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[Edgewise]

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I want to say more
than words will convey.
Instead they blow away

as vagaries, abstraction
reduced to cliché.

And my meanings meander
singing there are better things to say

to speak of bellyaches or spleens
when the butterfly's remain
seems less effective than the affect
I don when wearing a poets mask.

It gets me high to type
with higher purpose in mind;

imagine myself as wit
personified and my hands
as a fool mesmerizing
audiences with example
and magic lines enchanted
with manic drive.

Here I am a maniac
with a craving to match
the legends I have read,
mainlining a sense of pride
and satisfying that appetite
without a poem worth repeating.

My meaning meandered this time
and it sounds good to say, even if
the reader is left unsatisfied by
what little I can convey.


A few specific things concern me with this poem.  Is it too personal for readers to connect with, does the last stanza do justice to the rest, and does it make sense thematically?  Any nitpicks or general impressions are more than welcome as well.

Thanks for any comments in advance.

[Jenifer]

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First off, I don't think it's too personal.  I think that's one thing that is working in this poem, is the honesty.

However, you seem to set yourself up a rhyme scheme in the beginning and then drop it, which never works.  Either do it or don't.  If you are going to do it, make it rhythmically sound.  I really think, though, that assonance goes a lot farther.

This poem shows a lot of promise, but right now it's non committal and needs to be cleaned up.

Jen

[Edgewise]

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Thanks much for your thoughts Jenifer.

I am happy enough with smooth rhythm, regardless of whether or not the poem maintains a consistent rhyme scheme.  Like you said, assonance is important and very effective.  I would also add alliteration.  But since you stumbled, the poem has a problem in that department.  Was it a series of flaws in the phonetics of the first eleven lines that caused you to lose the flow or was it the fact that you picked up on the wandering rhyme scheme?  Or a combination?  I ask because I consider the former a far more serious and pressing issue than the latter.

Your comment about the poems non-commitment is extremely interesting to me because the poem is largely meant to be a reflection of, and on, ambivalence.  I suspect your comment wasn't meant in that sense though; if not, please elaborate on the comment.