Two Short Poems "Anubis" and "Chimera" for critique!

[Televassi]

Hello everyone!

There are two poems I’ve been working on and would like some opinions on. I’ve been looking at the two for a while now, and there are a couple of lines that I am considering removing, which are highlighted in bold. Anyway, I don’t have any real specific questions, so I apologies if I leave it hard for you to frame a response. Let me know what you like or dislike, and I’ll do my best to give your work feedback in return.

The first piece, ‘Anubis’ is a piece of writing eroticising an appeal for death. ‘Chimera’ is about feelings of self-image.

Anubis, I Come to Thee

Dissipated down into swirls of the midnight blue dunes,
The beat of the nekhakha stirs the shadows of the night.
I accept thy indictment of me, thou hast claimed my heart.
Come, remove my vitals, take from me my heart,
And convey it to the sands in your canopic jar.
Remove from me this unknown mind of mine,
Whose thoughts I do not seem to know.
I accept thy indictment.
I offer myself up onto thee, and renounce
False claims of my soul’s previous term.
Come near me, and press your ebony splendour next to me,
Stain my fledgling soul dark with your godly mark.
Press your black snout against my nape,
And breathe your litanies into my flesh,
As you bring yourself upon my back,
As I tumble down into crooked tombs,
That you have perfumed for me.
Press upon me sacred writs, circle without pause.
Wrap me tightly with your hieroglyph spells.
Bite, and, mark me with the words between thy jaws.
Crook my wayward soul closer with your sceptre,
And beat from it the heresies with your flail.
I shall surrender only to thee.
As I stumble eyeless in the unseen dark.
Guide my wayward soul on to the horizon
Take me hence from what was,
And to what can only be, now that
The weighing is all done.

Pushed flat against the earth, you pant out the spells,
Turning my flesh into a fevered shiver,
And throw up the sands silver.
Cry out in the echo of the night,
And in a kiss, suck out my soul.
I shall no longer resist, and in the breath,
Sigh as you consummate our love.

Chimera

Come; sweeten my mood with pliable words
To push and press over this uneven form,
Like you have the divine power to absolve
Gordian knots, where twisted seams of flesh brood
The soul that uncaring God bestowed unto me.
I shall contort these lips to their born suit;
Snarl and howl my own hateful litanies
To stop your paltry breath, to stay your kind deceits.
Do not insult my eyes, seeing despite hateful colour,
That my nakedness is no heavenly virtue.
Yet still you wield your petty incantations,
And load upon me great libations poured
From your glistening tongue, as if I am blind.
You’d rather lavish it upon her body.
Thou sweet-lipped sycophant, I shall watch,
Try to kiss away my scars with ethereal lips.
Steel yourself, the silk-robed hierophant,
As you dredge my deep flesh for signs sacred
Of Beauty, or of Gods within me,
That as if the master of this warped flesh
Could never discern it was there?
Now can you expect me to smile, as if these lips
Can form a semblance of that gilded guise;
This is the hollow kiss, signifying nothing.

[Huskyteer]

I like both these, the first one slightly more (one for the next Heat?). So you are most welcome to my humble opinion on Anubis, FWIW.

For the lines you’re thinking of getting rid of, I’ll agree on ‘I shall surrender only to thee’, but I like both the repetition of ‘I accept thy indictment’ and the sensuality of ‘Press your black snout against my nape’ - for me, this was the most shiver-down-the-spine line of the poem (though your bolding might affect the way I read it).

I’d consider taking out the first line or moving it elsewhere, as I found line 2 much stronger.

A couple of bits I’m not sure about: the internal rhyme of ‘dark’ and ‘mark’ in ‘Stain my fledgling soul dark with your godly mark’, and the phrases ‘throw up’ (did you mean ‘vomit’, as that’s what I thought of?) and ‘suck out’; both sounded a bit too ordinary next to the more ornate language used elsewhere.

[Televassi]

Thanks for your feedback Huskyteer! I’m not too surprised actually, as the Anubis poem does lean towards have more interaction with anthropomorphism, rather than being a metaphor. To be honest I’m not intending to submit to Heat as I feel that would encourage the piece to be interpreted as straightforward sex with the diety, when I’m wanting to play about with the reader by having a conflicting dichotomy between sex and death here. Maybe it’s something I should considering making more explicit, as the erotic appeal for death is hidden perhaps by more carnal elements.

Ah, okay. I was wondering what needed to go as I was wondering if I was being overly picky. I felt the repetition was a bit clunky, but I’m glad to see that it served a purpise. As for the line about the black snout, I’m unsure about it because it may encourage a reading focusing on just the sexual element, but I’m also glad it had some force, considering the phrasing isn’t exactly original.

Hmm, I’m not too sure about the first line, however I do think you’re right. I think I may swap the lines, so that the second opens. Otherwise I’d have to break the unit up, or delete one line. Though looking at it, it seems that it creates a paradox - the shadows rising are then dissipated, though I can change the wording. That’s one to think on.

" The beat of the nekhakha stirs the shadows of the night,
Dissipated down into swirls of the midnight blue dunes.

Hmm, yes, the internal rhyme is a bit clunky considering this poem doesn’t exactly rhyme, and better words can be used to enhance the same image. As for throw up, I meant that the action of being forced down onto the sands, and whatever you consider Anubis to be doing, is literally throwing up the sands about them. But that can be altered as vomiting is not what I was intending. I agree on ‘suck out’ too.

Thanks for your feedback! I’m curious, did the Chimera poem read stronger than the Anubis one? I had the feeling as I posted it there wasn’t too much that bothered me about it.

[Munchkin]

There’s not much I can really say about Anubis that hasn’t already been said. I do very much agree that switching those two lines flows far better. Personally, I don’t think the double entendre would be lost should the poem be submitted to Heat. Although folks would be likely to think of the sexual aspects first, the implications of death are still a shiver-worthy undertone that refuses to be ignored. In some ways, by looking at it with sex on the brain, it almost gives it more of a ‘chill under the skin’ feel than not.

As for Chimera, that’s a tough one. I can see why you placed the Now there to begin with. It has that feel of “After all this, now?” without having to spell it out. It might be the use of “can” in both that line and the line that immediately follows that throws it off more-so. Just a bit too much for the word being so close to the beginning in both lines. Perhaps if you replaced the second ‘can’ with another word, perhaps ‘could’ or ‘might’?

[Televassi]

Ah, no worries! I know it can be a bit of a pain to repeat what someone else has said, but confirmation of another’s opinions lets me know its on the right track. Anyway, if I’m honest, I don’t want to submit to Heat because I don’t want to get in on the furry erotica scene, and I’d like to try and submit it to some non-furry publishers. I like to try and keep my options broad. Anyway, I do hope that the underlying mediation upon death comes out strongest. It can’t really be a love poem when the heart is ripped out. XD

Thanks for the input on Chimera, I will definitely consider your input! Was there anything else you thought about it? I’m curious about the appeal of it here, as it really isn’t an explicitly anthropomorphic piece, especially when you remove the title.

Anyway, thank you very much for your considered feedback! It means a lot to me to get some meaningful responses! =)