[John Riley]

Revision

Mannequins

The men arrived with sturdy chests, the women
with hard breasts, both free of groin,
collected together like well-trained sophisticates
full of talk, secretly longing for sleep,
giving one another the sly eye,
waiting to be fed the illusion
of the glow of life, although now
they have no things to remember,
no fleeting thoughts of things not seen.
They stand, like sneaks, against a wall,
some with hands lifted like the charmers of their day
tilting a cigarette, sighting enchantment.
How like our nights their nights are!
Without the lift of an ending light.


***


Mannequins

These mannequins that arrived tonight,
sturdy chests, the women with hard breasts,
the men free of groin, collected together
like well-trained sophisticates full of talk,
secretly longing for sleep, giving one
another the sly eye, waiting to be fed
the illusion of the glow of life, although now
they have no things to remember, no fleeting
thoughts of things not seen.
They stand, the sneaks, against a wall,
some with hands lifted like charmers of their day
tilting a cigarette, sighting enchantment.
How like our nights their nights are!
Without the lift of an ending light!

[W T Clark]

Yes: all of this! But end it with the totality of a period.

[Trevor Conway]

Hi John,

Nice, entertaining piece here. The proximity of "mannequins" in the title and first line felt a bit clunky to me. How about changing the title or changing the word in the first line to something like "creatures" or "characters"?

I liked "men free of groin" and the general idea of them having a life of their own. For some reason, "the sneaks" didn't sit well with me. It felt too judgemental compared with the tone of the rest of the poem, I guess.

The last two lines don't match up to the quality of the rest of the poem, in my opinion. I often find that exclamation marks aren't necessary in poetry, and I thought the same here, but that wasn't the main reason they didn't work for me. It was mainly the direction taken and the sense that it wasn't as interesting and original as the rest of the poem.

Anyway, a few specific suggestions below. Hope it's of some help.

Trevor


Mannequins

These mannequins that arrived tonight,
sturdy chests, the women with hard breasts, [delete "the"?]
the men free of groin, collected together [delete "the"?]
like well-trained sophisticates full of talk, [delete "like"?] [Anything better and more specific than talk? Chatter? Gossip?]
secretly longing for sleep, giving one [remove "one" and start the next line with "each other"?]
another the sly eye, waiting to be fed
the illusion of the glow of life, although now [delete "the glow of"?]
they have no things to remember, no fleeting
thoughts of things not seen. [Remove this line and the one above it? "...although now / they stand..."]
They stand, the sneaks, against a wall,
some with hands lifted like charmers of their day [delete "some"?] [How about "daytime charmers"?]
tilting a cigarette, sighting enchantment. ["cigarettes", not "a cigarette"?] Sighting enchantment in what exactly? If you explore this, it could make for a more interesting ending, I think]
How like our nights their nights are!
Without the lift of an ending light!

[John Riley]

Thanks, Cam. It is always great to hear from you.

[John Riley]

Thanks for the notes, Trevor. Always appreciated.

[Joe Crocker]

Hi John

I also enjoyed the hard-breasted women and the groin-free men. You capture very well their arch poses, the madly camp angles at which their wrists are bent.

As Trevor said “the sneaks” in L10, really jumps out at you. As a noun, in the UK, I associate it with “snitches”. Is that the sense that you wanted? Or are they a posse of sly interlopers?

And I find the final line hard to get the sense of, which is a shame because you attach an exclamation mark to it, so I’m missing something. Humans are lucky because, before night comes, they get to see the light disappearing?

Joe

[Matt Q]

Hi John,

I like this a fair bit. It's a great idea.

Not a big deal, but there's some repetition in hard breasts after sturdy chests, so unless you there's some symbolism or wordplay to "chest" I'm missing, maybe there's another property the male and female mannequins could share?

The short, end-stopped L9 kind of sticks out for me, and makes me wonder if you should insert a stanza break after it. There seems to be shift here anyway.

I'm not sure of that final exclamation mark, and why it's there -- what it's communicating.

I'm also wondering a little at "sneaks". I may be thrown here because in the UK, it does, as Joe says, have the sense of someone who tells tales, informs on others. In US, according to Merriam Webster, it also seems to have a pejorative sense: "a person who acts in a stealthy, furtive, or shifty manner". There's also "sneaky" meaning sly, underhand. But I guess it's apt in the sense that they are deceptive, sly, because they look like humans but aren't?

best,

Matt

[John Riley]

Thanks, Joe and Matt, as usual I keep suggestions for later revisions. I’m sure I’ll return to it.

[James Midgley]

Hi John,

I've been reading and enjoying this inanimate Gatsbyesque since it was posted.

I agree with others that 'sneaks' doesn't land satisfyingly -- I'm not sure what about the mannequins qualifies them as sneaks, which suggests to me they're up to something or other nefarious or cowardly.

I'm also in favour of losing the exclamation marks from the exclamations.

Last, I feel the poem takes too long to arrive at its second sentence. That prior sentence is too stuffed with clauses for me and the poem feels as if it's beginning to spin its wheels. There are various candidates for culling, but I'd look especially at the 'no fleeting thoughts...seen' and perhaps some of what immediately precedes it.

Nice poem. Thanks for posting.

[David Callin]

I like this a lot, John. And I don't mind the exclamation marks at all. What I seem to be getting out of it is how like the mannequins we are, rather than the other way around. I think it lands very well.

Cheers

David