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This Poem was Submitted By: Lynda G Smith On Date: 2004-06-29 01:44:59 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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Fractals of Fear

I am wrapped around by silence In the darkness of a mind stilled by foes of writ and wordplay and a muse that caters blind. With a fear that reaches soul depth By imagination dressed Day by day, the mind in anguish by this adversary pressed. Beads of sweat upon my forehead track the salt down to my lips with the taste of fear transparent liquid longing in the sips. The circumference of the silence spheres a solitary state in a wilderness of chaos fractalled beauty in the wait. When the sense imagination and pure will initiate, the wished for inspiration will the fear expatriate.

This Poem was Critiqued By: Wayne R. Leach On Date: 2004-07-04 20:53:23
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.41860
Lynda, the cadence and rhyming in this piece are superb [IMO]. The form and the feeling I get from reading this reminds me so much of one of the older formal style poets, but I fail to put a name on him/her at this time. These lines make me want to turn them into longer lines and make the stanzas couplets, simply by the sounds they produce, not that I am even suggesting that would be necessary - not at all. They would make perfect ones, though [IMHO]. Powerful alliterative "s's" in every stanza makes the poem sizzle. I like the way you formed that closing stanza, too - using "will" to fortify the action of the verbs. Very well done; no suggestions for change. Peace. wrl

This Poem was Critiqued By: Mell W. Morris On Date: 2004-06-30 17:44:34
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Lynda: Nice alliterative title which teases one to find the meaning herein. To find a perfectly-executed lyric poem is rare these days, especially in the poetics of meter/rhyme. Stanza 1 tells the reader that speaker is silent and still, her mind shrouded in darkness. The foes who would have such affect are interesting especially when even speaker's muse "caters blind." .....Quite clever. The fear goes deeply into your soul and you continue to instill a noir feeling in the readers. An adversary of wordplay pressing your mind into anguish and "beads of sweat...track the salt down to my lips." This is indeed someone to fear as foe. In S 3, line 2, do you need "down"? You have options: "saline trails", for example, and keep your meter. A very minor point. Stanza 4 is my favorite because you use geometric terms with nine sibilant sounds as if to indicate the rarity of what you speak...in whispers. "In a wilderness of chaos fractaled beauty in the wait." Simply exquisite and for a mind in darkness, this is delectable fare. The final stanza tenders a ray of hope. My take is that when sensory elements meld with pure will, inspiration will expatriate the fear. I rank this poem high on my list because it is intellectual and causes reader to think. Metaphysical elements at play herein and the entire piece trembles with beauty. Congratulations for this accomplished poem and for sharing it with us. Best wishes, Mell Morris

This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Steven Scheffer On Date: 2004-06-30 13:12:18
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 8.00000
Lynda, I don't know if you meant to convey this, but the ride was a bit bumpy. Well, since you had fractal in the title, i guess you meant it. Ok. Cheers, Mark

This Poem was Critiqued By: Joanne M Uppendahl On Date: 2004-06-30 12:59:39
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.95833
Dear Lynda: I have read this five, six, seven times. It is poems like this that I come back to, again and again. It stirs many emotions for me, and I think that the intensity is increased as well as contained by the form you've chosen. At the same time, while it is an excellent poem, I felt hesitant to respond to it. The misery that forms its core is real, and not an artifice to be admired, like so much blown glass. In fact, there is a tone in it which is very like congealed glass or metal, which was once heated, melted down from its original form. Your diction is very elevated here, and allows the reader to admire the poetic construction in the midst of dolorous awareness. There is something, as I've mentioned, which draws me back again and again. The title - containing the fascinating word 'fractals' is one of the reasons. My association with that term is the Mandelbrot set. There is software for fractal images that allows us to zoom in on a Mandelbrot set by creating a box around an area that we want to see-- there's no limit to how deeply we can see, except for patience. We can zoom in to the trillionth power in a few hours using a small enough image size. As we zoom in deeply, we see parts of the Mandelbrot no one has yet seen. I felt that your poem is like this. It invites me as to read it again and again, to experience unknown areas of awareness by 'zooming' in on certain parts of it to explore ever more deeply. I am "wrapped around by silence" -- as the fractal images are wrapped around each other, ad infinitum In the darkness of a mind stilled by foes of writ and wordplay and a muse that caters blind. --exquisite With a fear that reaches soul depth --suggests an unlimited depth, the "trillionth power" if you will By imagination dressed Day by day, the mind in anguish by this adversary pressed. Beads of sweat upon my forehead track the salt down to my lips with the taste of fear transparent liquid longing in the sips. ---WONDERFUL! The circumference of the silence spheres a solitary state in a wilderness of chaos fractalled beauty in the wait. --This is my favorite stanza, for it contains a way of escape, perhaps somewhat like a labyrinth, "in the wait" - one is not imprisoned forever here. When the sense imagination and pure will initiate, the wished for inspiration will the fear expatriate. The powerful long 'a' sounds, the repeated "ation" and "iate" and "will" give this closing strophe immense power. While expatriating the fear will take immense effort, the way is give: inspiration, using "sense imagination." I felt then as if I were not zooming in on the speaker's anguish, but zooming out, surveying the beauteous whole design of life. What a remarkable poem this is. And I have only given part of my own response to it. Brava, poet! This is a superbly well-written poem, in this reader's opinion. Thank you for this tremendously moving and fascinating work. Best to you, Joanne

This Poem was Critiqued By: Sydney a Walker On Date: 2004-06-29 18:07:19
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 8.62500
There is nothing to fear but fear itself...I'm sure you have heard that quote from FDR. Anyway, you sent me scrambling for my dictionaries of which I have two of which had not that word. I turned to the internet and did find it. I liked your use of it in the second to last stanza. Your syncopation works well, and made for an enjoyable read. Thanks for submitting.

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