neutraltones poem

From: t h <neutraltones@gmail.com>> > Date: Jul 22, 2005 11:11 AM

Macabre Man

Nightmare stuff given form

Flailing impossible arms
stretched.

Oval hollow pupiless orbs
vacant.

Wan bone-color face
grinning.

Thristing not for flesh but for
essence.

Emaciated unlikely corpse-husk
reeling.

Relentless horror of
moaning.

Why do you hunt?
Why is it me?

Never will I escape though I flee.
Never will I be free of thee.

From: w s sonnet29@gmail.com Date: Jul 26, 2005 3:59 PM

"The chase is afoot" in the words of the great Sherlock Holmes. Is Freddy Kruger on the prowl? A "lively" dissection of the dream parts. The description seemed pretty harmless---exception the thirst for essence---just a scary drream, a nightmare. On paper tame, interesting reading.

From: E <secondcomingpoet@gmail.com Date: Aug 2, 2005 9:01 PM

"Tame," yes. "Interesting reading"? Not so much. This isn't so much a poem as a ramble look for dark images. Dark poetry can be powerful and passionate--this isn't it. I find it difficult to care about a string of horror movie cliches and don't even want to know what happens to the you and the I in the poem. Make me see the problem! Flailing arms could be a zombie, which might be scary if you are 10 years old and believe in monsters, but it could just as easily be a rag doll. Remember that the doll isn't scary until it does something unexpected (we have to see Chuckie come to life before he's scary--this poem hasn't even breathed yet.) In the horror film it is the sudden unexpected thing that make an audience jump--that's what you need here, too, information so I could follow the poem and have some idea of its intent. It seemed like a puzzle where half the pieces are lost and I can't put it all together to form something complete. Let me give you an example. This is a bit from a poem called "Grace" Michelle Moore:

"Once, when I imagined my child's face in the hands of a killer,
I felt the plates shifting in my brain and the world darken.
It was a time when I was afraid I couldn't love the child
inside me as much as the one already born,
when the signs that madness had a mind of its own were everywhere,
like the young mother who believed the bundle in her arms
had become a rat, its pointed face nosing for frail air
while she held it firmly under water.
The world was sown with half-buried cages of bone,
and the moon was a light left burning at an unlocked door."

Note here how the poet takes an ordinary fear, a mother's worry for her child and makes it extraordinary by finding a connection to human darkness within, and bolsters it with vivd and unusual imagery (moon as light at an "unlocked door," cages of bone, . . .) That's what I want to see when I look at a hooror poem--not the direct movie horror image, but the oblique images that can leave us feeling shaken and uncertain about ourselves. "E"

On 8/3/05, j d <holysonnetx@gmail.com

I have read this poem now several times...and I just can't get into it. I like some of the images, but those images don't move the poem to any place I can appreciate. Where did the you and me stuff come in? Maybe I will have more to say after some others comment.

On 8/6/05, t e <hollowmenpoet@gmail.com

I find this poem to have some very interesting images, but I think I'm a little jaded because of the Zombie 6 poem read in class. I feel that may be this was a bit of a game focusing on comparing the gruesome to that which is not so, but it is a bit superficial for my liking. Although there were a few great lines like thirsting for flesh instead of essence, I felt like I wanted, no, needed more information so I could follow the poem and have some idea of its intent. It seemed like a puzzle where half the pieces are lost and I can't put it all together to form something complete.

From: w w <redwheelbarrowpoet@gmail.com>Date: Aug 8, 2005 8:47 PM

Quite a few fragmentary glimpses thrown at the reader from the onset.The poem needs a few vivid images and some sorth of a thread winding through it. Not much suspense here.The rhetorical questions and change to first and second perspective is too quick. The poem jumps from the onset, yet establishes little in the way of tone or imagery. To conclude with the direct statements is premature as nothing is established here. The poem needs to earn this exit. Too much telling. Not much to see here, or to feel. It seems like a C-Level late night horror flick. I like the ideas yet somehow the poem hasn't established itself as a frightening force. I think it has possibliities. You have the right ingredients, yet you need to asssemble the monster before the reader feels the need to hold the pillow before her/his eyes.