This is well written, organized and informative. Although I would suggest changing all the italisized print to something easier on the eyes.
I guess I dont have much to say, other than I found the testimony given by Dawn to be profound and compelling.
Personally, my own brother and mother have sleep disorders, but its just the oppsite problem as to what Dawn experiences. They walk, run, babble and throw things in their sleep sometimes. I once read somewhere that just prior to sleep something in the brain stem "shuts off", voluntarily paralysing the body so that it doesnt respond or react to dreams, obviously if this is true my mother and brother have a bad switch in their brain stem. It would seem that maybe these terrifying experiences Dawn has might be the result of that "switch" in the brain stem being thrown too early. Of course thats really just me talking.
I like your matter of fact approach, it is really refreshing for me as I tend to spend too much time in other more constricted modes of thought.
Objectively I would suggest that you give this one a good once over, and possibly read it aloud to yourself--thats a sure fire way to catch the awkward things spell checks and that voice inside your head won't find.
Some errors I noted were as follows:
-paragraph 1 line 3, "don?t" should be "don't"
-"We were riding parallel, but a short distance from a fence line", technically I doubt theres a thing wrong with this sentence, but it made me do a double take.
-"I said hello, she smiled", some people might think the word hello should be in quotes, I personally don't think its a problem.
--"Horses make great watchdogs. They see things that we usually don't. Nature's self defense mechanism for their wild ancestors was to enable them to see the danger soon enough so that they could flee to safety", again just me really, I thought the ideas in these sentences could be streamlined and made into a single sentence, or even two, but not three.
--"Recently while visiting the subject of what we had seen came up." A comma after visiting would make this sentence a one read for me--I had to read it a lot, but then again Im comma happy, and not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Read this one aloud and decide for yourself.
Thanks much for writing this, I'll be digging further into your portfolio for sure!
I like the way the poem opens with a simple image--that of a small child standing alone in squalor, an image reinforced by the second half of the verse through an abstract comparison to a man stumbling and waving a historical quote.
To me that is the what. Then the reader, following the poem must leave the little child behind in solitude. Verses two and three then creatively elaborate as to the why and how of the what.
The poem ends then returning the reader to the little child they had left behind. Even as the poem brings the reader to abandon the child for the reason of examining the cause of the childs wanting condition, the reader returns only to discover the impact of such neglect. A feeling of helplessness then ensues, leaving one to wish they had just stayed with the child, for in exploring the manifold causes of the childs suffering nothing was done. Line 2 of verse 4 deepens the helpless feelings with a sense of inevitability, usurping the readers smaller concerns and pity with a larger picture--the last two lines are severe, and pursue bot ht elarge and small with equally inescapable judgements.
In regard to your description, I thought the item to be more susceptable to being taken as an indictment against china's announcement to go to the moon rather than a statement against the united states.
This is but one way in which the poem could be read, but it is the way that this reader read it.
All in all, good job, I liked it simply for the reason it prompted me to think.
There were a few errors that I would bring to your attention:
verse 3, line 1--building is not correctly spelled.
verse 3, line 3--I'd suggest replacing no-one with nobody.
The inquiry that opens this piece invites the reader, without any undo obligation, to take a seat at this wonderful banquet of optimistic presupposition. Where every place setting in the house is fairly outfitted with the fine silver of hopeful expectation that again serves as a subtle prediction to the abundance of faithfully divined intuit and inspired intention that serves itself as the main course of this easy to digest work.
The abbrasive tones of idle speculation, and the stiffling quaintness of black and white naivety are all skillfully kept at bay and do not at all haunt the narrow halls of this garden of words.
Its style is made immaculate with its unassuming innocence and offers no hooks with which one can hang the hat of cynicism upon. Smooth and refined, it glides with little effort straight through the veil of the readers preconceived notions with its polite and gentle invitation to leave ones bags at the door. The neat and tidy style, that is far from barren, is laid out like a brilliant rug, urging, without any commanding sentiment, the reader to take off his shoes before coming in.
I knew it was out here somewhere, I thought to myself, it just had to be. Somewhere, someone has already given a kind gestured nod to the latant force that truely runs this forum and paid formal respect to the pained efforts of the reviewer.
Of course we all wear the reviewing hat, some of us wear it more than we wear the writers cap. I myself thought I would spend all but a few moments here writing, but as it would turn out, I have come to spend almost all my time here reviewing instead.
You deftly hammer the generalities of the human condition into the spacious context of time and its ultimate nature. What is remarkable is that at the same time, you offer up a compelling exploration of the same in exegetic fashion. As a result your thoughts are presented with cross sectional completeness, rendering a work that reads like an over-the-shoulder narration.
Ultimately I feel the work goes straight to the end of deconstructionist logic and considers those tiny unbreakable fragments of questions that can no longer be broken down.
In essence, one can only ponder the relationship between consciousness and substance, for many a pens have been run dry trying to describe either of the two united parties within the absolute context of sovereign existence.
You do a nice job of skirting the edges of the impossibly futile and seem justifiably satisifed to bask in the obvious.
Inspiriational, delightfully light, given the potential weight of the subject. Definately not over worded--yet you might wish to consider spicing it up just a bit, possibly by seeing how wide the net of your ship on the sea metaphor can be cast.
Is there enough room in it to account for the spectrum of life beneath the reflective surface of the vast and mighty desert? Does the visible horizon and its stubborn refusal to allow us to reach it fit in? What about the tides, the seasons, the pull of the moon and the cycle of the sun, just to name a few--are these forces able to be incorporated into your metaphor? I should think it would be very interesting to see how far your metaphor can go before it becomes overwhelmed, capsizes and sinks--as all good metaphors eventually do.
This bouquet of nostolgia you offer to your readers has the powerful fragrance of being freshly snipped from the stem. The chords of your retrospective glance at summer as a vehical for indirectly exploring autumns gentle decay are masterfully woven into a fine tapestry of imagery that is submissive enough to invite the reader to insert their own memories into this well groomed and spacious work.
I personally have no offerings in the way of making this better, but gave it a 4.5 instead of a 5 with the aim of inspiring your writing efforts to climb higher and higher.
This work is an achievement and has merits so numerous it would exhaust me to verbalize them all.
The nondescript anxiety of going to the dentist is given a horribly recognizable face as you firmly place you finger on the panic button hidden beneath the foggy clutter of the mundane and routine--outstanding, witty, clever.
In wry, tongue-in-cheek fashion you generously bankroll the hollow dread of the dentist chair and inflate the invasive experience with the prospect of being violated by an obscene past that will not die.
I hope you enjoyed writing this as much as I enjoyed reading it, and perhaps if Bretts sentiments regarding the weekends are your own, writing will help to change your persuasion.
The reason I did not give this work a 5 is that I feel that this piece concluded too soon, with the added caveat that any time spent to fatten up the middle would remedy this much more effectively than if you were to simply muddle the beautifully crisp ending this work already has established.
With just a few more paragraphs elaborating the source and probing the nature of Bretts violation, as well as with the addition of a bit more background color and richness of detail, this work would really go places.
Excited anticipation, it kicks restlessly from places unseen, the fluttering rythem of an emotion as unique as that would be considered repetitious and nagging if displayed by any other feeling.
An unborn child is probably the best crucible one can use to cook the excitement of anticipation down into its head spinning essence, and your written work here expresses that beautifully.
I enjoyed it, and I'd give it a 5, except I personally think the work somehow understates the latant force that ultimately animates the primary emotion displayed here--by cooling the lukewarm shadows of anxiety in this work to just a few degrees warmer than worrisome fear I think the bright and excited colors you display here would resonate even stronger, which in turn would allow the conclusion to have more impact--to me, this would make the overall piece even more memorable than it is.
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