these ink stains seem ancient:
close my eyes and I can see you, a thousand years ago
dipping a feather quill into an ink pot, scrawling
your every sloppy sentence and waiting for the words to dry.
You'd stare, marvel over their vulnerability
how they're not quite permanent.
You would try to be careful with them,
the edges of your fingers twitching
ready to give under the pressure of half-formed
phrases, stanzas. The lines in your head are always irresistable
in the end. Your hand would fall, leaning into wet ink
on yellow pages, and I'd watch you
write until every letter was impossibly
indecipherable to any eyes but yours.
When you handed me the pages,
though, I would smile, say
it's beautiful, because
it always is.
I know you, down to the crinkling of your eyelids,
the bend in your hair; how you're slow to smile, quick
to laugh. You close your eyes when you are angry
worried that a glimpse of your surroundings might make you snap.
You never cross out a single word when you write
and it comforts me to think
that without backspace keys or erasers,
you would stay the same.
There's a pattern of darkness here that could be
a fingerprint, if it didn't extend you your sleeves,
elbow deep. I hold your hands in mine: I could trace
these marks even with my eyes closed, till I memorize
the soft friction of ink stains over calluses, until I know
your hands by heart.
------------------------------------------------------------
um...
okay.
so, i think it gets very off-topic and that it may be confusing
and that it's kind of lame. And bad. And... um... eck. I like some lines. But I'm very very bewildered by what I have just written, my little third-first-attempt at a poem. So, tell me. What you don't like, and *hopefully* a word or two that you do.
finite.
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3 comments:
just...lovely.
specific points I want to make:
I love that the last stanza almost feels like a paragraph in its form and even its syntax. The way it's written just feels like a pararaph, but still undeniably a poem at the same time. It's nice to read, and beautiful at that.
"The ink sains seen ancient" is a beautiful line if you mean 'seem'. If not, it's still gorgeous, but completely 100% confusing. =)
"impossible indecipherable" doesn't make since to me, so maybe add a comma, or if you meant impossibly, or something. They're good words to put next to each other in the whole scheme of things, but they don't make sense together as is.
Love the next to last stanza, how he never crosses out anything, and how you bring it to the modern day with the backspace keys and erasers. It's a good way to pull back the focus of the reader.
"till I memorize the soft friction of ink stains over calluses"--Love it. So much. Gorgeous.
General:
Your wording and vocabulary is brilliant. The right words are with the right words and it's not too...long-winded? Tediously descriptive? I don't know. Something like that. It's simple and delicate but so strong, too.
love it (and you)
Heather.
it's really beautiful. it's a great thought. i mean...i don't think i got the scenery right, though. i thought we were talking about 1700's with yellow candles and wives in corsettes. it might be better if you refer to the ancient, and it be caligraphy. because i always think of an old, slightly hefty guy when i think of writing with a quill and ink well. i don't know.
okay, two other things before i rant about the lovely lines:
-can you please say "the soft fiction of ink stains over callouses"? maybe. like, he's writing fiction in the ink and the ink is now on his hands...i don't know.
-play around with "worried that a glimpse..." it's a little long. just make it a little more concise and you could make it something. actually, play around with deleting that stanza altogether and putting it in another poem. i think it would make it more cohesive.
-"there's a patter of darkness here." oh my goodness. and did you mean "impossibly indecipherable"? by chance?
-"you never cross out a single word when you write" please no commas there! but i love that.
if we could just make the guy character not old and in the 1700's i would be completely in love.
right now i'm just infatuated. you really have something here, though.
much love,
emilea
thank you thank you!
I was definitely not expecting comments so fast. I love you guys.
- I did mean 'seem', and 'impossibly'. ACK editing issues.
-Emilea: as a matter of fact, the guy character is not old or in the 1700's. The girl character is looking at the ink stains on his hands and imagining what it would be like if they were back way back when. (because he writes with a pen, rather than the more-modern computer/pencil with eraser). I'll try to clarify that in the poem, but the guy character is, in MY mind, about seventeen.
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