I love that you shared this poem. Your images are surprising and effective and help to set the mood. Love the language choice. So happy the prompt was a good one for you.
Tension carried through objects and setting rather than explicit emotion is such a powerfull technique. The idea of letting the room speak before the characters do reminds me of how silence in film can be more expresive than dialogue. I especialy appreciate the constraint of avoiding abstract nouns in the opening lines, forces you to stay grounded in the physical world. The time slip element is clever too, adds temporal depth without needing backstory.
I am so impressed with your fluency and, with this poem, your story-voice and interior rhyme. Good work! I hope you are submitting work to journals, too. Let your voice be heard.
Hi! Thanks for checking it out. It's helpful for avoiding the trap of explaining!
Her Hair is Weather, Her Mouth is Frost
A hard glow settles on the table like spent metal.
The air chills the tongue with iron and the ghost of smoke.
An old image tilts back, its cracked face refusing him.
He pins his own hands to the grain and keeps them meek.
She stands by the glass, narrow as oath-song, wide as hurt.
Her hair is weather, her mouth is frost, and the room shifts around her stillness.
The curtains quiver; the boards stir once and fall quiet again.
A cup surrenders its last warmth and the room takes it in.
Their silence measures them with the sure weight of blades.
“You never left.”
I love that you shared this poem. Your images are surprising and effective and help to set the mood. Love the language choice. So happy the prompt was a good one for you.
How eerie. Wonderfully done
Tension carried through objects and setting rather than explicit emotion is such a powerfull technique. The idea of letting the room speak before the characters do reminds me of how silence in film can be more expresive than dialogue. I especialy appreciate the constraint of avoiding abstract nouns in the opening lines, forces you to stay grounded in the physical world. The time slip element is clever too, adds temporal depth without needing backstory.
Film is the perfect analogy. Love it! Thanks.
I chose a bit of a bird eye view for part of my poems, a sin my first introduction to writing, camera angle was everything to solve prose problems.
Anyway. This was wonderful, was getting a little washed away in the world of life to write freely. Like water to my rusty throat.
Here goes :
'Criss Cross apple sauce
Yet legs splice folded-v shaped upwards dog
On the seat
Which manifests great Memory
In her birds eye I now potent see
Blue light which laceurs growth leather
To make it shiny
though still, as the weather
It's eased it's way towards contrasts mass
Making my abashment for one moment pass
Of course in retrospect I ask
How the cool air from outside the window closed pane, the Grand view of the outside entrance
The fruitfullness of (redacted)'s expenses. Oh how am I to sit today. And cherish life's generosity
I sat and watched attentively
The fraud mowhack of the Hood-Hood Bird. I saw in it my expanse, as it begain to wave in dance. And in just timing came quiet confidence
Of (redacted)'s easy entrance
I heard no footsteps in advance
"Knock knock"-the door
Shifting to sit upright I called
Atkhoul (come in)!
" So you do no Arabic after all"- with one proud smile came the fall
"[...] Let watters flood. Not hers' ...or mine." '
***
The last line in reference to another poem you inspired me to write. I think it was under the post "Answering The Vioce"
Speaking my prayers for you.
-Signing out, from the makeshift desk.
- your's truly, iiced coffee poet
I am so impressed with your fluency and, with this poem, your story-voice and interior rhyme. Good work! I hope you are submitting work to journals, too. Let your voice be heard.
This is a really interesting approach.