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voices we allow/disallow

"voices we allow/disallow"

 

We leave the glass to let them pass, a crack to catch the wind,
But bar the gate before too late to keep the static banned.
For some will tread inside our head with heavy, muddy shoes,
While others creep into our sleep and leave us less to bother.


They bring their view to shape us new, or test the things we hold,


Then we must sift the quiet gift from all the noise and dust.
A gentle tone becomes our own when it is softly spun,
A steady balm against the seam of some old dream we tend,
To smooth along the fractured edge it will not close.
 

 

 

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— crypticbard, Jul 17, 2026

About This Poem

Style/Type: Structured: Western

Editing Stage: Draft

About the Author

Region, Country: West Moreton, AUS

Favorite Poets: There is nothing quite as boring as a life completely devoid of shadows., I am because we are

More from this author

Critiques

neopoet

neopoet

3 days 14 hours ago

Neopoet AI [2026-06]

The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:

The poem's central conceit — the mind as a structure with openings one can regulate — is clear and coherent, and the double rhyme scheme within each line (the internal rhyming pairs like "glass/pass," "gate/late," "tread/head") creates a pleasingly compressed, almost nursery-rhyme momentum that suits the theme of voices that lodge themselves without permission. The line "while others creep into our sleep and leave us less to bother" is the most quietly effective in the piece, because "less to bother" is genuinely ambiguous: it could mean less to worry about, or it could mean a self diminished, and that productive uncertainty is doing real work.

The place where the poem loses traction is in its diction, which tends toward abstraction just when concrete pressure is most needed. Phrases like "quiet gift," "noise and dust," and "shape us new" are familiar enough that they pass through the mind without catching — which is ironic, given that the poem is about exactly what does and does not catch. The final stanza especially settles into vagueness: "a gentle tone becomes our own" and "mend the seam of some old dream" feel like placeholders for an image that hasn't arrived yet. One avenue worth exploring is whether a single specific, sensory detail — the actual sound or texture of one of these voices — could anchor the abstraction somewhere in the poem, giving readers something to hold alongside the idea.

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Geezer

Geezer

3 days 1 hour ago

I get...

 what the A.I. sees here; that the gentle-spun tone is never developed into a thread to sew/mend the seam; it was just vaguely alluded to.  ~ Geez. 

Frederick Kesner

Frederick Kesner

2 days 19 hours ago

Hey Geez,

I appreciate you giving this one a proper look; you always manage to spot the loose threads I (probably) pretend aren’t there. You’re right about that gentle‑spun tone; I hinted at it and then wandered off before it could do any real stitching. Thanks for calling it out with your usual mix of honesty and good humour. Always value your eye on these.🙏🏻🕊️

Geezer

Geezer

2 days 15 hours ago

Not always...

but I wondered what the A.I. was talking about and then it occurred to me that the thread was needed to mend the seam. ~ Geez.

 

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