catalysts, these things, they're strewn about
a conscious stream unspurs and rounds
unsure, cocked, an angry hammer, a single sound
crashed and bludgeoned through the waiting
air and arrested the boy in its thunder
on falling he foamed at the mouth
and pink bubbles gurgled, trickled, slipped out
slick steps, bright vigor
Talking to Cathy (my girlfriend for those nonexistent readers who are less familiar with my personal life) we encountered a few weaknesses and oddities in this poem. They're first glance things, and therefore superficial, but we'll go for it. First thing I did was fix the typo (also fixed in the first post though, so that's not really saying much. Secondly, I feel like I use the definite article too much "a conscious stream" seems to produce a nice assonance absent from "the conscious" so we'll switch it to that. We also think that a comma after cocked might help things along a bit. I must confess that I didn't originally intend a pause there, but in terms of creating meaning it seems appropriate, so I shall do so. Those are all the easy changes. The difficulty starts here. First of all, it seems to both myself and Cathy that this poem is missing something, something that will complete it and give it greater depth of meaning. That's a large and difficult problem. The smaller and still difficult problem is that there seems to be something slightly off about the second to last line. I like the cascading verbs, but as Cathy put it the image seems to detract from the power of the poem. I'm just going to let those sit for now, since the require more deliberation and conscious attention than I have time for tonight. Ah well. Slainte.
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