anna
Site Admin

注册时间: 2004-05-02
帖子: 7141

发表于: 星期五 十一月 20, 2009 7:00 pm    发表主题:

The title is too heavy; consider just "Isolation" as title.

Workshop suggestions illustrated for your consideration & perusal:

The city carries a crowded flow.
Steel bridges stretch among skyscrapers.
Grey doves perch
on naked statues in Times Square.

The receding sun
light leaves each
clothed in a faded gown.

Your hands tremble to light a cigar.
The wind blows your muddled hair.
Neon lights glow, deceiving
paradise ahead.

Night fall shuts distant windows.
My shadow flies between the lattice,
pretending to be an alien flying object.
A dark robe hangs
in the endless empty space.

I like your poem; these are suggestions that occurred, that I heard as I read. So, I'm sharing them with you.

"Nights in White Satin" comes to mind. And, also, your close brings to mind the closing lines of Shelley's
"Ozymandias," esp the very last line -

"Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."


Best Regards,

Michael (MV)

anna
Site Admin

注册时间: 2004-05-02
帖子: 7141

发表于: 星期五 十一月 20, 2009 7:01 pm    发表主题:

The city carries crowded flows of people.
Steel bridges sit among skyscrapers.

---old--
The city carries crowded flows of people
over steel bridges laid out among skyscrapers.

I prefer the opening as one sentence, not two.



Grey doves perch (your revision)
on naked statues in Times Square.
They wait for sunset
dying light clothes them like a faded gown.

In Time Square, grey doves perch (your original)
on naked statues waiting for sunset,
dying light clothing them like a fading gown.

I prefer the revised S.

However, the use of a place name---Times Square---I question. Are any birds associated with Times Square? Let alone “doves.” Worked there for a year, saw very few birds---now plenty of pigeons around Wall Street…



In St. Marks Square, grey doves perch on barefoot St. Francis
waiting for sunset,
dying light clothing them like a fading gown.

Your hands tremble to light a cigar.
The wind blows your muddled hair.
Neon lights glow, deceiving paradise
ahead.


Your hands tremble to light a cigar.
The wind blows your muddled hair.
Neon lights glow, deceiving paradise
ahead.

No change, I think except for my adding the word "barefoot" to see what you think.


Night falls to shut distant windows. (your revision)
My shadow moves between lattices,
pretending to be a flying bird.
A dark robe hangs
in the endless empty space.


Night falls to shut distant windows. (your original)
My shadow moves between lattices,
pretending to be a flying bird.
A dark robe hangs
in the exquisite empty space.


Just an individual taste, but I like the modifier, “exquisite” as opposed to your revised modifier, “endless,”



You have a “fading gown” and a “dark robe.” I would keep the dark robe---which is compared to a fleeting shadow---good. The other use: the dying light clothing them like a fading gown is also good, describing the light on the birds---but i am calling attention to the repetition.

1, dying light like alms to the poor.

2, dust filled light rubs their oiled feathers.

3, their beaks open in the pallid breeze.


In St. Marks Square, grey doves perch on barefoot St. Francis
waiting for sunset,
dying light clothing them like a fading gown

============================================================================

revised like this:


The city carries crowded flows of people
over steel bridges laid out among skyscrapers.

In St. Marks Square, grey doves perch
on barefoot St. Francis waiting for sunset,
(their beaks open in the pallid breeze.)
not this: dying light clothing them like a fading gown.

Your hands tremble to light a cigar.
The wind blows your muddled hair.
Neon lights glow, deceiving paradise
ahead.

Night falls to shut distant windows.
My shadow moves between lattices,
pretending to be a flying bird.
A dark robe hangs
in the exquisite empty space.




i very much like this strong image:


My shadow moves between lattices,
pretending to be a flying bird.
A dark robe hangs
in the exquisite empty space.


In "The Dacca Gauzes," Agha Shahid Ali recalled that fine lost silk, the amputation of the weavers' hands by the Britsh, and his grandmother's memories. The poem begins,



Quote:
Those transparent Dacca gauzes
Known as woven air, running
Water, evening dew:
A dead art now, dead over
A hundred years. "No one
now knows," my grandmother says,
"what it was to wear
or touch that cloth."...


And the poem ends:


Quote:
In history we learned: the hands
Of weavers were amputated,
The looms of Bengal silenced,
And the cotton shipped raw
By the British to England.
History of little use to her,
My grandmother just says
How the muslins of today
Seems so coarse and that only
In autumn, should one wake up
At dawn to pray, can one
Feel that same texture again.
One morning, she says, the air
Was dew-starched: she pulled
It absently through her ring.