Thread: A Television at 3 a.m. Next Door

Hello, I'm just looking for any feedback I can get on this piece. It's definitely a work in progress!

I have seen faces (warped)

in empty fluorescent light.
Heard
voices distorted,
fighting, screaming, capitulating,
copulating.
Bodies at dawn and
tired walks home
walking streets I've known
too long now.
I have known a thousand faces after midnight
and dismissed them all.
I have known voices at all hours
through walls,
and fallen fast
but all they do is disappoint
on waking in that dawning light
and walking home
in heavy boots
to try again after rest.
Perhaps I am too quickly undressed
with nothing left.
To say I am crazy
is an
understatement.
I am crazy every day
in a thousand different ways.
Each time returning alone
to a chair,
the comfiest thing I've known
is solitude at dawn
and the warmth of silence,
no longer forlorn.

Hi inksmelladdict,

The shortened lines here were an obvious choice of yours - were you hoping they were would be like a stream of consciousness, broken as if a tired mind of the speaker? I actually read some of the lines as quite jumpy, which seems to contrast uncomfortably with the tiredness suggested in the content, and language use. Unless this contrast was your intention, maybe you could experiment with the line-length in the poem: try lengthening them, maybe with some tactically short lines or one-word lines; try splitting it into stanzas; try to correspond the consciousness of the speaker with the lines, by making it static in enjambment. These are all just ideas to see if you prefer any of the others, and if not then you always have this layout to go back to.

I like the distopian atmosphere of this a lot but (and isn't there aways a but) feel that, like a good rose, it needs a bit of pruning and for the poet to play with the line breaks. I'm not at all sure about the (warped) in line one, it says nothing to me about either the first line or the subsequent one; so I am wondering why it is there. Is the fact that the light is fluorescent contributing anything, or is it merely there because that's how you first thought of it, does its presence reduce the impact of the highly original idea of the light being empty? In the central 2/3 of the poem there is a lot of repetition of ideas/feelings which don't build up to anything and so lose their impact; I feel it would be better with fewer descriptions of how the poet feels, or it may begin to resemble a complaint to the customer relations department.

With regard to line breaks, I feel they are best used when the seem to offer the reader a choice of the following word, where the break comes without resolution, leaving the answer to the beginning of next line hanging; a simplistic example:

Moira, when she fell

Hmm - Fell where, how? Was she hurt? Did she break a leg? You can then surprise the reader as follows:

Moira, when she fell
pregnant

Pregnant probably being the last word a reader might expect as it is introduced by one of the lesser uses of the word fell. Here's an alternative way to break the first few lines:

I have seen faces in empty
light. Heard voices
distorted,
fighting, screaming, capitulating,
copulating.
Bodies at dawn and
tired walks home
walking streets I've known
too long now.

Delete all line breaks, leave it for a couple of days, then without reference to the original, edit, then re-order the lines of the poem. These are only suggestions, feel free to ignore them...

I like the short lines, the broken up feel to this. A steady stream of thoughts that come in this manner. A couple of words and lines were unnecessary. Stating that you are crazy seems obvious in the mood of the poem. Something more creative to reference your crazy feeling would have added more I think. But that's just me. Enjoyed the read.

I like Bloggs idea of deleting and coming back to it. I think the line breaks are the only thing holding this back right now.