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causticgit — Growth Encumbered
Published: 2004-06-10 03:57:10 +0000 UTC; Views: 247; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 38
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Description
When I watched you writhe from the egg,Dripping with saliva like a wet chicken,
Newly hatched and open to the world,
I felt both joy and grief.
Joy that I may now bring you down the paths
Of marigold and laughter.
Grief that you may trip over stones
Without my aid.
I took you into my arms
And wished the shell still protected your raw skin,
Against the deserved equalities our fellow men
Have stolen from you before you took breath.
So while you grow away from my shield,
I, too, retreat,
To a place where I may watch you,
Incognito. Until such ruling
Beasts as stole your opportunity
Are forced to come clean.
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Comments: 7
Not a bad poem, although the vagueness of your idea is obvious. It's very mutable, becoming what anyone sees in it. I like that in poetry. *grin* Forgive the critique.
"When I watched you writhe from the egg,
Dripping with saliva like a wet chicken," < -- this seemed to be just a way to use the word "saliva" without any attempt to make it fit the poem.
"Against the deserved equalities our fellow men
Have stolen from you before you took breath." < -- the transition from one line to the next is rather rough and threw me out of synch with the flow.
"Beasts as stole your opportunity
Are forced to come clean. " < -- same thing.
Overall, it's a good piece and a worthy entry for the contest. Good luck!
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Haha, vague is certainly the word... I think I'm going through a phase of writing poetry from behind a veil. Tis very strange. And I live for critique!
I'm aware of the saliva/chicken thing, and I don't like it. However, being constrained by 20 lines, I decided to just throw it out there. When I read the whole poem, I see all the required words and loathe their placement. If and when I revise this for myself, I'll probably elaborate on the hatching/birthing idea, or move 'saliva' to a completely different place.
"Against the deserved equalities our fellow men
Have stolen from you before you took breath."
How I struggled with that "deserved equalities"! I think it was even "the fair equalities" at one point and I had to strike it down for being redundant. Honestly, I know it's clumsy. I think the lines throughout this stanza need to be varied in length.
AH! I know what's wrong with that- The tense is awkward. And I wrote that off before because I was so concerned with the equality thing. That combined with their length is indeed disconcerting. I will eventually revise that.
"Beasts as stole your opportunity
Are forced to come clean. "
For once my writing teacher is right, and you have to read the poetry as sentences. It is "Until such ruling beasts as stole your opportunity are forced to come clean. " It's the concept and the wording that is difficult, rather than the lines themselves. It sounds very dramatic and epic, so I'll probably keep it... until I decide that I hate that, too.
Thank you very, very much for your comment, and for the good luck!
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I love those phases. I'll come back and reread something from that time and go "what the hell?" because I've forgotten what caused it - and I can't tell from the poem itself. However, those works are marvelous as catchall quotes that can be bent and twisted on a whim.
Sounds like you understand the pros and cons of your poem very well. That's actually rather rare these days. Kudos. 
*grin* You're welcome 
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XD Thank you. I've learned a lot about recieving criticism by running a critique board.
I never throw anything away, no matter how much I hate it, because I love being able to look back.
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A critique board, eh? Sounds like you're made of stern stuff then.
Yeah, that comes in handy. *grin*
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I don't know if this is exactly the interpretation you were going for, but I felt as though you were writing in the perspective of a Wildlife preservationist. It seemed as though you are a person in the bush (so to speak) watching life anew. You help it along, such as the animal experts who like to go out to the beaches to ensure that baby turtles make it to the water after hatching from thier sandy nests. Then, inevitably, you have to stand back in the shadows and watch nature take its course (Good or Ill). Hope I'm not too far off.
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That is a fascinating interpretation. I certainly won't say it's wrong, because I only had a vague idea of a parent figure speaking. The wildlife preservationists are parents to the environment- so why not?
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