exile: self
for timothy thomas (2000-2020)
thank you to meltedbee, zipzipskins, tyumen, stygian blue, and schwarzgerat for taking looks at this before i posted it
poet
shards of a glass statue / Discussion
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DELICIOUS.
-Styg
What is life if not the contrast between what has been and what will become?
what a fabulous display of experiment in form and imagery and function of poetry. i feel like this is one of your strongest efforts to date. i really enjoyed it when i read it in advance of posting and i like it even more now with time to ruminate. i love the way the poem feels almost modular, like you can select different offerings (all the one-line or short entries; 2, 6, 10, 14; counting down in reverse) to create miniature poems inside the whole and find meaning in each. it reads through front and back interestingly and each entry has enough in it to think or chew on that you can consider them individually. your verse is also often punchy and visceral ("decayed face looking at sun/vulture overhead," the immediate impact of the present-tense verbs strung together in verse vi, just rotating a box In a box In a box endlessly) but also leans into the philosophical or contemplative in turns ("Yours was the world of teeth, and it still is, for none could make/you stand trial for what you had done, and there was only the wailing to God in an empty room." is just outstanding). there's a lot of friction here, a lot of asking the reader to find meaning, while still maintaining a sense of direct communication and clarity. really nice work.
I'll be honest, I didnt think much of this at first as the stanzas felt sharp and disjointed. But after talking with you and giving it another read, the shards are coming together like a stained-glass window, fractured, but painting a much deeper picture and the piece's emotional weight is coming through. Well done.
Love how this is structured, so disparate yet poignant, truly shards of a whole clearly displayed in an order that feels right, despite how little the pieces seem to fit with one another. I also really like how this plays with what feels like the minimum necessary for the presented piece to evoke feeling, like pieces of a cuneiform story, offering small insights for others to dissect, to translate, to give form. Really fun stuff.
+1~
When I read this last night right before bed it was a wild experience, and I thought to myself that I'd need to come back to it today to try and solve the puzzle of the piece. I wasn't necessarily convinced that all these snippets could be reordered to make an intended "true reading" but I did think it was possible. I tried all sorts of combinations and found some favorites: I, III, XI, V (a very auditory experience that struggles with identifying the right sound) and VI, II, XII (which feels very disaster-like, which is like a lot of this piece but these are all very physical to me). But my favorite line is "My fingers still" because I tried to use it as the start of another chain, but it doesn't work. It doesn't sound right when put in front any of the other snippets. I like it for that but I also really like it because of its double meaning, you could interpret it as still as in continuing or still as in coming to a stop. It's the only one here you could put a period on and it would work and it's even at the end but you don't.
This experience with the poem ultimately gave me what I'm taking away from it, aside from the beautiful reflections on grief, that no matter how much you try to rebuild the glass statue you can't. You can't because there are the tiniest of pieces that are either thrown away or dusted or whatever else. All you're left with are the shards. Really great poem, Clown.
Really beautiful poem. Absolutely stellar in every way. A treat to read. +1
nya? (runs headfirst into a wall and explodes)
find my work here: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/xexnoncores-author
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