Tight Writing

[alfredo]

The thing of beauty is now
all stressed, taut and hardened
like battered carbon steel
in need of a good anneal
in a warm and loving oven

the overworked words
the hasty cut and paste
the dashing down of delicate emotions
and rainbow colours to the floor –

eaten or simply deleted
by the overly sharp pen
and the more I try
the worse it gets

finally I screw it up tight
and toss it from me
but, as if my leg was severed,
peace takes its time to arrive

[mfwilkie]

'Hey "fredo,

I asked Tim to take a look at this when he gets back from Sherry's.
I was pretty sure I knew what anneal meant, but I looked it up anyway
because I found the chemistry of overworked words needing a warm and
loving oven too tame.

Look at the words: recombine and acid strands.

Look at internal stress.

I'm thinking you need to talk about working beauty to death from the "why
place", which for me wasn't clear in the poem.


Maggie


an·neal [uh-neel] verb (used with object)
1. to heat (glass, earthenware, metals, etc.) to remove or prevent internal stress.
2. to free from internal stress by heating and gradually cooling.
3. to toughen or temper.
4. Biochemistry . to recombine (nucleic acid strands) at low temperature after
separating by heat.
5. to fuse colors onto (a vitreous or metallic surface) by heating.






TIGHT WRITING


The thing of beauty is now
all stressed, taut and hardened
like battered carbon steel
in need of a good anneal
in a warm and loving oven

the overworked words
the hasty cut and paste
the dashing down of delicate emotions
and rainbow colours to the floor –

eaten or simply deleted
by the overly sharp pen
and the more I try
the worse it gets

finally I screw it up tight
and toss it from me
but, as if my leg was severed,
peace takes its time to arrive

[mfwilkie]

From Tim last night:


Hey, just read the poem...I'm not sure how I feel about it, there's something a little too familiar in the words, although I do love the last line.

The first verse opens strong, but it seemed to get kind of diluted for the rest of the poem until that last line.

I'll go back to it...

Tim

[alfredo]

Thanks for the comments so ar but .....could you explain futher "there's something a little too familiar in the words"