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chugglepuff — Remains
Published: 2009-05-19 20:14:56 +0000 UTC; Views: 468; Favourites: 8; Downloads: 9
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Description
This overbearing mother of a mist—Who dreams she wraps us softly in her cloak—
Has sluiced the city’s streets with stifling smoke,
And grips us like an eggshell in a fist.
She drowns the gutter girls who stumble, pissed,
The corpses hoarding life stories and coke,
The pinstripe convicts, broken but not broke—
We starving swine, we lovers left unkissed.
We, in this frameless watercolour sketch,
Grow snowy as her wisping wedding dress,
And coil ourselves within her dewed caress
As, tenderly, she clothes each hopeless wretch—
But in this virgin white we still transgress;
This place remains the city nonetheless.
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Comments: 32
very striking and well written. The peice flows very nicely and the images are amazing.
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Thank you very much for the kind comment and the fv!
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You're very welcome, it was well deserved
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Corr! I can't critique due to my brain thing (i.e. lack of one), but corr nevertheless! Lober you
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Aw, fear not, your lack of critique is more than made up for by your "corr"-ing. 
Thanks for the vast excess of favs, by the way, squeedle!
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I had a fav attack, that's the thing. Or atleast I was looking at your pieces and I tend to fav your stuff due to the fact that it is always, undeniably, AMAZE!
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There is so much in this, but this line specifically was really well placed:
She drowns the gutter girls who stumble, pissed
Such a sharp, stinging image!
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Thank you very much, I'm really glad you like it! I wasn't sure if it was a strong enough start to the second quatrain...
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I've yet to attempt a sonnet - so I applaude this wonderful piece of yours as an instant fave for me!
I wonder only about one word, "dewed", otherwise...
"Virgin Remains" is a title that comes to mind!
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Thank you very much!
Was there anything in particular about "dewed" that you weren't sure about, or did it just generally not work for you?
Thanks, I've gone with just 'Remains' in the end!
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You're so very welcome!
I think "dewed" throws me off cause it sounds so much like "dude" - a word I'm never found of in writing.
No problem with staying with the original title, but omg I suddenly realized that I have since written a poem myself called... "Remains"!
*says in a feeble voice*
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Ah, no harm done. I'm sure it won't confuse the universe too much.
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oh thank you - a reprieve!
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I admire anyone who even attempts a sonnet, and you seem to be able to me, but I am afraid I don't know enough to offer any advice. I do like it though, and I particularly liked the second section. The whole piece gave me a vivid and emotional portrait of city life.
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Nice vivid images there, and brings back memories of some nights out...
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I like what you did. I offer my 
Hoarding is obtrusive and disrupts the rhythm. Perhaps omit The and say Corpses who hoard . . ?
I would suggest (meekly) that damp caress sounds much better than dewed, which also slows the reader down. .
As far as the title, I think "Mistress" is horribly appropriate somehow . .
I appreciate the fact that you make me feel comfortable enough to give you my meager two cents worth without some vague fear . .
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Thanks so much for the criticisms and suggestions - it's so kind of you to put so much thought into this 
I'm afraid I don't see how "hoarding" is obtrustive, sorry to be dim - would you mind explaining that a bit further? Unfortunately, "Corpses who hoard" wouldn't be iambic meter - the stress is on the first syllable of "Corpses" instead of the second - but I'm sure something can be done about it if I glare at it for long enough... *narrows eyes at "hoarding"*
Re "dewed": I suppose it is quite a long syllable sound, although I kind of liked the laziness it gave the line... "Damp" sounds a bit clingy and unattractive for what I meant there - I kind of wanted the twinkly droplets of dew to be implied - but I will definitely have a think about something that would fit better, I was a bit uncertain about "dewed" when I wrote it.
Pun intended? 
Again, thank you so much for that - it's really helpful - and I'm glad I don't strike fear into the hearts of my poor critics! 
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I love sonnets. Beyond sonnet-loving. I know I make no sense.
The mist caught my eye, and I explored further, and I find that it seems very much like something written far earlier in history (I think it's the sonnet style that did that) but in a beautiful way. It makes me think of a kind of pencil-sketch winter, where everything is all blurred and white and gray, in an old city.
My only problem was "pissed", because it definitely did not fit in with the kind of Victorian feel of the rest of the poem, but then the last line made up for it. But still. *pout*
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I was trying to highlight the unattractiveness and modernity of the city-folk with words like "pissed" and "coke" etc... I wanted that to contrast with the traditionally romantic form and the romantic feel of the mist, to go with the whole "you can cover it up but it's still not nice" theme... That was the plan, anyway. 
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I tried writing one a little while back, and it was basically a badly-rhyming poem. Though not as horrible as, say, some of my classmate's horrific attempts at improv rhyming, it was still cringe-worthy. Heh.
Too late. The traditionally romantic form came out full-blast 
Eh. It's not as bad as when one of my friends wrote a medieval story about an assassin and used the word 'sniping'. That was hilarious. I had to talk them out of it, and it took ages
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what else can I do
if I am wrong
let me peddle my confusion
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I know people that would pay good money for that thar confusion.
What's up, doc?
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Ha, you lie with a french tongue
so...it's kinda sweet, thank you
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Hmm I do like the sestet, the last six lines manage to bring together the two quatrains, and one of the things that I think made me go 0.o about the 8 lines you had written before was that they were about pretty different things (or it seems to me that way now).
"frameless watercolour sketch" I really like, too. Mist is very watercoloury and blurry, and the city in your poem is too - you describe big swathes of the population and leave them completely undifferentiated within those groups - the gutter girls, the corpses, the pinstripe convicts, etc. Generalising people into cliched groups tends to annoy me, but it kinda works here because you're talking about the city as a big picture, and the mist's really the only 'character' in it.
I don't really get the mist, though. It's a mother in the first line, wearing a wedding dress later on, then it's virginal in its whiteness. If it wasn't for the 'overbearing mother', I'd be thinking it was Miss Havisham, what with hint it's deluding itself with 'dreams she wraps us in her cloak'. Still, there's something kinda charming about its indeterminacy; there's a whole lot of indeterminacy going on and it kinda creates a theme for the poem. And mist being ambiguous seems fitting.
Also I must point out it should be Petrarchan Sonnet, no 'i'. His name was Petrarca, anglicised as either Petrarch or Petrarcha (with a hard c, so 'arka'
Aaaaaaaaanyway I should really go to bed. Discworld-reading was awesome good, but then I felt unsleepy and couldn't resist the urge to check if a certain person had replied to a certain comment. Sadly no luck ;_; but I thought I'd come give you helpful (or maybe hateful? but I hope not) advice since I was asking for yours and the deadline for these things is all soon! *horrified flailing*
Seeya
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Amazing! Instant fave!
As for a title, I'm not sure what I would do. The last line sums everything up nicely, so I'd be inclined to call it "This Place", or "Remains". I'd also think about incorporating a word like "obscure", something not found in the poem.
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Thank you so, so much!
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