People around were evacuated. The building crumbled but the flame was alive. Human greed has played a havoc. The building was built against the prescribed norms.
The poem does not depict man and wife relationship.
Anyway,
Meena.
meenas17
Re: The silk burns and with that
M---
you bet.
but a burned down shop? a threat to a local environment?
let me know that in the pom...yes?
follow a patron narrowly escaping...
or follow a rising column of smoke...
something, some detail or series of details to make this concrete, real.
here is an old pom of mine, a tragedy i think...note what the IBPC judge said.
Ramadan
by Bernard Henrie
The Waters
First Place, July 2015
Judged by C. Wade Bentley
They shot a naked man howling in a barricaded house.
He clipped his lawn into the night skilled as a doctor
on graveyard shift putting in stitches.
But I mind my own business, box a roast beef sandwich
at the senior lunch and spend the evening in my bathrobe,
my wasp thin computer overheated on my lap.
Letters to my dead wife faithful as the Jeddah lighthouse,
her face full of rupees, the stern look her eyes gave out
and only sixteen years old.
Summer tans me to the color of an Indian Sepoy.
I drink Bigelow teas while smoking Churchman No 1
cigarettes.
I am in the rag trade with other Indian Jews like myself,
my secondhand racks full of unwanted suits for men.
I observe Passover from a window of the 93 bus.
Oh naked man, howling man shot dead I mourn
your emerald passage and ask both India and Pakistan
to hold their fire for a single rotation of the moon.
Sometimes detail, even fresh and wonderful sensory detail, can be simply dumped on readers to no apparent purpose. In this poem, however, the details flesh-out the speaker’s life to such an extent and in so few lines that, by the end of the poem, the poet has created that crucial parallel, a mirror we can hold up to the dead man. There are deeper religious and geopolitical threads, here, but I am most taken by the concreteness of “secondhand racks full of unwanted suits for men,” and “box a roast beef sandwich/ at the senior lunch.” --C. Wade Bentley
bernie
you bet.
but a burned down shop? a threat to a local environment?
let me know that in the pom...yes?
follow a patron narrowly escaping...
or follow a rising column of smoke...
something, some detail or series of details to make this concrete, real.
here is an old pom of mine, a tragedy i think...note what the IBPC judge said.
Ramadan
by Bernard Henrie
The Waters
First Place, July 2015
Judged by C. Wade Bentley
They shot a naked man howling in a barricaded house.
He clipped his lawn into the night skilled as a doctor
on graveyard shift putting in stitches.
But I mind my own business, box a roast beef sandwich
at the senior lunch and spend the evening in my bathrobe,
my wasp thin computer overheated on my lap.
Letters to my dead wife faithful as the Jeddah lighthouse,
her face full of rupees, the stern look her eyes gave out
and only sixteen years old.
Summer tans me to the color of an Indian Sepoy.
I drink Bigelow teas while smoking Churchman No 1
cigarettes.
I am in the rag trade with other Indian Jews like myself,
my secondhand racks full of unwanted suits for men.
I observe Passover from a window of the 93 bus.
Oh naked man, howling man shot dead I mourn
your emerald passage and ask both India and Pakistan
to hold their fire for a single rotation of the moon.
Sometimes detail, even fresh and wonderful sensory detail, can be simply dumped on readers to no apparent purpose. In this poem, however, the details flesh-out the speaker’s life to such an extent and in so few lines that, by the end of the poem, the poet has created that crucial parallel, a mirror we can hold up to the dead man. There are deeper religious and geopolitical threads, here, but I am most taken by the concreteness of “secondhand racks full of unwanted suits for men,” and “box a roast beef sandwich/ at the senior lunch.” --C. Wade Bentley
bernie
Re: The silk burns and with that
M---
this last comment and then i will shut up.
how to make the fire real for the reader, i want to smell the smoke, feel the heat.
details, perhaps:
a homeless cat with his fur singed up to look like a wire brush.
a wire frame used to model silks, now melted and heaped in the ashes.
ancient storage cabinet burned and disfigured like a man returned from war.
a metal sign that once proclaimed the New Delhi DLF Promenade shop, blackened and baked.
smoke rising that must make the gods tightly close their eyes,
a slow rain of debris reminding the British of snow in the Midlands.
OK, OK, done.
bernie
this last comment and then i will shut up.
how to make the fire real for the reader, i want to smell the smoke, feel the heat.
details, perhaps:
a homeless cat with his fur singed up to look like a wire brush.
a wire frame used to model silks, now melted and heaped in the ashes.
ancient storage cabinet burned and disfigured like a man returned from war.
a metal sign that once proclaimed the New Delhi DLF Promenade shop, blackened and baked.
smoke rising that must make the gods tightly close their eyes,
a slow rain of debris reminding the British of snow in the Midlands.
OK, OK, done.
bernie
Re: The silk burns and with that
Thanks, Bernie for the details.
I will add details to the description.
I will add details to the description.
meenas17