The Appetite Options

[saore]

The Appetite


Oh rising Lord of broken mirrors,
you are cheap paper towels
on wholesale, secret appurtenance
subjugating veil and breath
inside my concatenated purdha—alms
beggar with the tempestuous training sword,
cut-throat assassin of my visibility
shifting the clarities of my appetite
with whatever it is you crave
on the hour of my every hour.
Your steel indecision fans
the morning-glories of my bruised
and discolored skin.
This is the chaos you provoke!
It crystallizes into a myriad of
ignorant parakeets gawking
at my silk stockings, the ones
you desire but are afraid
to buy in public.

[Daniel Barlow]

From the description you gave to Snow I can see what the poem is about or where it is sourced from.

I found the 'oh......' and use of advanced language a bit of a mood killer in getting into this, I mean I know a guy who writes words and words and words you've never heard of and not that poetry or the poet should be limited to common things but generally I'm a bit distrustful of it because I don't or haven't read a lot of poetry from famous authors that was constructed in that manner. Generally the ideas are complex but the language, for the most part, is fairly simple.

I liked the transitions in this, from alms to beggar, assassin to shifting appetites, steel indecision/bruising to parakeets etc... the transitions are the most pleasing aspect of the poem for me. However it comes across as a bit intellectual rather than with feeling, and the key would be to employ both aspects but I think the greater focus should fall on delivering a gut punch. I've been struggling with writing recently because I've been exploring what you might call eureka moments as they relate to emotional turmoil, however they are coming out a bit dry, saying with the head, but going unpaired with what the heart is feeling. I post them, look at them, and then delete them, because they don't compel me to think, 'this is what it is.'

db