Thread: Rough Draft

Rough Draft

We are two words without phonetics
and we live in separate rooms for separate breathing.
We are unfiled on the floor, imagining a world without walls
or worn down paper stacked like columns.
These are our tiles. We will walk them one day
and make a door where our walls are touching.
For now the paper is wet with all the syllables we spit.
Too wet to lay down. Too wet to be connected. All these columns are cracking.

I could make a line of paper footprints over a continent
with how much I think about us and where I’d like to step.
We can draw toes where the door would be
or cut out wet hands where the space would be erased. Let us leave
all the wrinkles on the wall like stitches.
Where we’ll have to pull together while we are broken.
We have balloons in our lungs. We breathe to see what we would sound like.
I hear unwrinkling, gurgles of letters drying
together and streaming like a flipbook.

I want to kick up the paper. Let it all sit above my head.
I’ll think about you unfolded and exposed.
How you’ll feel when we’re bound up pages in one room
and we’re making sound, and we’re making words and stencils
from our skin.
I want to cover the room in footprints and walk with you
on the walls and the ceiling.
This would be where we used to breathe and inflate piles
and piles.

We are pulling down columns like earthquakes,
laying down a road with all the sheets that broke. This road has many pieces
that never meet. I’ll blow them to the roof and lick them stiff.
Take these sheets. Make a doorknob with me.
We are the moment,
the walls breaking with roads hanging
in the air by unseen strings
from the stitches.
We are two words made to be revised and rewritten
because

we are rough
to the touch.

"I’ll blow them to the roof and lick them stiff."

Forgive me if I'm brash, but you certainly have a way with the double entendre in regards to...ehem...well things that must not be mentioned in a kid-friendly zone. Hah, and perhaps that's just my own sick mind, but two recent poems now you have brought up this imagery. I think it's elegant, personally.

Now, onto the poem as a whole. Solid, as always. Your figurative, abstract language is always a strength of yours.

Once again, I find myself questioning your line breaks. There are places where it feels very misplaced. For instance:

"I hear unwrinkling, gurgles of letters drying
together and streaming like a flipbook."

One could perhaps argue that the enjambment before "together" leads to a feeling of disconnect, but I'm not buying it here. I think the image is much more powerful if "together" is not enjambed and it instead reads:

"I hear unwrinkling, gurgles of letters drying together
and streaming like a flipbook."

Just my two cents.


Also, and I feel I see this a lot in the forum lately, your commas could use work. I realize that we as poets feel the rules have no bearing on us, but I stand by the opinion that proper grammar can add so much to the power of a poem. Likewise - when the rules are broken consciously and for a purpose, the effect can be just as strong. Here, I fear, the lack of commas to separate independent clauses is not intentional. I would suggest studying the subject a bit.

This is a fabulously emotional poem Angel.

I could make a line of paper footprints over a continent
with how much I think about us and where I’d like to step.

These are my favourite lines, but that is the hopeless romantic in me The imagery in this is so simple, yet so effective.

I’ll think about you unfolded and exposed.
How you’ll feel when we’re bound up pages in one room
and we’re making sound, and we’re making words and stencils
from our skin.

This is a beautiful way to broach "the subject". The idea of 'making words and stencils from our skin' is like nothing I have read before. You have an art for creating an idea that works perfectly and creates beautiful images in the eyes of the reader.

I do agree with Squalid that you definitely need to place some commas to break lines and trains of thought.

Very well done though!

Thanks, both of you.

The commas are missing on purpose for the sake of rhythm in this piece, as I mean it to be read in a specific way. I don't question the use of proper grammar in poetry. Like you said, it can be effective; however, I don't feel like it would work here with the way that I need this to be read. Also, this piece is meant to be "rough" in a sense. There's the idea of trying to connect things that are meant to be separate. A lot to explain. But like I said, it was definitely on purpose.

SG: That image was definitely supposed to be "ehem," so it's okay if your mind is there. Haha.

Angel, I think the following speaks to your style of writing:

For now the paper is wet with all the syllables we spit.
Too wet to lay down. Too wet to be connected.

Somehow, despite your elegant imagery you manage to be raw which I like.

So many favs but this is such a great visual and seems to cover much of the territory of the whole.

I want to cover the room in footprints and walk with you
on the walls and the ceiling.

Such marvelous imagery, as always! Laurie