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7/17/2019 1:29:06 PM Devotchka Lovingrace Posts: 5	My Blood Calculated My blood calculated The width and diversity of my body My hopeless spirit level My anchor placing sunken paws Into the grips of the dirty earth. I have grown like good stock And unhinged myself of My restraints and set foot Before foot and conquored a gait. My body all the while A little box Full of grey bric-a-brac. I have manipulated my mouth To mutter animal sounds And pieces of precious code That the others can understand. These pictures fluctuate and flutter Painted inside my head A screen of endless manufacture And invisible machines which Surely stand higher than a god. My blood calculated And my evolution continues Locked and stifled On the sacred ancient ground Where we bury our dead And build our cityscapes.
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7/17/2019 3:31:21 PM Frank Frank Posts: 15	I usually don't comment unless something catches my eye. You've got some interesting phrases here, but also some things where the language doesn't work or just confuses me. Stanza 1, line 1: It almost reminds me of some lines from PJ Harvey's song "Man-Size": "I'll measure time / I'll measure height / I'll calculate / My birthrite" so that's pretty good. Line 2: Not sure a body can have diversity; a crowd can and a forest can, but a body is a singular thing. Unless you're doing a Whitman thing: "I am large, I contain multitudes." Line 4: "placing sunken paws": are the paws already sunk, or is the anchor sinking them, in which case "placing" isn't needed. Line 5: A pistol has a grip and tools often have what are called "pistol grips". Is that your sense here, grabbing the earth like a tool or something? Stanza 2, lines 1-4: lots of horse imagery here with "stock", "restraints" and "gait", but not sure what "unhinged myself of / My restraints" means, nor how you would "conquor" [sic] a "gait". Last 3 lines don't add anything or develop the first part. Stanza 3, lines 1-4: not bad; I think I would drop "the" from "the others" since it sounds like you're specifying a group previously mentioned, but no others have been mentioned. Next 4 lines and last stanza: muddled and confusing. A couple ideas: for most of us we need to pay attention to what words mean and not just freelance them in a kind of stream of consciousness. Sometimes apparently nonsensical constructions work, as in cummings' "My father moved through dooms of love". But I think those things might be best reserved for when you're more experienced. You might also try starting with a declared theme. Again, it's hard to discern if there is one here as a reader, maybe something about "I'm uncomfortable in my own skin in the world". Once you have a theme then write "towards" it so that every word builds on it and doesn't just strike out on its own. Glad you posted that here. It has some interesting things. Just keep working on it and maybe post an edited version.
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