Poetry / The Winter of His Discontent
So small a world,
captured in glass.
Painstakingly hand made,
created to please the eye of the one who holds it,
whichever lucky soul that may be.
Watch the snow swirl inside,
obscuring the particulars
of what is surely a happy scene.
A sweet couple holding hands,
in front of a forest.
I have held this bauble
and read the makers mark,
“Handle with care”
I even respected the request.
Maybe the maker
wasn’t as skilled as he thought
It leaks when it’s shaken.
Let me tell you,
it has taken quite a beating of late.
Who would think so many hands
might handle such a fragile fable
in so very short a time.
It’s not safe inside either.
There appear to be faces
peeking out between the trees.
And that might be a death grip
rather than a loving clasp.
Like most artists though,
when he grows tired of a piece
he tends to become nonchalant about it.
He knows it’s broken
and keeps meaning to fix it
but there is always a new project to work,
a new place to sign his name.
So it sits at home
and waits to become popular again.
After all he knows it isn’t going anywhere.
Too bad that he seems to have forgotten
that his art is where he keeps his compassion
and his love and sensuality.
A fact that he enjoys pointing out
to the new groupies as they begin to convert.
Just as he has forgotten that the tiny figures
aren’t just little statues
but rather little bits of himself and his other.
The faces amongst the trees
are witches dancing in the woods.
ready to lure him away to the fires,
leaving her with no trail of breadcrumbs for finding her way home.
Since he has put it all in this glass bubble
and passed it around to be admired.
What does that leave outside?
The tool, the technique
and no balance of good
to stave off the real winter.
Just the crazy, lurching rise and fall of the glass
to try to warm his heart
until he remembers where he put its contents.
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it’s something we all do, create and let go, hoping that it will work and promising ourselves that we won’t forget. but we do and things get placed on the wayside, between beginnings and wishful futures. the poem speaks of any artistic endeavor, of any romantic endeavor, that can be made or broken by the amount of attention that you show to it.
i think the poem is extremely strong, has a wonderful voice, and tells a great tale.
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I really enjoyed that. I never heard of anyone talking about a snow globe that way. Truely refreshing. As a littl girl, I always thought that snowglobes were magical and dreamy. It was really great to read this, it made me remember the imagination I had as a child. Thanks.
Drachana
Once polished, you will have a beautiful piece. It’s a good read already. One can certainly feel a lot from it. It would’ve been nice to not know that it was a snow globe going into the poem. (I’m going to have to stop reading those notes for reviewer things).
Things I love:
“I even respected the request.”
“Just the crazy, lurching rise and fall of the glass
to try to warm his heart
until he remembers where he put its contents.”
Things I would suggest:
Free verse works really well for this, but consider playing with the position of the words. Sometimes the way the word is displayed on the page says as much as the meaning of the word itself. For example, consider indenting line 18, “Let me tell you” out several spaces and maybe the same with “After all,” in line 37. There are other ones that could be moved around, but those are just a couple suggestions. All in all it’s how you want the poem to be read.
Lovely idea of a creator making a little image world reflecting his own experience and letting people handle it in whichever way they choose, including the creator himself.
One last thing, consider showing more of how things are inside of the globe instead of telling.
Good start, don’t let this one get away.
I liked the idea behind it. But I was a bit disappointed when I got to the end and I felt it getting interesting it abruptly ended.
But it flowed nicely throughout the tale. Simple enough words for a reader to follow along with and not get lost. Because it is a free verse poem, you definitely could get confused about meter and rhyme so much associated with poetry.
One last idea for you, tell the tale of the globe inside more indepth. The frigidness of the life the maker has created and left for those he professed to love. How they strive to make him suffer for his neglect.
Keep up with the writing I look forward to see more of your work.
Of the short while I’ve been a member of Urbis, no poem has yet to touch me the way this piece has. So beautifully written, so personal, but told as a painful truth. I loved it. And I thank you for writing it. I am in cahoots with such “artists,” who neglect such “works.”
Keep writing, I’ll keep you in mind next time I want to read something more beautiful than I could ever write myself.
I really enjoyed this poem. It was simple but contained complex ideas. Usually with poems I have a hard time getting any emotional response because of poor word choice, or the ideas are too spread out…or there are to many ideas and not one makes it out…but I liked this one alot. I thought you explored all these different ideas but in the end, came back to the one you started with…not many people can do this and make it look so easy!! Well done!!
Very cool poem…
I’m not a “true” critic by any means, but a few lines seemed extra long compared to others…Not sure if that’s anything worth noting, but just something I noticed..
Overall though, I really enjoyed it…
Very good. I like the transition between looking at the snowglobe as everyone else would’ve and slowly morphing it into something sad and slightly sinister. If I could offer one critique it would be that the lines “And that might be a death grip
rather than a loving clasp.” seem a bit sudden, and the transition to them is not enough to stop the jarring effect.
This is a nice idea but I felt overall there was something lacking, an absence of fairy dust perhaps. Slightly rambling – it could perhaps be improved by a tightening of the braces.
I have to say that this is unique.I think that I can understand where it is that you are heading when you write…”painstakingly hand made.created to please the eye of who holds it”.I myself see the human race such a creation.I think that the ball represents a person or people and the relationships that we or they experience.Sometimes we lose sight of who it is that we are with.We forget why we started the relationship,the person becomes a possession and not the work of art that we first saw.I think that this is a good piece of work,I look foward to seeing more along this line.
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