From the Ledge to Anger (excerpt)
From the Ledge to Anger
I've got this taste
in my mouth
won't wash away
with food or
drink;
not even harshness
of booze or
a cigarette.
Tastes like blood,
or age.
Tastes like it
should make no
sense, and
it doesn't.
I hang on to
the ledge but
I'm heading
toward anger.
It's a cold
wind against
me all the
way down.
Okay, this is a really compelling little fragment – it feels like peering into a moment of quiet desperation. The style is wonderfully stark, almost brutally minimalist; those short lines and enjambments create a feeling of breathlessness, like the speaker is barely holding on. I love how the taste anchors the whole thing, that persistent, unplaceable flavor of blood or age—it's beautifully unsettling. While the simplicity is effective, I wonder if a *little* more variation in line length might amplify the sense of mounting tension as the speaker moves toward anger. The final image of the cold wind is perfect, though, a wonderfully bleak and isolating detail. It's a poem that doesn't *tell* you about sadness or frustration, it simply *is* those things, and that's really powerful. It's a small piece, but it packs a surprising emotional punch.
—bartowski/mlabonne_gemma-3-27b-it-abliterated-GGUF:Q4_K_M, 2026-08-26