Free Entertainment

[de la sympathie]

Free Entertainment

Summer's glow would set the clouds aflame
were it not for some raindrops sent falling from their beds.
Everything always gets extinguished by the skulking rain
who walks along, slowly, like a man spurned by his beloved.
It settles in for the long haul around here; takes off its shoes
and watches some kind of celestial television.

Water always makes good entertainment for the clouds;
it sends us scurrying here and there like dropped marbles.
Floods send us adrift; winds make us drive nails into plywood
sealing ourselves inside a house to keep our families safe.
It's the best kind of movie, and the admission's free, since
all clouds have to do is just sit and watch, and send the rain
like some army general who orders troops but never joins the fight.

Rain always bends at the waist to Sunshine, who sweeps her yellow skirt
across the Great Plains and into the heart of the breadbasket.
She smiles, and when she does, it melts the flesh of weaker men
but only singes those who bought good sunblock.
Her light skitters across water, refracting and bouncing off at tangents
till ocean spray looks like some eager Christmas lights, and
swimming pools reveal their turquoise depths.

But some days, Sunshine excuses herself from work; says she's got
things to do elsewhere, and could the clouds and rain pick up her day off?
She's a flighty temptress - always going off to warm up someone else.
The clouds don't mind. They like hovering over the cities, and besides
good entertainment has been hard to come by for a while.
And the earth stays parched, until some outside hire
comes in and tickles the dark, heavy underbellies of clouds
and gives new life to a land scorned by its ultraviolet lover.

[GhostMachine]

I do like the poem itself...for the most part. It starts off great, but doesn't end on the same level. The flow felt choppy, but that could just be me. I do love the 2nd stanza and the last three lines of the 4th. Wonderful job though.

[de la sympathie]

I do like the poem itself...for the most part. It starts off great, but doesn't end on the same level. The flow felt choppy, but that could just be me. I do love the 2nd stanza and the last three lines of the 4th. Wonderful job though.

Thank you, much appreciated. Could you possibly elaborate on it not ending on 'the same level'?

[bootsydan]

This reminds me heavily of Bright Eyes 'Arienette', not because of the subject matter at all, but because of the writing style.

And that in itself I think is both a compliment and a criticism. A compliment, because Conor is an amazing writer, and a criticism because 'Arienette' quite possibly takes out the award for my least favourite Bright Eyes song.

I'm trying to think of a helpful way to write this critique, but I'm not sure how to do it. You're writing is very good, as usual, so I think it is just my personal taste that's causing me to dislike this. In which case even if I explain why I don't like it, it won't be helpful to you at all.

But I'll give it a go anyway.

I guess the technique you use most here is personification. Kind of. You're giving the weather a kind of cause and effect. It's almost like saying this is the way the clouds/wind etc... choose to act. As if they can decide their fate. When (I don't know if this counts as a religious or political view or anything) it's my belief the weather does what it does and there's not a whole lot of philosophy about it. So while the weather may do all those things you describe in this poem, it also does a million other things that arn't in your poem as well. And don't get me wrong, your visual imagery and ideas behind everything is quite nice. It's just the subject matter that bothers me.

Basically it comes down to this: What's the point?

What's the point of telling me sunshine excuses herself from work someday? What's the point of telling me summers glow would set the world aflame?

The same thing I wonder when I listen to 'Arienette'. What's the point of telling me the wicked are vultures? Or the fragile keep secrets?

I mean in Arienette, he kind of wraps it up by explaining all these bad things, then saying he just wants Arienette to be with him away from all these bad things. So he kind of gets away with it - but as I said, I personally don't like it.

But I'm not sure how you get away with it. Well written though.

Feel free to slam me if I've completely misinterpreted what you're doing here.

[GhostMachine]

To me, the ending felt weaker than the start. Its hard to explain exactly, but it felt like it lost its strength around the last stanza. The piece itself is great, but I just feel that it wasn't strong all around. I don't know if that helps any.

[CellarGhosts]

Summer's glow would set the clouds aflame
were it not for some raindrops sent falling from their beds.
Everything always gets extinguished by the skulking rain
who walks along, slowly, like a man spurned by his beloved.
It settles in for the long haul around here; takes off its shoes
and watches some kind of celestial television.
This first stanza is great. Very nice imagery. Although, the "celestial television" bit rubs me the wrong way. Just sounds kind of "eh, whatever" to me.


Water always makes good entertainment for the clouds;
it sends us scurrying here and there like dropped marbles.
Floods send us adrift; winds make us drive nails into plywood
sealing ourselves inside a house to keep our families safe.
It's the best kind of movie, and the admission's free, since
all clouds have to do is just sit and watch, and send the rain
like some army general who orders troops but never joins the fight.
The first half of this stanza is pretty good, the second half (It's the best kind of movie... onwards) is pretty awkward, I think. Especially the part about the army general. I dunno, it's just a little underwhelming.


Rain always bends at the waist to Sunshine, who sweeps her yellow skirt
across the Great Plains and into the heart of the breadbasket.
She smiles, and when she does, it melts the flesh of weaker men
but only singes those who bought good sunblock.
Her light skitters across water, refracting and bouncing off at tangents
till ocean spray looks like some eager Christmas lights, and
swimming pools reveal their turquoise depths.
First two lines are excellent, loved those. The following two lines are, again, fairly underwhelming and the part about "sunblock" sounds really, really goofy to me. This could just be me though.
Fortunately, the lines that follow make up for it. the "eager Christmas lights" bit is good.


But some days, Sunshine excuses herself from work; says she's got
things to do elsewhere, and could the clouds and rain pick up her day off?
She's a flighty temptress - always going off to warm up someone else.
The clouds don't mind. They like hovering over the cities, and besides
good entertainment has been hard to come by for a while.
And the earth stays parched, until some outside hire
comes in and tickles the dark, heavy underbellies of clouds
and gives new life to a land scorned by its ultraviolet lover.
Finally, this last stanza is probably the weakest part of the whole thing. It just comes across as a little bland when compared to the majority of the rest of this piece. That being said, the lines " The clouds don't mind. They like hovering over the cities, and besides good entertainment has been hard to come by for a while." are interesting. Nice flow and imagery to them.

Overall, it's a good piece with some great moments but it could use some work here and there.

[OveriseFan]

I'll go in-depth on this later. On the surface, it looks great. Unfortunately, I feel like this poem is overloaded with similes/metaphors, and not enough substance that the reader can hold on to.

[IWasaCamera]

A few qualms I have with this poem:

1. The writing is needlessly flowery at times.

2. While I enjoy visual writing as much anyone else, the images presented are far too fleeting. You create a context for readers to immerse themselves in and it vanishes just as quickly. This makes becoming engaged rather difficult. I'd suggest honing in on certain key moments as opposed to speeding from one frame to the next.

3. The personification grows stale after a while and arguably overshadows the prevailing message.

Pretty good job otherwise.

[de la sympathie]

Thank you, everyone. Sorry I don't have time to respond individually. But I will definitely read over them again and post a revised version.