I remember this one.

Fondly. :~)

Hum.
Interesting....

But it didn't have so much of an emotional flare.
Just had a nice ring to it ^_^

--
I have left to go find myself, If I return before I get back come find me.

!!~*†®!þÞ*~!!

That's cool! I like how it sounds.

--
And in the daylight we can hitchhike to Maine
I hope that someday I'll see without these frames
And in the daylight I don't pick up my phone
'Cause in the daylight anywhere feels like home
-Matt and Kim

God damn, is a fun read! 8-line stanzas, rhyming ababcdcd. There's a form called a Ottava rima: eight-line stanza rhyming abababcc, but this is quite a treat anyways. It is so chock full of anapests, one can OD on the swing of the meter. I'd call it anapestic tetrameter. Here's a quick scan of your last stanza, if it's of any help. Think about recording this? Heh.

The WITCH / Baba YA / ga in the COLD / ness of SPACE
-iamb, anapest, anapest by eliding "ga" and "in" into one beat, anapest -tet

weeping TEARS / for the CAGE / and her GIN / gerbread HOME,
-anap, anap, anap, anap -tet

but I / cicled, WEIGHT / less, they FLY / in her FACE
-iamb, anap, anap, anap -tet

with the REG / ular TICK / of a DEAF / metroNOME.
-anap, anap, anap, anap, BUT, "metronome" has a first-syllable stress under almost all circumstances. Standard scansion says that one must use the dictionary's common usage to scan. I say fuck'em. -tetrameter

Now her BROK / en-backed BIS / cuits have CRUMB / led to DUST
-anap, anap, anap, anap -tet

and there’s RUST / on her TONGUE / and there’s CLAY / in her GAZE
-anap, anap, anap, anap -tet

and the SNOW / on her COAT / forms a BIT / ter white CRUST
-anap, anap, anap, anap -tet

for her OV / en’s as COLD / now as YES / terday’s GRAVE.
-anap, anap, anap, anap -tet


best,
-Charles

--
The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty. ---John Steinbeck

I had to read this a few times, to get the idea properly. I'm not sure if that's your fault or mine - probably mine. I honestly love the way you write, it's amazing.. I wish I could write half as well.

However, I really think you could've done better. Although your language flourishes and the poem flows very smoothly, it lacks substance... It's not nearly and heart wrenching or gut turning as some of your other pieces, and I'm sure it has a deeper meaning, but it doesn't really reach out to me.

Having said that, i love this:

"In a chicken leg hovel at the edge of a wood
see the witch Baba Yaga lick the dregs from the spoons
that she used to stir soup, spiced and thickened with blood
that the dying ones spilt from their widowing wounds."

Mainly the way you used the term "widowing wounds". Very cool. So despite my critisism, i have to this simply because you write so amazingly!

--
Sarah!!

It was written for the rhythm and the sound principally. The piece was inspired by a piece of abstract sculpture that suggested variously an oven, a space craft and the stilted hut in which Baba Yaga, the witch of Russian legend is portrayed as living in. The theme which draws on images from Russian iconography from the 18th thru 20th century is one of cultural loss, and alienation from the past and from the rich strange broth of myth and legend.

but yes, the ring of it is the important thing.

Thank you. I'm glad - it's all about the sound.

loved the poem, but is it in your intention to make a poem the way adeimantus analyses it? I hope you get the question it's an odd one I know but english isn't my native language so I don't know if I said it correct. I just find it interesting how a poem like this is "made". does one think of it as much as his analysts claim...?

Aha! you caught me out, peddling second hand goods as new!

Don't ever by a used car from this man.

Did you read Dr Seuss as a child (or as an adult come to that)? A big bright burning beacon of my younger days was Seuss's The Lorax :

...And at that very moment, we heard a loud whack!
From outside in the fields came a sickening smack
of an axe on a tree. Then we heard the tree fall.
The very last Truffula Tree of them all!

No more trees. No more Thneeds. No more work to be done.
So, in no time, my uncles and aunts, every one,
all waved my good-bye. They jumped into my cars
and drove away under the smoke-smuggered stars.

Now all that was left 'neath the bad-smelling sky
was my big empty factory...
the Lorax...
and I...

I didn't know at the time, but the good doctor was prescribing poetry coated with that most palatable of sweetners - the anapestic tetrameter.

Some people, and they'll often quote "The Night before Christmas" as evidence for their argument, call it a 'comic' form of verse, but I like to think it can deliver a more powerful punch, despite its jauntiness. (For sure the Doctor had the forestry industry running scared enough to concoct the "Truax" as a pro-logging response to the Lorax.)

I wasn't actually thinking of Seuss when I wrote 'Modern Magic'. It wasn't until I read your comment that i started thinking about why that form is so enjoyable, where it was I'd picked it up from, so thank you for your perceptive and informed comment.