“The chime”

[Pat Doiron]

 
hello nibbed, the avatar is an anvil with a hammer and two pairs of tongs on it, blacksmithing is my profession. and yes, i did have fun writing this and thank you for your enjoyment of it. I have addressed some of the issues mentioned

hey RiverNotch, thank you for your insight and thorough break down of my text , the "chime" is one of my early creations. the word soul here does not imply "consciousness" for even "unconscious" beings have souls, the "fabrication" is a construct that the twisted forks and flattened spoons hang from as we do in the construct we live in... it's but a fabrication. the "strings fed through their souls" is a euphemism for the puppet like dance we do and even though it is controlled and limited by "bindings" there is still some good produced through their interactions that bring to being the rest of the of the text. i would suggest looking at this with much much much more imagination lol. the whole of the text is a euphemism for the human condition. I hope this kinda clears some of that up for you, although you can interpret this however you want    i really liked you comment RiverNotch it was "topnotch" lol

My issue with this is less that it's a metaphor for the human condition, than it's not a followed-through one. The start is solid, but in an inconsistent manner, and then the end is too abstract, with not enough of a disconnect to fully telegraph the intent. I got how it was a metaphor, but because of the inconsistency in how the metaphor was delivered, the poem failed for me. The best metaphors tend to be self-consistent, keeping with the voice they chose to develop on their onset: say, for example, "The Bait", where John Donne, in a poem that starts with the specific imagery of "golden sands, and crystal brooks", etc, does not muddy his metaphor by later substituting, say, "curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies", with, say, "keepers of romantic lies" - he follows what the imagery demands, even, in his case, until the very end, "that fish, that is not catch'd nearby / alas, is wiser far than I", creating a stronger presentation. And, returning to your piece's end, you leave your metaphor with something that isn't quite specific enough to the human condition to, again, telegraph your intent, but isn't quite vivid enough to make a lasting impression, with the piece of music referred to, "the chime", being described in a manner that applies to most music, and yet also applying to the human condition in grossly general, not particularly insightful terms.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/4...2230bf176d

ah yes, i get what you're saying, thank you for clearing that up not to justify what i wrote but isn't the human condition "not following through" ... perhaps a bit to abstract and a bit to incomplete, thanks again for your invaluable insight