The Moon and You

[Brice]

Hrm, was this one really taht bad,

Nah, I don't think it was bad at all Chris.

or has anyone ever read it?

Yup, I read every single post.

The lack of any comments on it has kind of discouraged me.

Don't be discouraged man. I liked it. The only reason I usually don't respond to these is about all I can tell anyone is whether I liked their writing or not. I can't really critique it. That's something I've never been good at, but I did enjoy reading it.

[Jon]

I like it.

More plese

[parsnip]

You shouldn't be discouraged. I am trying to make my way through every one of these threads in turn and that is going to result in a lag from me in probably just about every thread. Because I want to give meaningful feedback. Which, for me, takes a little time and a thoughtful state of mind. My time here on the forum is also balanced between what I have to do irl. And I'd wager a guess that most everyone else is in the same or a similiar position. Or off writing their own stuff at the moment. *shrugs*

I like the use of so many metaphors and similes in this one. Especially given the theme. How the lack of ability to set things to page becomes its own life. How you state what is happening and then it moves into a more poetic language. And also how the poem is also about its nonexistence. Nice turn from the inside out at the end, too.

[OchrisO]

Thanks. I pourposefully tried to place a lot of metaphors and similies in this one because most of my stuff is pretty light in that regard. I am actually pretty happy with that poem and that is pretty rare for me. I do think the last stanza could use some work, though.

[parsnip]

What do you want to change about the last stanza? Or what don't you like about it?

[OchrisO]

I don't think the last two lines flow very well.

[parsnip]

hmmmm... the only suggestions I can think of is to maybe try it by cutting out the word "For" and then cutting out the "of" in outside of its walls. My hope would be that those two words may change the flow enough for you to see more of what you are wanting or where you want the flow to go.

I think that those two lines jar for a reason. A good pause to pay attention. It's a shift that meets the theme. But I also don't think they jar as much as you are thinking. But I'd still say just tinker if it bugs you. I still stick by my liking this one, though.

[OchrisO]

Tonight on campus they were having a poetry marathon and taking donations of books and money to benefit literacy programs in eastern Kentucky. People could read poetry by other authors or their own stuff. It started at noon today and goes until noon tomorrow, non-stop. I read some of my stuff, all of which has been posted on here in various places, but I am going to add it all again to this post, just as a reference to what I read. On the first reading, I read these:

Title: "Appalachian Ghosts"
By: Chris Thornsberry

My friends made life worth living in the hills
Unknowing sculptors, they made me who I am
With mixtapes and borrowed books they brought me
To a world of punk rock and liberal thought

One, by one, by one, they escaped the hills
They left to join the stream of shatter dreams
Until I was left alone and joined them
Motivated, I struck out to find life.

I, too, escaped, but ghosts still haunt my dreams
Appalachian ghosts, like a fog in my mind
And sometimes like a hammer to remind
Me of the things and people left behind.

A man working twelve-hour shifts while his
Little boy asks mommy where daddy is
He drinks away his pain and weariness
While his family wonders when he will be home.

A woman cries herself to sleep because
She can’t afford to buy her little boy
All the things that she thinks that he deserves
And she thinks that this makes her a failure.

A man comes home and hits his wife because
He has to let the rage at his life out
And she is there, as an easy scapegoat
He strikes the wife he loves and hates himself

Miners with blackened skin and dull dead eyes
Plod their way to work each day where death waits
Appalachian ghosts, dead before their time
Appalachian ghosts with dull, lifeless eyes.
-------------------------------

Title: "Napalm in the Morning"
By: Chris Thornsberry


I love the smell of napalm in the morning!
Americans hear that line and we laugh
We laugh because we do not know the smell
Have never had an Apocalypse Now.

We have never smelled our loved ones burning
Have never seen it outside of our door
We laugh because war is not real to us
Were it, how could we ever send our young?

Napalm has never smelled like victory
It smells like corporate greed and old money
It smells like death and suffering for naught
It smells like demolished hope and dead dreams

Sitting in comfortable America
Will we ever really understand war?
I don’t really think that we ever can
Until we smell napalm outside our doors.
----------------------------------
Title: "In My Mind"
By: Chris Thornsberry

In my mind metaphor and allusion
Dance like euphoric lovers trailing bliss
In the dark and dreary world of my mind
Their light kiss creates explosive fireworks.

But the paper remains an empty slate
Barren and lifeless like a desert night
Cold and quiet like a jilted lover
I can coax nothing but scorn from the page.

In my mind simile and imagery
Run through a field like children holding hands
Spreading joy and love everywhere they go
Dodging any attempt to capture them

When I stare at the page I see only
Sorrow, regret and my many mistakes
Taunting and jeering, they keep me silent
Like the children on a playground, so cruel.

In my mind beauty and bliss are as one
On the page attempts echo back nothing
For in my mind I am truly alive
But I am nothing outside of its walls.
---------------------------

Then I read Helas by Oscar Wilde, then later in the night I read some more of my stuff:

Sixteen years of school…. Well…..
sixteen years on and off….
and I have learned nothing worth knowing.

I never learned to walk away from someone I didn’t love anymore.
I never learned how to realize when a relationship is bad for me.
I never learned how to forget someone who no longer loved me.

Sixteen years of school…..and I have learned nothing worth knowing.

I never learned to tell my father how he hurt me.
I never learned to tell him how he made me afraid of relationships for a long time,’
I never learned how to tell him that I love him anyway….and I still can’t.

Sixteen years of school…..and I have learned nothing worth knowing.

I never learned to treat my time with my mother as if I might lose her the very next day…..and then I did.
I never learned how to say goodbye.
I never learned how to cope with an empty house.

Sixteen years of school, and I never learned a goddamned thing.
------------------------------------------

Isn't it funny how the moon seems to
Follow you down the street, ever watchful?
That's how I feel about you sometimes.
Lost love shines on me, inescapable.

I wander the streets at night trying to
Make some sense of this fucked up existence.
The moon always watches me like some god
Radiating all of my doubts and fears.

I pick up my pace and I slow back down
But you are always there to remind me
Of why it is that I am still walking
And that's ok, I like knowing you are there.

I just wish this heartache would wane sometimes
To give me a chance to hide all my tears
Before it waxes with me on the street
Because my room is all memories of you.

I look to the sky for answers and
All that I see is that bright, glaring, moon.
You are as unattainable as that moon
And, baby, let's face it: I'm no astronaut.
----------------------------

Blue eyes piercing my heart and soul with ease;
You know me and play me like a fiddle;
I will be there, so you do what you please,
While I wait here and my thumbs do twiddle.
Wings of ambition carry you away,
Across the hills and further from my heart;
What you look for I could never quite say;
If only I could have a fresh new start
My heart has no blood to bleed anymore;
Now it bleeds only sorrow for such loss;
Bind the wound and set me free, I implore,
From this crucifixion on love's bleak cross.
Perhaps I could be happy once more here,
If I could hold you just once more, my dear.
----------------------------------------

Rhetoric and some stuff, blah blah blah blah.
I hear nothing because your beautiful
Eyes consume me like deafening holy fire
I really wish I could listen, I do.

I spasm and convulse under your harsh
Scrutiny and desire for something
That will make you forget the past and live
For the future, with you and me as one


Reaching for love like trees towards the sunlight
I grasp at whatever will sustain me
In the end, I am not sure what will be
Or if the tree of you and I will live

All of it seemed to go over pretty well, and I was, suprisingly, not nervous. That was probably because 4 of my friends were there, and a couple of professors that I know. I had a really good time.

[Letti]

Weren't you stressed to read your own poem in front of people?

Anyway your poems have real messages and that's something really good and valuable.

[OchrisO]

I really thought that I would be nervous, and had to sit and think about it for a while before I decided to read, but once I got up there, I wasn't nervous at all. The crowd wasn't really all that big, though there were a lot of people walking by, because it was outside on campus. Just sitting around and actually watching was probably only 15 or 20 people at the most.

[Letti]

Sometimes I think it's easier to read out in front of a really big crowd. Because crowd has no faces but if you are in a smaller room and you can see the eyes and the expressions of the people it can be... horribly stressful.
Was it the frst time you read out your works this way?

[OchrisO]

Yep, it was. There was a Poetry Slam on campus last semester and I thought about reading at it, but chickened out because there were some amazing poets there, and I didn't think my stuff was good enough to read.

[Letti]

Ehhh, it's natural that you feel others are better. It would be bad if you thought "Oh great, I am the best". They might have thought the same while you were reading. You cannot know.

[Jean]

Sometimes I think it's easier to read out in front of a really big crowd. Because crowd has no faces but if you are in a smaller room and you can see the eyes and the expressions of the people it can be... horribly stressful.

that is very, very true

[Letti]

I was outside walking tonight because I didn't feel like being shut up in my apartment and I was watching the moon as I walked, and started writing this in my head. It is pretty rough, but I figured I'd post it anyway.


Isn't it funny how the moon seems to
Follow you down the street, ever watchful?
That's how I feel about you sometimes.
Lost love shines on me, inescapable.

I wander the streets at night trying to
Make some sense of this fucked up existence.
The moon always watches me like some god
Radiating all of my doubts and fears.

I pick up my pace and I slow back down
But you are always there to remind me
Of why it is that I am still walking
And that's ok, I like knowing you are there.

I just wish this heartache would wane sometimes
To give me a chance to hide all my tears
Before it waxes with me on the street
Because my room is all memories of you.

I look to the sky for answers and
All that I see is that bright, glaring, moon.
You are as unattainable as that moon
And, baby, let's face it: I'm no astronaut.

I love this poem so much. I felt so many times absolutely the same way but I am sure most of us have. And you could put it into words.
Thank you for it.

[OchrisO]

Thanks, the last line of that one went over well with the audience when I read it. I was happy.

[Letti]

Congratuilations, OchrisO. To read our your poems in front of people is a big thing. And if you could feel they understood you they could feel you... that's a victory.

[obscurejude]

Chris, I think the moon is strong image, and though cliche, you were able to come off genuine- and that is big in my book. I'm a little thrown off by some of the pronouns. The first stanza suggest that you are speaking to a silent auditor, and you return in the last line in conversational style, but the middle stanzas seem incongruent in the sense that it is so introspective (I..,I..,I...,) that the reader forgets that you are talking to someone else. This may be due to the fact that you wrote it in your head while you were walking. I also had trouble figuring out if you were talking to the person (silent auditor) or the moon at times, or was that ambiguity intentional? The themes are strong and universal, but perhaps the execution of them could be a little more deliberate. That being said, I enjoyed it, and I'm glad you shared it. I mean the criticism as constructive and not derogatory, and mostly because you asked for comments and I wanted to be helpful. Thanks Chris. Keep at it.

[OchrisO]

The ambiguity is intentional. It is meant to be written like a dramatic monologue, where I could either be talking to the moon or the girl, which are similar in how they haunt me, and blend together, and you only hear my side of the conversation as I try to explain myself to them.

[OchrisO]

Oh, and Thanks, I enjoy any sort of criticism and discussion about my poetry.

[obscurejude]

Usually dramatic monologues (maybe always) avoid the first person pronoun "I". That's what was throwing me off, the introspection more than anything. Dramatic monologues reveal information about the speaker through their dialogue with other characters, I'm thinking of My Last Duchess, Fra Lippo Lippi, etc... Its just confusing, but maybe that's what you're going for. I like the ambiguity, but I think it might work a little better if it was more subtle and not blatant through the contrasting pronouns ("you" to begin with and then "I" throughout). Is this making any sense? I'm trying to be helpful.

[obscurejude]

Oh, and Thanks, I enjoy any sort of criticism and discussion about my poetry.

You're welcome. I enjoy it too. I like your stuff. I don't want you to think I'm arguing with you. Letting others workshop your stuff is a great way to grow as a writer.

[OchrisO]

My last Duchess uses I 6 or so times in it, and Fra Lippo Lippi is self referential all throughout it. Andrea del Sarto is as well, when he is talking about himself to his wife in Browning's work, which was what I was trying to do here. It is supposed to be like I am talking to the moon and the girl who left me about how I feel, as I am walking down the street at night, which was what I always used to do when thinking about her became to much, and I couldn't say any of it to her because she wouldn't listen anyway. The narrator walking down the street looking up in the sky and addressing the moon who is a symbol for the girl who left him that he can't talk to about it was what I was trying to bring across.

[Letti]

When did you start to write?

[OchrisO]

Poetry-wise, a little over a year ago.