We had to write a poem on a time of day. I chose dusk. I'm meant to get analysis from strangers, here's my poem:
"there is a time of day when the little lights
and the little people
put themselves to bed.
(as their mothers did, and those mothers before them)
it is cool, and dusk;
i think for a moment that
the air is clear here
and the sky blankets us in silence
other nights it opens up like some great well and the cool descends
and beyond the unsteady shake of a hand, or a crumpled page
or the flickering of a nightlamp, a child's
(wide eye; search the sky; see the moon's outline)
i feel like the world has opened.
and here it is; the absence of it all. (commonality? solidarity? solitude?)
we are rendered small in the shape of these shared things to come
and take comfort, not on damp and slick house roof,
but in the quiet times that are private
still searching the sky with wondering eyes and thoughts of
(no man is an island; no cloud is alone; no light dim)
bed ourselves down in small, quiet lives."
(please don't steal)
It's MEANT to be modern and abstract, therefore doesn't subscribe to any style, no beat or particular punctuation, etcetera. That's what it's meant to be like. I'm unsure of what you guys think though? Can you tell me what symbolism you think you can find in it, any metaphors you can find, why the brackets have been used and how the line "a child's" leans onto "(wide eye)" and why I might have done that? What juxtaposition do you find of private lives against public lives, commonality? What kind of person does the narrator seem to be? How does the poem make you feel?
Lastly, what do you think - like it, hate it? How could you improve this or, if you dislike it entirely, what poem would you write on dusk?
"there is a time of day when the little lights
and the little people
put themselves to bed.
(as their mothers did, and those mothers before them)
it is cool, and dusk;
i think for a moment that
the air is clear here
and the sky blankets us in silence
other nights it opens up like some great well and the cool descends
and beyond the unsteady shake of a hand, or a crumpled page
or the flickering of a nightlamp, a child's
(wide eye; search the sky; see the moon's outline)
i feel like the world has opened.
and here it is; the absence of it all. (commonality? solidarity? solitude?)
we are rendered small in the shape of these shared things to come
and take comfort, not on damp and slick house roof,
but in the quiet times that are private
still searching the sky with wondering eyes and thoughts of
(no man is an island; no cloud is alone; no light dim)
bed ourselves down in small, quiet lives."
(please don't steal)
It's MEANT to be modern and abstract, therefore doesn't subscribe to any style, no beat or particular punctuation, etcetera. That's what it's meant to be like. I'm unsure of what you guys think though? Can you tell me what symbolism you think you can find in it, any metaphors you can find, why the brackets have been used and how the line "a child's" leans onto "(wide eye)" and why I might have done that? What juxtaposition do you find of private lives against public lives, commonality? What kind of person does the narrator seem to be? How does the poem make you feel?
Lastly, what do you think - like it, hate it? How could you improve this or, if you dislike it entirely, what poem would you write on dusk?