De Dominic Tomassetti (5)

They played chess

as the broken pieces were laid

on the board

The queen called on the king

[and]the nightingale flew [singing]

through the [open] desert

She leaned over him

and whispered in his ear:

“Listen, dearest

Be my friend and I’ll be your slave.”

The silence [flung] backwards

and the shadows hid under the marble seats

[Steps groveled] and bore the dead with them

All has been done and nothing is known

The words melted again

crossing crisp[ing] glances

and [searching] moving hands

under the immovable mantle

*

I think you should drop a few words here to avoid wordiness yet still be simple and direct. Also clarity – who are “They” who played chess? The king and queen? And who whispered into the king’s ear, the queen or the nightingale? These may be apparent to you the writer but the reader needs a bit more explanation. Desert is usually understood to be barren, wide open space. Avoid the redundant (repetitive) word. The silence flew backwards would be better usage.

*

“Steps groveled and bore the dead with them” – at first it might seem right to say that steps grovel but in reality, they do not. How would you say this differently? Figures of speech are imaginative expressions but they should be pleasing to the sense or they will not work. A simile or metaphor that is too vague fails. Percy Bysshe Shelley, the great English poet wrote, “Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.” As Jane Shaw Whitfield pointed out in her book The Poet’s Manual and Rhyming Dictionary [Thomas Y. Crowell & Co, NY 1965], “What is an embodied joy? What kind of race could possibly be meant?

*

crossing crisp[ing] glances

and [searching] moving hands

under the immovable mantle

This last part is a bit too cryptic. It is hard to understand.

crossing crisp[ing] glances

and [searching] moving hands

[searched] under the immovable mantle

*

You could also leave out crisp or crisping altogether here.

4 July 2000