Pickle Jar

[hexed night]

Spritz of fizz
In a glassy casing;
New to sour the old;
Stronghold to hold it whole
With a holeless cap;
Solid atop fluid;
Twisted tight to twist the light:

A glossy gleam of grassy green
Turned fickle — grey
With the reminiscence
Of a mossy corpse: pickled.

Mindless clockwork crowds of air
Flit betwixt:

Glass on rot,
Skin on flesh.

@pale grail

@pale pagoda

[pale grail]

Oo

I see some cool metaphors here and there

I wanna know your version of the interpretation:3

[hexed night]

grr gimme yours first

i prefer correcting to outright telling

[worn atlas]

I like thisss, very abstract it’s really making me think but I’ll give my best shot at interpreting it. Okay so the first stanza I think is saying that something new is going into an environment (the new thing being the spritz of fizz) and the new is ‘souring’ the old, or more specifically, the new
shows what is possible to obtain, and through comparison (what is often known as the ‘theif of joy’) makes the old seem bad. The holeless cap I think means that their IS NO cap, as in, their will always be something better to “twist the light” (to make one thing appear better than the other) and the “solid atop a fluid” just shows something solid, that didn’t change (the old). And the fluid is the change, or the new thing.
I think the second stanza is to provide more imagery of how this old thing is now seen as bad, when just before this ‘mindless clockwork’ (the time passing and the new thing being made), the old thing was seen as beautiful.
And the final stanza really ties it all together, saying that the glass (the new thing perhaps?) shows the old as rot, and the skin on flesh shows that they are the similar things just seen differently, as flesh is basically just skin but with a more negative connotation. How did this interpretation sound to you? I’m also curious what your actual intent was and I’d love to hear it!

[icy obsidian]

Wonderful! @worn atlas has just pregressed to level 6!

[hexed night]

this is so interesting thank you so much for the in depth interpretation

[hexed night]

my original theme in mind when writing was, in a few words, "being negatively changed because of the inescapable environment you've found yourself trapped in."

as you might know, a pickle jar consists of a glass jar, a solid lid, vinegar and obviously a pickle.

the "spritz of fizz" and "mindless clockwork crowds of air" describe the vinegar, which is a metaphor for the negative environment itself :) it's the thing which distorts whatever is exposed to it for long enough :3

the "glassy casing" is of course the jar itself, and it's maybe not so clear, but to me it represents both the entrapment and the exposure of something so ugly brewing within. the "holeless cap" actually does represent a cap to reinforce the inescapable nature of the situation, and i used "twist" as a double meaning for the lid being fastened tightly AND it aiding in the distortion and the "twisted" nature of the new pickle.

obviously we have the pickle itself but the second stanza exists to show that this used to be a bright, vibrant cucumber and has now been reduced to a "fickle" and "grey" version of itself, a "mossy corpse" as i say.

"Glass on rot,
Skin on flesh." is to highlight the fact that this isn't just describing a pickle jar, but that it is a metaphor for trauma. the comparison here is intended to liken the glass jar to skin (fragile and easy to see through) and the cucumber/pickle to flesh ("flesh" referring to your inner self.) in other words, people are changed within in the same way as a pickle when they brew in the same traumatic situation for a prolonged amount if time, and it is not hard to see if you just peer past their glass front.

i hope this made sense 😭

in short,

• cucumber/pickle represents the changed individual

• the jar represents skin

• the lid represents the inescapable nature

• the vinegar represents the trauma itself

[worn atlas]

OHHH very cool i see what you were trying to convey. I love it!! Very abstract. Good job!!

[hexed night]

thank you sm!! im obsessed with the kind of metaphor within a metaphor, where you're alluding to something which alludes to something else

here, i allude to a pickle jar, which is a pretty easy surface level interpretation, but the pickle jar alludes to trauma

[worn atlas]

I’ve got to try a double metaphor some time 🙏 that’s so sick

[hexed night]

you should it's so fun

[worn atlas]

If you ever post any poems your proud of and want some interpretations feel free to ping me in them and I’ll get to them when I get some time!! I love doing that kind of thing

[hexed night]

thank you!! my last poem before i left a monthish ago is https://discord.com/channels/944439929734312006/1299499644333850755 if you're interested

is a little longer, not much

[worn atlas]

Bett, I’ll get around to it when I have some time. Maybe soon maybe not just depends how I’m feeling

[hexed night]

take your time haha

[icy obsidian]

Wonderful! @regal rampart has just pregressed to level 6!

[hexed night]

haha sorry 😭😭 if you scroll up a little from here i have an in depth explanation!

oh? i apologise if you didn't like it

huh, I'll definitely take your opinion on board but i know that a lot of others had a very opposite thing to say so maybe it just didn't resonate with you :) thank you for reading and replying nonetheless !

[cold hound]

Huh this was a fun read, I really liked it!

[hexed night]

thank you!!