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Katabasis
Smiling and spectral in the sharp chill autumn air
we dark forms sit in silence,
black nightmare costumes over thermal underwear
like flesh hiding the skeleton.
Here at our lair we wait,
red cellophane in the porchlight hell-lighting us.
Our chairs flank the brass urn,
repository of snakes, spiders, eyeballs
all made of plastic, and colorful wrappers
with apportioned sweetness.
We await the bait takers, the thrill seekers, the daring,
the little inductees into the pageantry
of the day of witchery and death.
Out on the road, a family pauses
and mother, father stand there
as do the remote mountains
where the gods reside untouchable, immovable,
and they gesture to our house.
Their daughter looks to us,
one of us garbed as a faceless spectre
the other as the king of demons.
She sets her foot on the concrete walkway,
cringing, and with the measured shaking steps of fear and care
creeps alone to her doom.
Locking her small glittering eyes
to the impassive visages of masquerade
she inches towards the fiery glare
and suddenly cries out
to us–to us!
“I’m SCARED!”
We smile bone deep under flesh, under masks, and nod.
Feet darting like little feathers
she reaches our porch stairs,
and her tiny hand darts out to seize her prize
without entreaty or trickery.
With fistful of plastic skeleton and chocolate she retreats,
never looking back,
and our hearts blaze against the biting air and passing years
and scent of dying leaves.
Only the brave deserve the good candy.
we dark forms sit in silence,
black nightmare costumes over thermal underwear
like flesh hiding the skeleton.
Here at our lair we wait,
red cellophane in the porchlight hell-lighting us.
Our chairs flank the brass urn,
repository of snakes, spiders, eyeballs
all made of plastic, and colorful wrappers
with apportioned sweetness.
We await the bait takers, the thrill seekers, the daring,
the little inductees into the pageantry
of the day of witchery and death.
Out on the road, a family pauses
and mother, father stand there
as do the remote mountains
where the gods reside untouchable, immovable,
and they gesture to our house.
Their daughter looks to us,
one of us garbed as a faceless spectre
the other as the king of demons.
She sets her foot on the concrete walkway,
cringing, and with the measured shaking steps of fear and care
creeps alone to her doom.
Locking her small glittering eyes
to the impassive visages of masquerade
she inches towards the fiery glare
and suddenly cries out
to us–to us!
“I’m SCARED!”
We smile bone deep under flesh, under masks, and nod.
Feet darting like little feathers
she reaches our porch stairs,
and her tiny hand darts out to seize her prize
without entreaty or trickery.
With fistful of plastic skeleton and chocolate she retreats,
never looking back,
and our hearts blaze against the biting air and passing years
and scent of dying leaves.
Only the brave deserve the good candy.
Nice:
We used to have some next-door neighbors who went all out for Halloween--cobwebs everywhere, scary lights, music and sound effects, the woman, who was six feet tall, in full Morticia Addams garb, and her husband, who was six foot six, wearing a big black cowl and robe with a horse skull mask. One group of pre-teens, after leaving our house, stopped on the sidewalk in front of the house next door and stared for a full minute. Then one of them said, "Well, it's not like they can really kill us." And in they went.
As for the poem, I can only suggest more sensory details. The smell that always gets me, for instance, when I'm sitting out on the porch waiting between groups of kids, is the slowly growing aroma of baking squash as the candle inside the pumpkin starts cooking it. Give me some sounds, too: the "trick or treat"s of the other kids seeming to go silent as the little girl approaches. Maybe make everything at the beginning and the end very mundane--the parents remind the little girl to say "Thank you" before they leave and we get the last line--and heighten the language in the middle during the actual encounter--I mean, you're using ancient Greek for the title; that give you leeway to get all fancy diction-wise, don't it? :)
But it's good stuff.
Mike
We used to have some next-door neighbors who went all out for Halloween--cobwebs everywhere, scary lights, music and sound effects, the woman, who was six feet tall, in full Morticia Addams garb, and her husband, who was six foot six, wearing a big black cowl and robe with a horse skull mask. One group of pre-teens, after leaving our house, stopped on the sidewalk in front of the house next door and stared for a full minute. Then one of them said, "Well, it's not like they can really kill us." And in they went.
As for the poem, I can only suggest more sensory details. The smell that always gets me, for instance, when I'm sitting out on the porch waiting between groups of kids, is the slowly growing aroma of baking squash as the candle inside the pumpkin starts cooking it. Give me some sounds, too: the "trick or treat"s of the other kids seeming to go silent as the little girl approaches. Maybe make everything at the beginning and the end very mundane--the parents remind the little girl to say "Thank you" before they leave and we get the last line--and heighten the language in the middle during the actual encounter--I mean, you're using ancient Greek for the title; that give you leeway to get all fancy diction-wise, don't it? :)
But it's good stuff.
Mike
Fantastic story. Not sure about the poem yet, but I'm leaning towards good. Good sensory words. Nicely evocative. The structure feels a bit iffy on first read, so possibly some points to lose on that account when I re-read.
This was really cute. I love the portrait of a little girl trick-or-treating and trying to overcome her fear of the creepy people and things on the porch. That her parents just stand back and watch only adds to it and keeps it within the realm of the cute, as without that touch, I think this would take on too much of a "stranger danger" air.
The repeated use of "dart" near the end is unintentional, I think, so that could use some variety. And like I said on a previous entry, you have to be careful with what expectations your opening stanza creates. The rhyming pair of lines makes it look like you're going to have a rhyme scheme overall, but then you don't, so beware setting up people to look forward to structural cleverness that you don't actually have.
Other than that, I don't have any improvements to suggest. This was fun to read.
The repeated use of "dart" near the end is unintentional, I think, so that could use some variety. And like I said on a previous entry, you have to be careful with what expectations your opening stanza creates. The rhyming pair of lines makes it look like you're going to have a rhyme scheme overall, but then you don't, so beware setting up people to look forward to structural cleverness that you don't actually have.
Other than that, I don't have any improvements to suggest. This was fun to read.
Genre: The old gods (brought candy!)
This one is one of my favorites this round. The whole time I imagined a king of the hill-esque scene where they tower over these poor four year olds who have to bow before their graciousness. Loved the imagery. Spot on.
The only thing I think people would have a problem with is the actual free verse. It reads more like purple prose. I still think this is an excellent poem.
Best line: “without entreaty or trickery.”
This one is one of my favorites this round. The whole time I imagined a king of the hill-esque scene where they tower over these poor four year olds who have to bow before their graciousness. Loved the imagery. Spot on.
The only thing I think people would have a problem with is the actual free verse. It reads more like purple prose. I still think this is an excellent poem.
Best line: “without entreaty or trickery.”
This is really cute, and I absolutely love the somber-but-actually-funny tone of the whole piece, especially the last line. Overall the piece strikes a great mood and runs with it.
Now, I'm going to have to level this with the same criticism that I gave our other free verse entries so far, which is that I think that this piece is kind of hurt by the lack of structure. There are things in a poet's toolbox other than rhyme and meter, and the free verse format lends the chance for these other tools to take the spotlight. So I'm a little disappointed that the only use of structuring that we see are the line breaks. There are a couple of great uses of this (the "remote mountains" and the "to us!" line being isolated are great examples), but I really think you could have done a bit more to meaningfully order the text here.
IMO, the difference between prose and poetry is that poetry sets up the reader's expectations on how to read the piece. It gives the reader a set of instructions on when to expect things like rhymes, similes, stresses, so it lends the reader a unique intimacy with the reading experience itself.
Now while this piece certainly does a great job feeling poetic in that it crafts a tangible and interesting mood, it still kind of comes across to me as very pretty prose with odd line breaks. In other words, it doesn't really take advantage of the fact that it is poetry, IMO.
As I said with our other blank verse entries, this has a lot to do with my own personal philosophy regarding poetry, so you should definitely feel free to take this with a grain of salt.
Now, I'm going to have to level this with the same criticism that I gave our other free verse entries so far, which is that I think that this piece is kind of hurt by the lack of structure. There are things in a poet's toolbox other than rhyme and meter, and the free verse format lends the chance for these other tools to take the spotlight. So I'm a little disappointed that the only use of structuring that we see are the line breaks. There are a couple of great uses of this (the "remote mountains" and the "to us!" line being isolated are great examples), but I really think you could have done a bit more to meaningfully order the text here.
IMO, the difference between prose and poetry is that poetry sets up the reader's expectations on how to read the piece. It gives the reader a set of instructions on when to expect things like rhymes, similes, stresses, so it lends the reader a unique intimacy with the reading experience itself.
Now while this piece certainly does a great job feeling poetic in that it crafts a tangible and interesting mood, it still kind of comes across to me as very pretty prose with odd line breaks. In other words, it doesn't really take advantage of the fact that it is poetry, IMO.
As I said with our other blank verse entries, this has a lot to do with my own personal philosophy regarding poetry, so you should definitely feel free to take this with a grain of salt.
This one was a nice read. Even though I'm not much of a Halloween person it was easy for me to follow along with the built excitement. Cute and very befitting of the holiday.
What was especially good about this one was that it seemed right as a poem, rather than prose. There's just a wonderful mix of imagery and description. Not a thing is left unclear, which worked really well for the theme. Good job!
What was especially good about this one was that it seemed right as a poem, rather than prose. There's just a wonderful mix of imagery and description. Not a thing is left unclear, which worked really well for the theme. Good job!