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Thirds
Once I had an awful dream
And it vanished (so it seemed)
But as I walk the waking world
I still feel it in me twist and curl
In my chest a rising heat
Which burns brighter each time I sleep
Waiting for an admission of defeat
And all it ever gets is steam.
Yet sometimes when my mouth won’t shut
It bursts its way out from my gut
A serpent scaled in black tar
Who lashes out to bite the scar
That I already won’t let sit
That I scrape and gnaw--
I pick and pick
I know I spoke with little words
When the world broke into thirds.
And it vanished (so it seemed)
But as I walk the waking world
I still feel it in me twist and curl
In my chest a rising heat
Which burns brighter each time I sleep
Waiting for an admission of defeat
And all it ever gets is steam.
Yet sometimes when my mouth won’t shut
It bursts its way out from my gut
A serpent scaled in black tar
Who lashes out to bite the scar
That I already won’t let sit
That I scrape and gnaw--
I pick and pick
I know I spoke with little words
When the world broke into thirds.
It starts strong and has some decent imagery, but I’m not too sure about the final stanzas; the break from the rest of the rhyming scheme seems almost intentional, but I can’t put my finger on it as to why. I can’t really tell if it hurts the poem—but going by general rules of poetry I think it might be better off without them. Perhaps combine the two together and rework the theme song of each into a single stanza that reflects the themes of it in full?
I'm guessing that the way the stanzas shorten at the end is symbolic, but I'm not entirely sure how. Like those number-titled ones, this has a weaker sense of rhythm, and the rhymes get pretty questionable, but it feels less songlike than those, and it's harder to put my finger on why. The effect is that it feels less justified to me in having those strained rhymes.
I think the ending is the weakest part, because until then, it's easier to keep up with what the poem means, but at the end, I don't understand it anymore. Why "thirds"? Just because you needed something to rhyme with "words," or am I supposed to infer something from there being three pieces? Overall, there's just a sense of things going wrong with this character, but nothing specific enough to really get me on board with what it is.
I think the ending is the weakest part, because until then, it's easier to keep up with what the poem means, but at the end, I don't understand it anymore. Why "thirds"? Just because you needed something to rhyme with "words," or am I supposed to infer something from there being three pieces? Overall, there's just a sense of things going wrong with this character, but nothing specific enough to really get me on board with what it is.
Once an awful metaphor
Rose out in coils from my core
It bit me deep where I was sore
That rotten, tarry metaphor!
Rose out in coils from my core
It bit me deep where I was sore
That rotten, tarry metaphor!
