Thanks Janet and Roger
Hmmm. Can something be slack and overwrought at the same time??
I wasn't trying to write a "character" - I just wanted that moment where
someone looks up and you see despair in their eyes like a kind of
luminosity. It seems to me there's something wrong with the
lineation/prosody in the final stanza. Maybe a bit overwritten in those
final lines, but not sure, if I could get the rhythm right maybe I'd get
away with it.
Cheers
A
On 27/12/05 10:57 PM, "Roger Day" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> too many words, seems a little slack, over-wrought maybe
> like the first two lines
> feels very dover beach-ish
> this character, he seems to have lost his powers, but i can't care
> about him, about why he lost his powers, about what moves him. there
> seems to be no connection about the light that moves him, and what has
> gone before
> i know you want to be mysterious but i don't think you've given us
> enough of the right kind of detail
> you seem to rely on the fact that he's an angel - hints of which are
> mentioned 3 times so maybe ramming the point a little too much -
> religious mythology, to fill in the back-ground details otoh the last
> verse seems to have urgency, more power than the rest of the power
>
> most of it is a bit sub-buffy, a bit too gothic
>> He notes the wind sharpening his throat
>> every time his hand touches his collar.
>> Monsters hoop their tails and vanish
>> in the distant ocean, undeciphered.
>> Once he could dilute their roars by clapping
>> the clear sun up and asking it to dance
>> but now he hears them on the edge of hearing
>> always, a sullen tide withdrawing
>> from an empty room.
>>
>> Flute of a dead god, he lingers
>> where water nags old bones and rusty tins.
>> The cold swarms like fire. He waits there
>> until the cold is cold.
>>
>> Angel, how numb your shoulders are,
>> how they sag under the feathers
>> that pull you down to the dark rim
>> of a darkening earth. And when you lift your eyes
>> from the burdened water, they gleam
>> briefly, a light that no light gives you,
>> not the blazing steel ships nor the quiet
>> moon nor even the orange flare
>> of a match, your eyes gleam
>> cold with the agony of presence.
>>
>
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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