the love i feel
as i gaze at something without a heartbeat
both frightens and comforts me to no end.
the pain i feel
as i conquer the world alone
is too much to bear.
thoughts
a force so strong they bruise my delicate nature.
the love i feel
cannot technically reciprocate
yet i feel a solace i haven't found in years.
i find luxury in seclusion
when my mind is able to breathe
and my thoughts are somehow set free.
this, i cannot find
in human companionship.
the love i feel
is not for an object,
but for a feeling.
it is only while i am alone
that i can bare my naked self.
the love i feel
is impossible when others are present.
my lungs are crippled
but my mind is somehow calm
when i accept that i will never be able to express
the type of love i am capable of feeling.
(12-15-2015, 02:14 AM)enigmaticexistence Wrote: [ -> ]the love i feel
as i gaze at something without a heartbeat. .... cues 'dead' instead of 'non living'. Slightly confusing
both frightens and comforts me to no end. ........'no end' = cliche
the pain i feel
as i conquer the world alone
is too much to bear.
thoughts
a force so strong they bruise my delicate nature. ...... Need an "are" at the beginning or something equivalent. All of your others sentences are statements bar this one.
the love i feel
cannot technically reciprocate ..... "Technically" not needed as it is obvious
yet i feel a solace i haven't found in years.
i find luxury in seclusion
when my mind is able to breathe ...... The sudden personification of the mind is abrupt
and my thoughts are somehow set free.
this, i cannot find
in human companionship.
the love i feel
is not for an object,
but for a feeling.
it is only while i am alone
that i can bare my naked self.
the love i feel
is impossible when others are present.
my lungs are crippled ....... Didn't understand this. Unless it's from the POV of someone with cripples lungs, it's an odd choice of phrase. If you mean " I want to shout but I can't express myself" you'll need to write it differently.
but my mind is somehow calm
when i accept that i will never be able to express
the type of love i am capable of feeling.
Even though the meter is irregular in this poem it never jars, so you've got that one right.
The understated style is nice.
However, as it stands, the poem is simply a series of statements about how you feel. To make it interesting, you will have to make the reader feel the love for inanimate things.
Good start.
Just a few quick notes.
"the love i feel as i gaze at something without a heartbeat both frightens and comforts me to no end."
Not really sure how one gazes at something without a heartbeat and emotionally responds to it.
"comforts me to no end." is about as cliché as one can get.
Just because it is poetry does not mean one can avoid the clarity that the use of grammar provides, as well as punctuation, unless there is an extremely good reason. Unless one can demonstrate why an "i" should not be capitalized, then it is simply affectation. An unfortunate manifestation similar to center justify.
I have to speak on this one line, then I will stop, "a force so strong they bruise my delicate nature". This is so over the top melodramatically it is impossible to take it seriously.
Don't take this as major critique, we have all had to learn these things.
Best,
Dale
ah. well thank you for the feedback. this is my first poem ever, and i know i have a ton to learn. i appreciate it!
Hello there!
I had trouble following the first half of the poem due to the vague-ness and lack of concrete imagery. "As I gaze at something without a heartbeat" that line perked my interest, and I wanted to hear more description of it (because I had no idea what the "something" was.) I may (probably) be misinterpreting, but your last lines "when I accept that I will never be able to express the type of love I am capable of feeling) I feel like that just told me what your poem was about, when your poem should be doing that itself. My two cents, thanks for sharing!
I think this is perfect for a first poem. If you go on to write better stuff, you could stick this one in at the beginning (or end, if you're more timid) of a collection and based on the following poems people would find it enlightening. I don't think you should scrap this one or change a detail of it. You should use it as a starting point, and feed off of it and advance beyond it.
What I mean to say is that this poem works, for what it is, though it's somewhat a lightweight. I think that within the context of other poems, such as in a collection of your poetry, it could work as it is. But as a stand alone poem, it feels rather bare. It has a certain rhetorical rhythm, and seems close to the sentiment and posturing of the poem at the end of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. I think it's right on the verge of being something special, but remains only on the verge. I personally like the poem as it is, but if you were to only write poems like this you wouldn't really get anywhere. This is one of those situations where it would help to see other examples of your poetry to compare this one to, but since this may be the only poem you've ever written, that's not yet possible. I think its bare, thin style is an advantage, but it makes it difficult to offer suggestions on what to do with it without simply fluffing it up with more obvious poetic conventions.
I like that it's organized. Fear and comfort, to pain, to love, and then a conclusion. I also like your word choice, especially 'luxury' and 'companionship'. 'Bare' I feel is unnecessary while you have 'naked.'
The line "yet i feel a solace i haven't found in years." sounds a little strange because first you say you have the solace and immediately afterward you say you don't have it. Maybe 'hadn't' would be a better word choice. Then again, I'm partial to past tense.