[Venomous Vixen]

**This was written sometime last year but I never did get around to posting it. I am not sure I am entirely done with it. Any advice?

Slumped in your perforated perplexity,
Needles sewed to your absent stuffing
With nothing left- tattered...
Torn at your very being

Pale hues shadow dingy fibers
Spun into a passer of time-
But oh how time has passed...
Leaving you far behind

Traces of hands once here
Burnt into threads of memory
Cotton tears tangle pitifully-
Strangle a little girl's laugh

Adorned, blackened eyes of vacancy
Edges frayed and undone
Echoing in your solitude-
Simply loneliness, left to rot

Darkness consumes, lurking
Depths of your sealed cedar coffin
Splintered your textured heart
Skillfully woven on death row

Immortality, sadistic sentence
Cursed inability to grow
Just a cast away-
In this world, forgotten

Ever slumped in your
Perforated Perplexity

[Vorcla]

Whoa.

We leave behind the things of childhood. Or do we?

This is an incredible concept. Looking at life from a rag doll's POV - and a metaphor for the little girl who owned (owns) her. It would be nice to go back to those days when you had nothing else to worry about except having enough time to play. The parallelism of the pain the doll feels juxtaposed with the child's own pains, which are alluded to.

Dark and wonderful, hun. I don't know how you can reach down and find these things sometimes. It amazes me.

[Gurdit]

I'm having some difficulty in relating this metaphor to anything much, really. I see a doll that's been neglected, abandoned, left behind tattered and forgotten, but that's it. It's possible that you could be using the doll as a metaphor to describe a real person who has suffered a similar fate, but yet again, it's a nameless, faceless woman I see.

What I might have done would have been to draw an analogy in the final verse or two to a real person, at least a name perhaps to put that touch of human into it. Then again, I'm not an acclaimed poet, so...

[Syrah]

No advice. Seems complete here.

[Maylar]

Darkness consumes, lurking
Depths of your sealed cedar coffin
Splintered your textured heart
Skillfully woven on death row

This poem is dark, sad,
lonely, dump and, time to time, scary...in better words, the kind I love.
What to say...does "I love it" or "it's great" sounds more shallow if you hear it for a thousand times? I hope not...cause, I love it. It's great. If I may add, as always

[Venomous Vixen]

Thanks Rick, you hit the nail on the head there.

Tid - thanks for the POV, I can see what you are saying, and I may go back and revamp this one. Not sure, it's hard for me with poetry when the moment passes I just can't jump back in

Sy - Thanks and always a pleasure to know you read one of mine.

Maylar - Thank you very much - you are going to get me fatheaded lol.

[Nupur]

I really like the metaphor and how you carried the entire poem forward on the basis of a single metaphor. The theme, like Rick mentioned, is interesting and definitely something worth writing about. I adore your language and your word usage. Right in the beginning, the alliteration 'perforated perplexity' is good and I like how you rounded it up with the same words in the end.

The way you have referred to the rag doll with phrases like 'absent stuffing', 'dingy fibers' etc is awesome.

Burnt into threads of memory

This line is pure genius. Thread of a rag doll and threads of memory. Definitely a great line. And you followe it with 'cotton tears'. Terrific, Bri.

Darkness consumes, lurking
Depths of your sealed cedar coffin
Splintered your textured heart
Skillfully woven on death row

This has got to be my favourite stanza. I'm kind of fond of this structure-quatrains with lines that can stand individually. Sometimes it can look juvenile because if not done properly, the lines seem disjointed. Here, you've done a very good job and yes, I do like it very much.

The ending is amazing.

Immortality, sadistic sentence
Cursed inability to grow
Just a cast away-
In this world, forgotten

Ever slumped in your
Perforated Perplexity

This is a wonderful way to end this poem. The reference to immortality, again, was good. The 'cursed inability to grow' is a great observation and nice, unusual material to put in a poem. You definitely have something to look out for here. Love this one. I missed your work.

[dearest]

Darkness consumes, lurking
Depths of your sealed cedar coffin
Splintered your textured heart
Skillfully woven on death row

Would have to agree with Nupur about the structure; that really stood out to me too. Excellent. ^_^ Honestly, there isn't much to change here. I think the metaphor is clear and developed enough, though adding more about the girl wouldn't hurt, either. Love the repeition of the cloth and threads motif, the 'perforated perplexity' alliteration and repetition, and just overall clever use of language. Beautiful and chilling.