Another beautiful poem, and all the more poignant after a sleepless night!

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"A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art." ~ Paul Cézanne

Thank you, MJ

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-- J

Thank YOU, Joban - I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night and this poem was the first thing I read this morning - as I said, it really hit home with some disturbing imagery.

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"A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art." ~ Paul Cézanne

I like this piece a lot, it has a very unique feel to it. Just a few nitpicky things here and there. In the very first line (or perhaps second, as the title can invariably be considered the first line), you speak in present tense and then immediately jump to past tense in the next line. Now, I'm assuming that "I conjure her entity" is attached to the title, so that works very well.

In the blur of darkness it was hard to tell if she smiled. Her features an uncertain mass.

The first night is fuzzy, uncertain, and that works well, especially with the next line asking "What are you looking for?" However, something about "Her features an uncertain mass" feels awkward. As it is, it's a fragment. Maybe you could put it as "Her features were an uncertain mass." It would explain the previous sentence a bit better in my opinion, it would give it more clarity.

During the third I struggled to keep my eyes open. Tiny muscles straining to pull back eyelids. Her hair was shorn in patches, an old doll. I am sure she smiled.

I think this would flow a bit better if you used "strained" instead of "straining". The narrator struggled to keep his eyes open, so the muscles shouldn't be in perpetual action, they should have just acted.

Curiosity deepens in the hollows of my eyes. I will not sleep.

I feel like this line should be in past tense, as you follow with "she returned". I feel it would make more sense for it all to be in the same tense, but that's just personal taste.

Other than that, I really like the piece, I think you've done a wonderful job with it.

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"HeHeHe. Lit Community. We are our own brand of Special." `GeneratingHype

*Adopt-A-Writer | =DailyDeviants | *Writers-Workshop

Awesome avatar by =neekko

That's really interesting! Everything you have said was actually in my first version of this piece - the extra words, the tense choices etc. It was only after a mini workshop with my poetry tutor, that we decided it would be interesting to mess around with the tenses, cut down any words that didn't contribute directly to the poem.

Perhaps it didn't work as well as we wanted it to, I'll take all that into account when I edit it further. Thank you!

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-- J