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scripted-silence — Sepia
Published: 2015-06-18 01:33:31 +0000 UTC; Views: 213; Favourites: 7; Downloads: 0
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Description
i am softspoken footstepson the surface of a sepia universe.
an old photograph on the mantelpiece—
a heap of nostalgia, dry and staring,
caring but uncaring.
i am tarnished in some spots,
dirty and crinkled, yet far too clean
in others, far too reflective.
sunbeams glance off me,
prying eyes deflected
from my corroding face;
and it is somehow haunting
the way i stand frozen
as if stopped on the brink
of a crashlanding
halfway down a shoreline
toes half-sunk into wet sand
eyes raking a horizon
somewhere out of frame.
my hands are empty.
cameras ought to drag
the corners of mouths upward
into a rough semblance
of joy, to show the horizon
in all its burstingly blue glory.
they aren’t supposed to capture
specters’ footprints on the shore,
long since washed away—
to be as honest,
as wistfully honest as me.
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Comments: 16
oh gosh
this just became one of my favorite pieces
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oh gosh why are you so damn nice to me?
i take it you like the updates then? or did you not read it before the edits
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aww no I didn't see those! I really really love this version, though c: couldn't see any way to make it any better than it is
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i'm really glad you feel that way 
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"because cameras ought to drag
the corners of mouths upward
into at least a rough semblance
of joy. they are supposed to show
the horizon in all its burstingly blue glory."
woooowwwww
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What are the parts that you're unhappiest about? I love giving feedback and I like this piece, so it's a win-win situation.
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i feel like toward the end the stanza break btwn the fifth and sixth is a bit of a jump, seems kind of disjointed to me.
that whole last stanza seems kind of wordy, and i feel like the end image of brutally honest doesn't quite agree with the description at the beginning. it seems too forceful.
overall i just feel like it loses its momentum toward the end.
i dunno. i'm probably being nitpicky but i'm glad you like it and thanks for your readiness to give feedback. i really appreciate it
sorry i took so long to get back to you
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I think that for the wordiness, you just need to get rid of unnecessary things. Your last two stanzas have longer verses than the rest of them, apart from occasional verses. "footprints left by specters" can easily be "specters' (or ghosts') footprints" -- and so on. Follow in with the simplicity from the rest of the poem because that's what was working before, evidently.
As far as the "brutally honest" part goes... I agree, "brutally" doesn't fit with the previous concept at the beginning. Try thinking of synonyms, get a thesaurus or a synonym dictionary, compare your thoughts in relation to the poem and what you wanted to say with it.
Stanza break. You could cut out the repetition at the beginning of the last stanza, to strenghten the bond between it and the previous one, or shift the "they are supposed to" all in one single stanza, leaving more space in the previous to add something there. Does my explanation make sense at all?
And no problem, sorry it took me a while too.
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thank you so much for this. seriously, i cannot tell you how helpful this is.
i took your advice about the 'specters' line and edited out unnecessary words throughout the poem, which i should have done anyway.
i also messed with the line/stanza breaks a bit, hopefully it makes it a bit more cohesive.
finally, i altered the ending, put in some different adjectives, i'd love to hear what you make of them.
again, thanks so much for the help. often i feel like something's off in my pieces but i can't find the push to get me on the road toward improving it. you gave me that push.
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I have another few small suggestions:
"they aren’t supposed to capture
specters’ footprints in sand on the shore,"
Because you sort of lost the beach image, and I think that like this it links better to the image of the tide washing away the foot prints in the next verse.
I like "wistfully," I think it conveys the feeling way better than "dismally", and two synonyms together I think is unnecessary. You could easily do:
"to be as honest, as dismally,
wistfully honest as me."
And I think it would be awesome like that, strong and to the point. (:
However, the above is all taste/interpretation so take it with a grain of salt.
Oh, I almost forgot! As someone with horrible eyesight, I must also admit that your poem is really really small to read. 
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thanks!
i see what you mean. thanks for all the suggestions, they're really valuable
oh sorry about the font yeah ... i'll look into that
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I think the font might be taken from the settings in the Word program you wrote it in. Try editing the deviation with sta.sh writer, select all the text, cut it then paste it back. Sometimes that corrects it for me, but on DA it only works sometimes. (:
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