The Chop Shop

Funny how you like love poetry even more when you have love in mind...nice last line, Josh. It subverts the expectation of time flying by when we are happy.

All of your adjectives point towards lethargy, as well, with torpid and languid in the lead, and yet the hands are "emboldened", with a kind of synecdochic quality; as if the hands are representative of the couple involved (is this poem confessional? Surely not.)

Watch out for my favorite pet peeves, such as too much alliteration (line 4's "oblong orbits", although I do like the elliptic feel), and what you knew I was going to go after, the ever-dreaded cliche of heartache (line 12). Modifying the noun with "geologic" does not change its overdone nature.

line 7's "pale ink" is gorgeous...wish I had thought of it.

Like the visceral feel in this poem, and its relation to geography and landscapes (is there a common thing running here in shop? Spring Fever? I certainly don't have it; I am one cold Salvadorean.)

i noticed the sonnet leanings, end rhyme, rhetorical progression. it stays away from the rigid confines of that prescriptive form, but puts in mind of it. nice.

i do have to complian about the 'loveiness' running through this poem. it comes to the surface a little too much here. the last three lines, though beautifully written, sound too sappy. the slow earth/time is mentioned twice. in lines 11 and 14.

i love the metaphor of the earth throughout. 'languid map', 'magnetic bodies', the earth spinning to a sunrise. but then we get to line 12 and we have 'heart’s geologic ache'.
seems like that could be said a little less direct, let it sit "below the earth's surface" and make the reader work for it a little harder. you had the metaphor going and going, then you just came right out and said it. it ruins the magic.

all in all a good poem, maybe you need one of those 'filters' you suggested for anthony.

Yes indeed. The "loveiness," as Garth aptly calls it had to be toned down quite a bit before I felt comfortable posting this sonnet. Hard to balance the acceptable amount of vulnerability and obfuscation in confessional poetry. A revision is forthcoming.

Wow. I love this poem. "oblong orbits snap/ into place" is my favorite line. I also really like your use of alliteration (coming from one who loves over-using it probably isn't the best thing), but I think you use it cautiously- just enough to give the poem a subtle musicality.

Your use of consonance in the first few lines also works in a similar way- subtle but very nice.

"heart's geologic ache" is the only line that seems out of place in it's overt mushiness.

Wonderful!