A Hot Pink Crayon (revision #2)

[Vigilante Mugshot]

(Revision #2)

A Hot Pink Crayon

The doctor gave me
the small blue pills and white orange caps,
and promised that they’d fix my broken parts.
Teaching the only skill I’d ever need:
to drag lead along predetermined lines.
Using rails built out of fluorescent pills –
I moved through my life as a passenger. –

The doctor took from me 
           a spectacular 
                         spectrum
                                      of colors!
Electric and vivid, mingling together, pulsing and vibrating, creating an anthem or a lullaby.
A feeling so profoundly joyous and melancholy that neither raucous laughter nor silent tears suit it.
The smell of a vermilion rose and the tender sore from her thorn.
Laughing sincerely, loving childishly,
and skidding a hot pink crayon across the coloring book.



(Revision #1)

The Hot Pink Crayon
 
(Imagine a square is surrounding this first stanza, I could not figure out how to put it in)

The doctor gave to me.
The small blue pills and white orange caps.
And promised that they’d fix my broken parts.
What all my life they thought I’d need. –
To take the crayons, and color in the lines.
Allowance in florescent pills. –
Which I spent on papers, but not drawings.
 
The doctor took from me a spectacular spectrum of colors!
Electric and vivid, mingling together, pulsing and vibrating, creating an anthem or a lullaby
A feeling so profoundly joyous and melancholy that neither raucous laughter nor silent tears suit it
The smell of a vermilion rose and the tender sore from her thorn
Laughing sincerely, loving childishly
Skidding a hot pink crayon across the coloring book
 

[Leah S.]

Much improvement! I particularly like 'the tender sore from her thorn'. I don't think you need the square around the first stanza. Note correct spelling of 'fluorescent.'
Nice segue from colors to songs to feelings; it makes better sense now.
I think the last line of S1 still needs more work. You are making an extended metaphor from a cliché, (coloring in the lines = conformity) so it will really have to pack a punch. Your other option would be to slip past it quickly and not carry it through to the next line. You might want to come up with another image expressive of passive compliance or enforced conformity to end the first stanza, and while you're at it, make it as good as the revision of S2. Carry on. Leah.

[Leanne]

Nicely edited.  If it's formatting you're after, you might try using your line breaks, something like:

The Hot Pink Crayon

The doctor gave to me the small blue pills and
white orange caps, and promised that they’d fix
my broken parts. What all my life they thought
I’d need – to take the crayons, and color in the
lines. Allowance in fluorescent pills — which I
spent on papers, but not drawings.
 
The doctor took from me 
    a spectacular 
            spectrum
                of colors!
Electric and vivid, mingling together, pulsing and vibrating, creating an anthem or a lullaby
a feeling so profoundly joyous and melancholy that neither raucous laughter nor silent tears suit it
the smell of a vermillion rose and the tender sore from her thorn
laughing sincerely, loving childishly
skidding a hot pink crayon across the coloring book
 

[billy]

it helps if you place the edit above the original one; calling one [original] and the edit [edit]

highlight what text you want and then use the "insert quote" icon. (it's a speech bubble) third from the end and on the line directly above the text box

or you can simply type your text between

Code:

[quote] and [/quote]

The Hot Pink Crayon
 
(Imagine a square is surrounding this first stanza, I could not figure out how to put it in)
The doctor gave to me.
The small blue pills and white orange caps.
And promised that they’d fix my broken parts.
What all my life they thought I’d need. –
To take the crayons, and color in the lines.
Allowance in florescent pills. –
Which I spent on papers, but not drawings.
 
The doctor took from me a spectacular spectrum of colors!
Electric and vivid, mingling together, pulsing and vibrating, creating an anthem or a lullaby
A feeling so profoundly joyous and melancholy that neither raucous laughter nor silent tears suit it
The smell of a vermillion rose and the tender sore from her thorn
Laughing sincerely, loving childishly
Skidding a hot pink crayon across the coloring book
 

[Vigilante Mugshot]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm so glad you like the changes Leah, your critiques are honest, blunt, and exactly what I was looking for. Leanne I hadn't even considered formatting that way, I think it's incredibly clever.

[Erthona]

The first three lines are not sentences. Well technically maybe the first is, but in practical terms it isn't, as it has no resolution, no answer as to what he gave the speaker. Five and six are not sentences either.


The doctor gave to me

small blue pills and white orange caps

and promised that they’d fix my broken parts.

What all my life they thought I’d need. –  What they thought I had needed all of my life
To take the crayons, and color in the lines.  so that I would color within the lines.
Allowance in florescent pills. –                        I really don't understand this
Which I spent on papers, but not drawings.     and this

The doctor took from me a spectacular spectrum of colors!  The doctor pulled me from...
Electric and vivid, mingling together, pulsing and vibrating, creating an anthem or a lullaby <-- this lines needs to start with colors. Colors, electric and vivid, pulsing and vibrating, mingling together to create an anthem or a lullaby.
A feeling so profoundly joyous and melancholy that neither raucous laughter nor silent tears suit it
The smell of a vermillion rose and the tender sore from her thorn  possibly "the tender sting..."
Laughing sincerely and loving childishly;
skidding a hot pink crayon across the coloring book!   These last four lines need to be made into more understandable sentences.

Grammar, it's a wonderful thing. It is there to make what one writes more intelligible. One should only not use grammar if one wishes to be misunderstood.

Poetry is under the same restrictions as any other writing. The only time one should go against this, is when one has an extremely good rationale for doing so. I have yet to see such a justification.



In terms of using a capital at the beginning of each line, it died in the 1950's when it was discovered that it was no longer needed for type setting and it made the writing easier to understand to do away with it. That is, there was no rational reason to continue to do so.

Capping the start of every line and not using periods as happens in the last five lines leads only to confusion and misunderstanding, so if it is the intention of the writer to confuse and have the reader misunderstand what has been written, this is an excellent course to take. 



I do like the premiss of the poem. It is one most often given by people with bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia for no longer taking their meds.


Dale