Review of Derek Salisbury's poems 9/12

Derek:

In both your poems, “Scrubbing a Hardwood Floor” and “Temptation Has a Beautiful Face” you have compelling, intriguing scenarios that you use to your advantage to draw the reader into your world. You open “Scrubbing” (good title, by the way), with the unusual image of leaving “trails of blood behind us” on the dance floor. I like that, because it leaves open so many possibilities – I thought of dancing so hard and in such a crowd that you literally get bloody, but in a good way, like “this show kicks ass!” Boom! It reminds me of the way the old Chili Peppers and Fishbone shows of the 80’s would get (I’m dating myself, I know). That’s good. And then you pick it up again at the end with some nice lines: “soma gone bad” and the repeated “so fragile.”
All right. The poem got a little clunky for me in the middle, primarily because of the reliance on cliché or tired expressions. So in the future, D, really strive to use fresh language, language that comes from you, from your heart. Real words that sound like they’re coming from your sweat, your blood. Be specific. This is the kind of poem that we should be able to taste – and it should be salty.
I feel similarly about “Temptation” (although I don’t like the title here. I think “On the Bus to Port Coquitlam” would be an awesome title). You’ve got an intriguing image with the “compliments like shrieking trumpets and melodies from a wonderfully out of tune piano.” That’s nice, and you follow it with the dancer “caressing my thigh” on the bus. Perfect material for a poem, and I think your poem would be served better by having the bus image move to the front of the opening. It would allow us to have a context for the poem. Right now you’ve got some vague dragon’s wings imagery trying to get our attention when a real scene from the bus to Port Coquitlam would kill us there.
OK. There are some other good lines here: “color of clashing brass”; “driver would have raised an eyebrow and ruined the color”; vein shot is just playing dead.” These are interesting and vivid. What the poem needs most of all for me is a kind of “narrative thread” to keep me clear throughout. Now I’m not saying that it all has to be spelled out. This seems like a kind of surreal night, for sure. But look at how someone like Rimbaud can (or can’t) keep us with him as he travels down some weird paths. What you want to make clear, or keep clear, is the movement of the poet, of you or your subject here.
And again look for real details to include, particularly comparisons. You have a line here, “She smelled like the Appalachian air of home: that is down on its knees begging for a comparison, but you never give it to us. Keep your eyes out for those places as you revise your work. Those are the poet’s goldmines, the places where the pick and shovel come out and some real, backstiff work can get done.
All right, Derek. You’ve got a bunch of material to mine there. Just keep bringing t up to the surface and washing it in the river. It will shine.