Tusk

[spokenoh]

here I go
-f
--a
----l
----- l

- en
jambment,
bridging (nothing)
more than fragments.

apologize, I'm not very
good with metaphor;
she's too much like me

in composition,
played to death or at least
until the end of the period
.

Wrestling with ampersands,
I'll never live to the end of a stanza

(so long as I call myself a work of fiction)

And then I was lost in translation.
The punchline prizerfighter spitting cracked
teeth like it missed a glassjaw and hit a funnybone

so hues laughing at the white-flag now,
colour blind bastards lick at the navel
and pull themselves by the umbilical,

still-born babies escaping from the dawn
stretched into thin skinned verse,
a mighty elephant cut from the tusks

wisely remembers to utter malapropism
under her breadth should she be strung
witless by a crass clown, jocular

if not sardonic, that you may become
something other than a lengthy poem,
that started in brittle bits of pride,

broken
-d
-- o
--- w
----- n
into old charred bones of prose,
too dull to pick teeth clean
the locked poetry jaw

mumbling horrors of good ol' days
spent within the grave,
turning over to
denouement
for a kiss
of ivory.

http://www.rapbattles.com/forum/show...091/index.html
http://www.rapbattles.com/forum/show...023/index.html

[Thugasaurus]

alright, got done reading it for the fourth time and I'm ready to go, lol.

I thought this was great. I loved the structure, more specifically how it built itself up to the middle five stanzas, and then ended in the same style it began. It seemed you were pretty basically speaking about poetry/a poem. Maybe even as a poem? as a misunderstood and/or poorly written poem? Hm, I really couldn't form an opinion on that.

at least that what I thought this suggested:

- en
jambment,
bridging (nothing)
more than fragments.

apologize, I'm not very
good with metaphor;
she's too much like me

in composition,
played to death or at least
until the end of the period
.

Wrestling with ampersands,
I'll never live to the end of a stanza

(so long as I call myself a work of fiction)

I thought the opener here was great (maybe because so many of my pieces are made of enjambed lines? lol). I start to get lost in the "meat" of this though. No problems with vocabulary, I understand it perfectly and I thought it was used extremely well. After reading it a few times, I think I'm supposed to be lost, lol. Hence :

And then I was lost in translation.

...leading into the three stanzas that lose me completely. then the next two stanza's:

wisely remembers to utter malapropism
under her breadth should she be strung
witless by a crass clown, jocular

if not sardonic, that you may become
something other than a lengthy poem,
that started in brittle bits of pride,

lead me back to my original interpretation. Smh, lol, how's this for a breakdown? But I would love to hear from you if I interpreted this correctly. Regardless, I enjoyed it thoroughly for what I thought it meant. Thank you, hope to see more!

Please give these some feed

http://www.rapbattles.com/forum/show...567/index.html
http://www.rapbattles.com/forum/show...432/index.html

[Cinizter]

apologize, I'm not very
good with metaphor;
she's too much like me

in composition,
played to death or at least
until the end of the period
.

Wrestling with ampersands,
I'll never live to the end of a stanza

(so long as I call myself a work of fiction)

lol....these lines really caught my attention and had me thinking....your style is original like the way you structure your stuff. Haven't seen it done that way before....like the way you stretched out f-a-l-l. liked that alot.

I can't really say exactly what the poems about as a whole but I was really digging how it was like this huge extended metaphor. Made it fun to read how from stanza to stanza a different metaphor was being stretched or changed into a new one.

Nice job spoken!.

[Miho]

You are one of my favorite writers on this site. I don't respond much, but do frequent in reading poems. I just thought I'd acknowledge your work. So here we go...

First off, I loved how you tied the title within the poem itself. The cracked teeth, the ivory. I sort of took it as, two side by side, seeming similar to the eye, but extremely different, broken down. You feeling like you pale in comparison. The stanzas that stood out to me most were as follows...

And then I was lost in translation.
The punchline prizerfighter spitting cracked
teeth like it missed a glassjaw and hit a funnybone

This read so beautiful, really picked up the piece and carried to it to the end.

so hues laughing at the white-flag now,
colour blind bastards lick at the navel
and pull themselves by the umbilical,

still-born babies escaping from the dawn
stretched into thin skinned verse,
a mighty elephant cut from the tusks

wisely remembers to utter malapropism
under her breadth should she be strung
witless by a crass clown, jocular

It all read so subtle. I found the beauty in your pain. It's like you were bleeding, your self worth pouring out onto the concrete, and all I could do was stand there and admire.

Also, one of my favorite words...Denouement, I thank you for using that in such grace. You're the first that I've seen use it in a poem. Your metaphors, each carried well from one stanza to the next. Really, need I say more?

You've got my attention.

[Puncha Blurta]

great read


real smooth piece with beautiful use of words. I know you mentioned malapropisms and so I'm trying to find if/where you've used any at all...

Wrestling with ampersands,
teeth like it missed a glassjaw and hit a funnybone
a mighty elephant cut from the tusks
wisely remembers to utter malapropism
spent within the grave,

"Tusk" is a real powerful name too, like I said, beautiful use of words. I enjoyed it throughout. Plus you mentioned a movie with Bill in it. Good job.

[spokenoh]

woah, thanks for all the reads. Everyone has seemed to touch on certain parts of what I was going for. The malapropisms are all over but that stanza has quite a few, like "brea(d)th".

[spokenoh]

I like this too much for it to sit half-way down the page.

[Jamhuri]

will try not to break this -d
-- o
--- w
----- n
into old charred bones of prose,
too dull to pick teeth clean
the locked poetry jaw
(lol) but here;

From how I got this, You are speaking as/taking the voice of your poem (this particular one) and that's why u go like ''I'm not very
good with metaphor...'' (that had thrown me off on the first read)

You try to justify the suitability of your own uniqueness as a poem and the damage that interpretation/translation does to your original intent. Also, something I dint quite get is the 'tusk' concept. Did you mean that the poem is like a 'tusk' cut of from the whole elephant [the idea inside you from which you write]?

All in all you really succeed in expressing the plight of a poem (lol), and though I've read such an idea before, this was very uniquely done.

so hues laughing at the white-flag now

one of the word-plays i really liked in this.

rtf