your hands (version 2ish)

[billy]

because I did not lift my face,
I watched your hands, arms, your elbows, bent and resting lightly on your thighs,
and I watched the floor,
but mostly I watched your hands.

i miss the my feet part which imparted a shyness to match the lowered head.

I saw the line that suggests a creative lover,
the one that shows a clever mind, imagination, and
the mound by your thumb that may indicate passion. may feels weak

as we spoke, I saw meanings in their shapes, and
on the floor, I watched our shadows, made from street and candle light in a darkened room
flicker and entwine. i preferred the original version.

you stood, you smiled and then your arms embraced me,
and held on until I let go of you. much weaker than the original. feels like excess wordage

then I was on my way, casting my own shadows,
regarding my own hands. again it feels weaker than the original.

i look at this version and see a different poem, not a shoddy poem mind but it doesn't read like an edit of the last poem.

the beginning has merit as an edit then it seems to lose that core that was strung throughout the original. you feel like you lost the innocence and want and shy urgency of the thing.

i don't think the line length changes helped that much because it looks like you felt the need to also add verbiage in order to keep a viable size poem.

sometimes white space adds more than any words could. the original had that feel or reading between the lines, between the words.

maybe a little bit of this and whole lot of that?

the problem we all have when we get feedback is that we get a lot of it and we think, yeah that would work, and mm that would work and that's all we think about...how to change it...we miss the fact that we could possibly be losing the essence of the damn thing.

i really enjoyed the original, while i like and enjoy this version, it's not the same poem.