Hi Natalie, nice of you to stop by for the tour. Thank you. Keep in touch, Sandi
Poetry / Come Tour Castle Medulla Oblongata (Analysis)
Come Tour Castle Medulla oblongata
He says to her,
Step through the looking glass of my mind
Probe its nerve centers and you shall find
The enigma that is me, you seek
Is a game of hide and don’t peek
Come probe my cranial lands of seclusion
And paddle the muddy waters of my confusion
To a path where your tree grows in forest sublime
Near a castle of secrets on a steeped incline
Come walk through my neural path of self- destruction
Unfinished and under construction
But there is plenty here to view
Not every feature has gone askew
Come walk through my garden of prose
Where the seeds of cognition grow
But not every ovule doth sprout
Some are smothered by weeds of doubt
Come swim in my ocean of pain
And brave the restless currents of disdain
Many have drowned in my waters of curious tide
Never reaching the truthful sands of the other side
Then on to Castle Medulla oblongata
The dark corridor a gaping stomata
Turn to the left and you’ll find your quarters
I have given Dr. Pallium my orders
To fill your speculative prescription
Signed of course with my indecisive inscription
Notice yours is a room with a view
Decorated in roses just for you
See your portrait on oppicital chiffonier
A prettier version of you, my dear
Though I fancied you more as a spirit
But your green eyes I do give some merit
For they have glimpsed underneath my darkened veil
My reflection wavers in your parietal well
But still you are lost in my tangled rhetoric
Come dear, Ill get you an anesthetic
Before we tour my inter-cranial cellar
The conditions they say are stellar
For vintage bottled resolutions
Sealed fermented conclusions
You may have a glass of wistful cider
Provided you can make it past the guarding spider
That spins her convoluted webbed synapse
Receptors of memory overload and collapse
Come tour my graveyard of memory
Many discarded relics of thought to see
Like the scattered bones of yesterdays trust
Picked clean by the buzzards of tomorrow and turned to dust
That’s your tomb over there by the babbling brook
I signed your name in the “loving memory” book
I will etch over your recollection with my amnesic pen
And erase every trail your introspective thoughts have ever been
For you are the worm in the apple of my seclusion
An unwanted reality in my optical illusion
Now off to my appointment with nurse Prozac, my carriage awaits
I mustn’t tarry with you any longer or I’ll be late
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spiritualdeciple reviewed Version 4 -
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Wow this is really good, love the running theme, and yes I can see the Alice in Wonderland metaphores used here.
It’s a bit different to your usual stuff but refreshing also, well done Sandi.
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natalie272 reviewed Version 4 -
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I really enjoyed this piece. The rhyme and rhythm was perfect and your use of the descriptive language with anatomical names was great. This has to be my favourite line, both in pace, rhythm and rhyme:
“That spins her convoluted webbed synapse
Receptors of memory overload and collapse”
Great work.
chasscot reviewed Version 4 -
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Okay… this critique is meant to be helpful and not harsh. :)
First, the caveat – the pretentious patrons of prevaling poetry will proscribe the positing of poesy with pulsations at the posterior points to be paltry, prosaic, and plain.
I think they’re assholes. I say rhyme away! I once let a modern poet have at one of my poems and he minced it.
I will focus on the technical stuff;
Some of the lines break the cadence – they are too long and sort of stick out (it’s like hitting a speed bump in my head). Those modern poets referred to will enjoy the breaking up of the meter, but I don’t like them. Or lines that break up the meter. I’m a Frost man myself.
Some of these lines have words that can be excluded without disrupting the content of the line – such as “Come walk through my neural path of self-destruction” - (there is also a space after the hyphen here).
“Walk through my synapse of self-destruction”.
“Signed of course with my indecisive inscription”
No, that makes no sense (inscriptions are precise, although the meaning might be wishy-washy – but leave it, this is a poem not an op-ed piece). But try “Signed with my indecisive inscription.”
I think some of the long lines are fine if the line with the rhyming word uses the same meter. You may want to count each syllable line by line and make them match (2×2). If you really want to get ambitious, go through the entire poem and have repeating meters – like a daisy chain of manaical haiku. 5,7,11, 5,7, 11 or something like that. Of course you don’t have to, this is the modern era and the only thing that doesn’t fly anymore are poems written in traditional styles (even the haiku has been adulterated).
“trees grow in forest sublime” there seems to be a doublespace before forest. Also, “in a forest” or “in forests”?? Or go for the gusto and use “glade” or “glen” or to play off of sublime, “copse”.
“I will etch over” might be thought over. To etch something is to burn it with acid. You can etch over stuff, of course, but usually without a pen (yes, they do make etching pen, but they are against the spirit of etching, which uses wax and acid and a stylus). Not sure how to fix this – “I will write over”...
I would give it thought, but no big whoop if there is no better line here.
In the line on anesthetic, you need an apostrophe in “Ill”. ”I’ll”.
Beyond some of the minor issues I had with this piece, overall it is wonderful and has some really powerful lines. I would love to see it reworked with the power in lines like “For vintage bottled resolutions, sealed fermented conclusions” carried through-out.
Great job, it was a lot of fun to read.
1ben reviewed Version 4 -
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This poem has a very gothic feel, also something of the demented scientist/doctor recluse in it, with many allusions to anasthetic, prozac, inter-cranial etc. It is very downbeat in its content, but very rich in its use of language. Images such as ‘graveyard of memory’ and ‘scattered bones of yesterdays trust’ point to the idea of a hurt lover never recovered from one or several broken relationships. I havent read the poem you mention it was inspired by, but is clearly ‘of a genre.’ I enjoyed reading it to an extent, but did find it tedious in its descriptions; it was too overloaded with them to the negation of a more lucid account.
medicman65 reviewed Version 4 -
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See your portrait on oppicital chiffonier – still dunno what oppicital is!
Before we tour my inter-cranial cellar – I believe you mean “intracranial”; inter cranial would denote interaction between different crania; intracranial denotes activity within one cranium.
Other than these, it seems flawless!
amber86 reviewed Version 4 -
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Hi Sandi,
this is one of those rare pieces where thoughts and descriptions fall out left right and centre and yet somehow work in perfect harmony. I think it’s my favourite of you works. I was enthralled from the first line; You completely capture your audience. The descriptions are packed with metaphor and yet it comes accross effortlessly, and with deceptive simplicity. It really is good, I see why you get just a great response from it!
Just an idea, let me know what you think:
The enigma that is me, you seek
Is a game of hide and don’t peek
How would you feel changing ‘don’t’ to ‘do not’? Just for me when I read it through with do not it rolls of the tongue quite nice. and the extension seems to work with the mood. It is the only line i paused reading in the middle and re read.
It’s beautiful. Love it!
BuiltForSin reviewed Version 4 -
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Oh my gosh, that is amazing. My only problems are the word ‘doth’ and the fact that ‘well’ and ‘veil’ don’t seem to rhyme. I would also suggest breaking this up a bit, because the big block of text can be quite daunting.
observingowl reviewed Version 3 -
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How thoughtful, or is it mindful? Either way very excellent this may well explain the very thought process of of everyone at one point in their life, falling in and out of love, coping with drugs, or just being confused by the world without love or drugs. This castle must definately be haunted, don’t give up the ghost.
agudwun reviewed Version 3 -
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I have two general suggestions:
The poem is too long. Two pages of
discussion of love and self is a little
too much.
2. The poem is not devided into paragraphs
or stanzas. It would be easier to read
and it would help to maintain interest if
each thought was followed by two or three
spaces. Break up the page.
The spelling was excellent and the use of
the language was very descriptive.
Sumelia reviewed Version 4 -
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I enjoyed this very much. Please continue to create great works such as this.
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