Geezer
Geezer
Mar 27, 2019
This poem is part of the workshop:

Cellar Door

(Read More...)

Cellar Dwellers... [Cellar Door Workshop]

There is soft, grey wood
That keeps the cellar door
Tethered to itself
By blackend, rusted screws

It scrapes slowly
Against the earthen floor
Sagging and moving like
An old man leaning over the sill

Not too far! It resists
Rough fingers pull it upright
And the passage is opened
Delightfully cool and humid

Life begins and ends there
Spores and fungi
Eight and many legged things
Take refuge in blackened bones

About This Poem

Last Few Words: I took notice of the critique and comments and deleted the fourth stanza and left the last one intact. I think I like it better!

Style/Type: Free verse

Review Request Direction: What did you think of my title?

Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Region, Country: New York State - USA, USA

Favorite Poets: Poe

This user supports Neopoet so it can be free to all

More from this author

Comments

Geezer

I took another look at it, and decided that you were right, I deleted the and and replaced it with a comma. It does seem to work better now. ~ Gee.
P.S. Now I seem to have a spare [and], so I fitted it in, in my reply.
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Geezer

in the desert on a blistering, hot day; that cellar would be a very welcome place. I tried to keep the heat at bay, gently and with a smooth restraint. I think that the workshop calls for a pleasing sound to the ear
and yet a resonance that stays with it throughout! I tried. ~ Geezer.
.

Rula

I especially like the the tittle.
I followed jess's reading. I thought this would flow better if you make your third stanza the closing one. For some reason I thought it sums things better.
Just my thoughts, you can keep them behind the cellar door. :)

Geezer

have to think on cutting it down to those three stanzas. Let's hear some more critique and comment, first. ~ Gee.
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L

I really like this - I can literally smell damp!! I find it sparks all sorts of dungeon type images in my mind and particularly like

Eight and many legged things
Take refuge in blackened bones

Cheers

Lindsay :)

Geezer

I do agree, the last lines are my favorites too! I added them at the last, thinking about a cellar that I frequented when I was young. It was just as described, dark, damp, and with eight and many legged things scuttling 'round. Thanks for the read and comments, ~ Geezer.
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brittle light

I really like this, tingles the senses, and smooth

I think Rula's idea would work, but like Lindsay, I really like the last two lines and would miss them. They are too good to throw away.

very nice piece of work

L

So why were you going to cut it down to 3 stanzas, or change the first 2 lines of the 4th? I am no expert by any means so I am probably missing something but I think its great how it is, everything you have written seems to belong.

I will be interested to see what you change and how it alters the whole poem.

Cheers

Lindsay :)

Geezer

re-instate the fourth stanza, if it becomes apparent that people like it the way that it was. I don't want to be inflexible and not listen to the reader. How do you like it now?
~ Geezer.
.

L

I love the title - as far as the how things sound goes part of this workshop, Cellar Dwellers just has this great twang to my ears!

I don't think you are inflexible, because you are taking in all the comments and thinking about them but end of the day, its your poem and what you like best goes!

Lindsay :)

Geezer

but, that doesn't answer the question of how do you like it, now that I've changed it? Of course, that is the way of Neo. We all have the option of using any comments or criticisms or discarding them in part or whole. We also provide the forum for discussion of why and why not! I have loved this place for as long as I have been here. [About ten years or a little better]. I survived the great crash! I lost plenty because I was not a big fan of keeping a back-up. Neo. was able to save some of my stuff, through the efforts of our tech guide, and I discovered some things that I thought lost, on Paper! I appreciate your comments and critique, thank you. ~ Geezer.
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Seren

This one made me think of the dark and ominous things that can happen in that cellar I could hear the door scrapping on the floor.

Excellent poem for the workshop. Im gonna take a whack at it too. This has some great imagery. God you just get better and better in time.

Love and higgliest bugs xxx

Geezer

I don't know about getting better, but I love to try new things and this happens to be one of them. I have been trying to record for the workshop and I would love to post a soundtrack on FB so that others can hear the way it is supposed to sound. I have tried soundcloud and vacaroo and neither of them are doing the job. Got any ideas?
Love and higgest bugs, xxx ~Gee.
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S

There are so many of my scribbles the only flow well when read a certain way. This is about the same. Read one way it's smooth as honey. Read another way it has bumps. So How can I give any ideas because I'm unsure which read is neutral. So i'm just gonna say I enjoyed it lol

Cloudthings

The word "tethered" to me is way more enticing than the words cellar door... I loved how you used it here, it stopped me & sent me into quite a languid & dreamy state. It framed the rest of the poem for me from that state of quite sensual (in tjis case not necessarily sexual, but of all the senses) absorption. So to me this points to the success of the poem in the workshop.
Nicely done xx

Geezer

Geezer

5 years 12 months ago

the word too! I tried to set a dreamy sort of state and glad to see that I managed in at least one case.
In actuality, I was thinking of a particular place and an old building that we frequented as young people in search of adventure. The bones of deceased little animals usually turned a nice, really dark brown and black, due to the iron content in the ground there.