Smoke against steam
Steel against steel.

Platinum-like glass pushes silicate and ice.
Sparks stream as fireworks against the urban lit sky.
The grinding and the pushing and the scraping and squeals.
It's all harshness and hardness and rollercoaster screams.
It's steel against steel.

Wheels turning, silver spoked and cold
shiny, brilliant and frozen.
Fire stricken acid burning alight
yellow fights black as red wrestles white.
Neon deflects bolts from a dispassionate hell
machinations unrelenting both imagined and real.
It's steel against steel.

The squareness and the angles encompass daggers and quills
turning and piercing and dripping.
Wicked tin towers gagged with wicked tin seals.
Forgotten remains of a onesided deal.
It's all steel against steel.

The lone screamer won't be, can't be heard
because there's no heart or breath or thought or mind
just relentless dispassionate movement.

It's the sound
the shine
the spark
the grind

It's the feel
of Steel Against Steel.





.

you have a great theme here, and you've worked it up quite thoroughly----but for this reader, the problem it has lies in the way you've laid this complex subject out in such a variety of line lengths----I would rather see it tightened up into a prose poem of some sort, something compact and uncomfortable, like the subject itself...

here is one of mine, with the same feel to it, but written tight...



INCORPORATE
 
consider the businessman’s life
deployed/depleted/destroyed
demise statistically predicted/designed
in corporate mantras of millisecond bytes
breath beads hung on well-fingered malas
strung-out loyalties that speak the grind
days become calculated/projected/defined
by algorithmic formulae at high-cyber-speed
global transactions of near-simultaneity
orchestrated by the chosen-fast-frozen
arranged in complexities of webbed
compositions for myriad varieties of
human beings fully accounted as
digits for dollars divided by time
agreed upon collectively to be
burned out minds self-signed
across our amazing American
heart-busting bottom line



michael

Hi michael.

Thanks for the response.

I could rework that and post the resulting poem and then we could compare.
You are quite welcome to rework my poem also although I realise people have their own stuff to play with and time is limited.

I have two thoughts on your idea.
I can give it a smoother flow and I could take it the other direction and make the flow more irregular and grotesque which may fit the feel of the thought behind it.
The challenge, for me, in tightening the prose is to maintain or increase the feeling behind the poem.

Thanks again for your input and I am taking up your challenge.


Scott
     

Here's the tighter version.


Platinum like glass pushes silicate and ice
Sparks as fireworks stream the urban lit sky
The grinding,  pushing, scraping and squeals
Ignore the pounding of the rollercoaster wheels

It's steel against steel.


Wheels turning, silver spoked and cold
Much colder than a thousand Mondays
Fire stricken acid burning alight
Yellow fights black as red wrestles white
Neon deflects bolts from a fiery hell
Machinations unrelentingly imagined and real

It's all steel against steel.


The squareness and angles encompass daggers and quills
Randomly turning and squeezing and dripping 
Wicked tin towers clamped with wicked tin seals
Remind no one of the long forgotten deal

It's all steel against steel.


The lone screamer won't be, can't be heard
Because there's no heart or breath or mind
Just perpetual souless movement

It's the sound
the shine
the spark
the grind

It's the feel
Of steel against steel.

I tried to make it more angular but it didn't seem to work.

Perhaps you're right.


I tweaked the original.
 

I have this to say - when you tried to make it "more angular" as you say
did you feel you sacrificed any part of what you wished to convey>?

(because, I think- you did.. .)

Prefer the first cut.  Good read.  Welcome to the site.

D

thanks Desiree

I'm thrilled to be here.

Hi Nora.

I want to make sure we are talking about the same thing.

Post number 4 is the tighter more flowing version.
I played with it to make it more angular but didn't post it.
I think I was doing it for the sake of doing it and it didn't come out.
I may leave it for a while and experiment with new eyes but I'm sure I will get side tracked.
Between the original and the one in post #4 , I prefer the original although in appreciation for michael's input I must say that by putting it through the exercise of tightening it up I was able to modify the original probably before you read the original original. Now if you understand that I'm impressed. ;) 

I've noticed that the irregularity in the early part of the stanzas tend to draw attention to, and emphasise, the simpler final line "steel against steel" which is what binds the parts to the whole and is the theme I guess.     

Did you prefer post #1 or #4 ?

Thanks for your interest.

Scott

These are the only two lines that trip on my tongue when I read your poem aloud:

Much colder than a thousand Mondays.

Because there's no heart or breath or thought or mind

The rest of the poem - shines through your use of alliteration, consonance, assonance - Words grinding against each other like metal parts. Really good.

Welcome.

Welcome Scott. A couple of notes:

The sound of "against" scans in a wrenching kind of way; steel against steel. Perhaps 'steel on steel' and let the sound bang more hammer like.

Note L4 has some unnecessary modifiers: what if: Sparks stream the urban lit sky

The punctuation is sometimes present sometimes not.

The sounds in this are excellent and drive the sense in an illuminating way. Nice work.

larry

my, oh my, oh my,  I see I've found far too much time today in thinking outloud.. the first post is my favorite, although it is - ever so slightly different than the initial- is it not?  I read everything you see, everything . . .and - I saw you. . .

hmmmmm.... such a ninny today, ninny, ninny, ninny.  anyways, I don't much care for the 'tighter' version as I don't care to read it that way, but then, I've also heard - opinions are like asssholes, and, - I am not a writer either way but look forward to more posts by you.

Thank you everyone !

and Nora, you far from a ninny.

and Larry thanks for the input.
I feel I'm down to the short strokes on this poem and there always seems to be little modifications.
I find a little break and coming back seems to give fresh eyes so please don't be offended if I take some time to contemplate your worthy insights.    


Thanks 

Larry.

I just noticed that the word "against" helps to personify the steel by implying consciousness to the metal.
Perhaps a fight or sport whereas the word "on" may have a better sound. I think that's why "against" appeals to me as of right now. 

The "as fireworks" point is definitely worth contemplating.

thanks

You're right.

I think I just became attached to that line and had a hard time throwing it out.
I love it but it doesn't fit.


thanks