I am not a man.


Lying on her bed, I am a question
mark. Into my chest, she shovels a grave
with her sobs. I feel the shrug of shoulders.

A faint moth, my hands, fan her back. Heaving,
colliding between the bulbs of her spine.
I do not know what to do. I am not

a man.

I like this poem a lot, it says what it says in a very original way and it is well done.
That said, I have a couple of suggestions: No comma after chest, Shrug is ambiguous here, I would substitute heave of shoulders for shrug.

A faint moth wouldn't heave or colide. Perhaps "fluttering, between the tension of her spine " Just a thought... I think this is an awasome poem and my sugestions are more me being picky than anyhing else. I have a strong committment to clarity, paricularlywhen it comes to poetry because I've been accused of being careless that way myself so many tmes, lol Anyway, I'll e inerested in what others say as well. Warm Wishes and Happy Clowns, Tasha

Thanks for the quick response Tasha.

Lying on her bed, I am a question
mark. Into my chest she shovels a grave
with her sobs. I feel the sigh of shoulders.

A faint moth, my hands, fan her back. Heaving,
colliding between the bulbs of her spine.
I do not know what to do. I am not

a man.



+++
The faint moth and the heave/collide was used to demonstrate clumsiness. A faint moth would flutter however, I do not know what to do, suggests something else as well. When I think of moths, I think of them hitting against light bulbs.

D

Ok, I like the first verse very much now, so if you want to keep bulbs of her spine, make it singular, bulb because it is one thing, and maybe against instead of between because between makes no logical sense to me. Just a thought. Best Wishes and Good job. This is a fine mataphorical poem and I like it a lot! Tasha

Hmm, thanks again. I will change the "between" to "against". I think I'll have to keep the plural bulbs because the spine consists of several segments.

Thinking about this again, I think I had lost some clarity just by saying SPINE and GRAVE. There are way too many strings of information that just doesn't cohere well, I think. For instance, ending the line with Spine suggests emphasis on that word. That said, what is it about the spine? I think I need to do some more research. Also, in the first stanza I mention the shape of a question mark, with the grave being the dip (?) which sets it different from an exclamation mark (!). But then the theme kind of dies and I go into a moth. I don't think there is much of a transition. Perhaps I should make this into parts instead of one poem but then again, they are in stanzas. Oi, Help is wanted. There is just wayyyy too much going on here, I think.

Again, thanks.


Lying on her bed, I am a question
mark. Into my chest she shovels a grave
with her sobs. I feel the sigh of shoulders.

A faint moth, my hands, fan her back. Heaving,
colliding against the bulbs of her spine.
I do not know what to do. I am not

a man.

Ok, here's a thought: Let the reader imagine the bulb against which the moth crashes and simply say her back, or her spine. In my experience simple is usually better than complicated (this after long time dancing with complicated and thinking I had to explain everythng which doesn't give the reader enough credit for intelligence, lol. Anyway, it's fun to play with one's verses. I wuldn't change the lines or try to make more of them, myself. And it is also pssible to analyze a poem to death, lol. Perhaps it can just rest a bit and see how it feels. Best Wishes and Inkspots, Tasha

I kind of feel the magic of the poem evaporate with the very specific bulbs. It kind of ruins the read for me .
Why do you need to specify the image of the moths and the light bulbs ?
Then where is the light , when did it switch off, see, too much specific makes things scientific to people like me , watts etc etc.

Anna, My thought is that he is making reference to the hands as moth wings, and also a symbol of helplessness, as he is frustrated by the situation....However, that's just my take on it.

Yeah , agree Pujakins. Thats my take too. The visuals of the palms fluttering a soothing gesture, albeit helplessly comes thru very clear. But the bulbs of the spine kind of jars in , for me , just my take.

I have to agree. I do see the break from one stanza to the other however, it is not coherent. That said, I think the second stanza could stand on its own.
I also see the issue have having too many specifics.
I'm still working on this one. It isnt dead lol.

The only change I would suggest is removing the comma from between hands, fan to read

A faint moth, my hands fan her back. Heaving,

Earlier, people suggested removing the comma from between chest and she; I prefer it WITH the comma, as it causes an internal and slight pause in the mind reading it as I think it ought to be. I don't sense a terrible incompatibility of the two stanzas at all. It appears to transform from a more literal to a more metaphoric tone, which I find pleasing and thematically relevant.

I think 'bulbs' should be retained. It conjured up the idea of something natural and organic (as in a tulip bulb; it never occured to me you might mean a lightbulb, as someone else suggested) existing in a darkspace, and are often 'buried' or 'unknowable' things. Such bulbs hide their true form from others and may burst into beautiful or awful things. It also furthers the idea that in some way, you and the woman are utterly different species. (Plants may be beautiful, but are generally not capable of arousing sexual desire, and this also fits with the theme...)

Final note: I love this poem.

There are some, albeit very few, vague words in the piece. Take, for example, "lying". Ambiguous which I hope aids/reinforces idea of not-knowing. Also, I think I may have to put the comma back into (after) the word "chest". I need to make that emphasis, and the correlation between the dip in a question-mark and the hole in the chest. As for the comma ETiger suggested removing, I'm still thinking about it... only the reason is because I think it would make it too literal (?). As for the "bulb", it is ambiguous, again, not decided it is good or bad to leave in, however, I was thinking of
"colliding against the slack of her lights"

Lying on her bed, I am a question-
mark! into my chest, she shovels a grave
with her sobs. I feel the sigh of shoulders.

A faint moth, my hands(,) fan her back. Heaving,
colliding against the slack of her light
bulbs. I do not know what to do. I am

not a man.

I'm not sure I like "slack of..." (what does that mean, really?)
I can understand you wanting to keep it not literal; however, isn't that already fairly obvious? As it stands "moth, my hands, fan her back" doesn't read any less literally, but really does read rather like a comma splice. It could just be i'm not seeing it as you mean it, too...this cat is getting old and misses the obvious many days, so forgive him! In any case, whatever you decide to do with it, it's a lovely imaginative piece. I'm jealous I didn't think of it myself :->

Final thought: if you retain bulb, i'd remove "light". In this way people could interpret it as either kind of bulb (without damaging the poem in any way; I don't think anyone ever reads something we've written exactly as we intended it, and yet, it seems people still find genuine meaning despite this) either of which offers similar meanings but different shades thereof? I dunno I'm amped up on too many diet cokes and too little sleep....

by slack I mean, loosening, not firm, etc. I hoped to end the line with light, as it pertains to both her state of mind as well as that correlation with the moths. I put bulb in the next line as a continuation of lightbulb while maintaining the idea of metamorphosis. BUT to start a line with BULBS almost.... seems awkward.

I dont know if I should take out lights or not since the image in my head is a moth and a light. hmm

Lying on her bed, I am a question-
mark! into my chest, she shovels a grave
with her sobs. I feel the sigh of shoulders.

A gray moth, my hands fan her back. Heaving,
colliding against the slack of her lights.
I do not know what to do. I am not

a man.


It's really alright. Your comment cheered me some amounts.

PS. Diet Coke is for wussies. Barf.

P.S.

Sometimes revision leads to a pit of doom.
Sometimes revision leads to glory.

I can't tell you which this case is, but
I feel your original version contains the most power thus far.
Others will agree and disagree, and statistically, this comment is 99.4% meaningless (with alpha =0.05 confidence). All the same .

P.P.S. I never drink diet coke alone! I put non-wuss stuff IN the diet coke to make it, you know, non-wuss. The extra stuff is top-secret, though.

I'm stuck and I want rum.
to the liquor store I go!