Journal, Diary, & Blogging / Intercepting the arcs of creation.
Bliss is an unnatural sentiment. Notice it or not, this disassociative enchantment wields the permanence of a broken clock’s time. Remove or be removed. Disbelievers disbelieve. We’re lucky enough just to live from summer until winter, locked up like so many secrets in the throat of one who barely breathes. We used to drink water. We used our beds for dreaming. At this auspicious hour, the treasonous still refuse to betray themselves and even the most charitable offer nothing.
The vultures came then, singing for blood, deep into a city of dark windows and ice-paved streets howling back murder. Circling above at sickening velocities, cutting through air heavy as lead, they dive through open doorways and emerge trailing long ribbons of flesh like enormous, ghastly kites. The water freezes or evaporates, depending on netherspheric weather patterns. Animals blindly savage their masters. Buildings turn to palls of smoke. An unending nocturnal parade, presided over by hallucinatory angels, is the final fearsome spectacle. When preachers deliver sermons in silence and glass-eyed astronomers map empty skies, when cloud towers collapse and drift against the wind, when rivers of heartsblood pale and reverse direction, expect this blitzkrieg rapture not only possible, but imminent. Based on all available evidence, to the very best of our accumulated knowledge, the hereafter can logically be nothing other than a constant funeral.
The only verses we remember now were penned by calloused hands and bound together in a book that tells time – not in hours and minutes, but in ages and epochs. Found by chance in the cavernous archives of surgically altered histories. Prophetic, perhaps. Or coincidental.
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The body of this is overworked in its semicolon-ability. By that I mean you are listing too many images -it gets redundant. A nice opening question and a resasonable exploration but only in one cynical perspective. You can cut out almost all of the body of this and conclude it with
“The only verses remembered: inked not
in hours and minutes, but in ages and epochs.
Prophetic, perhaps. Or conincidental.”
It carries the same plethora of thoughts but in a condensed fashion. When there is less it is sometimes remembered more.
“but in ages and epochs”, a great sentiment.
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umm, that’s deep and for me quite cryptic (I wish i was more insightful to the last paragraphs object of reference)
Some of your descriptions are terrific (dissociative enchantment was my favourite) and as for favourite lines… the lat one of the second paragraph. Rhythmically i loved it.
Had to read it 3 times because it was so think and rich (and I’m a little think myself). Some great writing.
It would be a fantastic start to something bigger and epic
The imagery is beautiful and sensual. Every line comes alive in mind and breathes richness, texture and consistent truth. Excellent and Melancholic.
I want to see more!
Okay, I gave the goal a five, because of the overall wordiness of this piece. Some people see all these poetic or large words and get intimidated, confused, overwhelmed, or just annoyed in their judgemental attitude, branding you as someone who is just trying to appear smart by throwing in a lot of words. I’m not saying that, but I have had things like that said to me.
As for the overall piece, I must say you do us BEAUTIFUL langauge here. I particularily liked the referenece/use of the word blitzkrieg. Because of the context or connotation of the word, not a lot of people use it, but when you break down the meaning of the word, it’s a fairly useable term. HOWEVER, whilst I’m not saying you are trying to be smart and this piece just reflects you being pretentious (those words hurt and I’ve heard them) you do string too many words together and the meaning of the sentences start to get muddled up. There are a few times where your sentences are structured in such a way that the ends dangle, not directly connected to the correct subject. For example, “The vultures came then, singing for blood, deep into a city of dark windows and ice-paved streets howling back murder”
Are the vultures howling back murder, or is the city howling back murder? I know it may seem silly to ask, but the metaphorical way you write, I would not put it past you to personify the city.
I would also like to point out that the word ‘treasonous’ just sounds awkward. Whether it is a word or not, I simply advice trecherous (and if I misspelt that I apologize – my computer has been slow so I don’t want too many windows open (IE an online dictionary) and my actual dictionary has been lost to the abyss of my sister’s room))
Lastly, you may want to watch out for fragmented sentences. The sentence found in the last paragraph, “Found by chance in the cavernous archives of surgically altered histories.” lacks a subject. Subjects are VERY impoirtant. When you write a sentence, do not think, “well, the reader can just refer to the previous sentence for the subject,” because it doesn’t work that way, and it isn’t very professional. The only time I find fragment sentences acceptable is in dialogue emulating casual speech.
As for the content of this, I am interpretting it as (I may be off the ball here) the end of creativity…. that after a while our minds will stagnate, and a dismal era will ensure, where creatvity is yet a myth or a piece of our history. However, as I said, that is merely my interpretation.
Just one last thing – the words and imagery are beautiful, but be careful not to let your desire for such creative use of words cause the reader to lose focus of what is trying to be said. You cannot see the forest for the trees = you cannot see the idea for the words.
Anyway, I think you have potential, so keep it up.
On your goal, to be reviewed by readers, I put it at a 4. Should it be a 10, because I reviewed it? You went into past tense in the second para, which split the prose – intentionally? You’ve used some good phrases here – “nethespheric weather patterns” and some stark imagery “deep into a city of dark windows and ice-paved streets” that creates a dark foreboding of apocalyptic proportions. I kind of want this to be the beginning of a gothic horror short story or novel. I started off thinking the first paragraph was going to be one of those pretentious stream-of-angst-type pieces, and was more than pleasantly surprised to find a little gem instead.
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