Hi

[NobodyNothing]

Hi there! Well done for posting your work! There are elements to your poem that I liked - sonnets are a constrictive form so well done for keeping with the rhyme scheme. One piece of advice would be to consider reworking the lines into iambic pentameter, as traditional for sonnets and will give the poem a sense of rhythm

The first stanza is a little abstract - what is the significance of the 'empty spaces'? This idea could be developed.
The same with 'familiar disentwines' - nice language, but a little confusing.
What does the addressee 'find'? If this idea is not going to be developed in the poem, it might as well be omitted.

I liked the simplicity of the second verse - one element I would suggest rethinking is the personification of 'love' - it's a bit cliché.

'I visit death upon your lips' has a gothic quality to it, which could be seen as a little overdramatic by itself. However, if you decided to develop this idea, it could be great - how does the narrator visit death? Do they feel as if they are standing at the crossroads of heaven and hell? What does death taste like? How can death be visited - isn't there a risk when hanging out with death?
'sorrow in your eyes' - also a bit cliché - how about something outside the box, such as 'the years in the creases beneath those eyes' which takes the same idea but expresses it in a slightly less predictable way? Play around with your lines, experiment with expression

'Sensuous grace' though lovely regal language, also a bit abstract. I really liked the idea of sweetness in your aftertaste though - I thought that ended the poem in with an effective, bittersweet tone.

Overall, well done! I really liked that you wrote a sonnet, and there are some good ideas in it - maybe too many ideas! My advice would be for you to select a few elements and express them in a clearer, more detailed and specific way.

All the best, good luck with your writing!

Hi. That was nice of you to read and respond. Terribly enough, I don't know what iambic means. lol I'll have to finally look it up. I was playing with sonnets by writing sonnets in 6-7-8-9-10 syllable lines (I got into Mallarme's playing with shorter sonnet forms). This one was written in 8 syllable lines, if that makes sense.

The poem was just a simple attempt at a love and death poem, how when you love someone you embrace their death. The first line was an attempt to express death in a different way...

When you breathe fresh empty spaces...

The next line...

And our familiar disentwines...

...was just a way of saying the life you built up in common is gone. And then...

In the handfuls of your traces...

...was just a way of expressing things like going through one's dead love's clothes and the like...their stuff.

I'll hold no claim to what you find...

I don't know...just a way of saying just as you couldn't possess this person in this life, neither the next, and as to what they find in death...who knows?

Yeah, maybe too abstract, but that was what was behind the opening stanza.

The...

I visit death upon your lips...

...yes, Gothic quality for sure...as in kissing one's love is kissing their death in a very real sense, don't you think? As to what death tastes like, it tastes like sorrow, does it not? In this case, it's the salty taste of the lover's tear that reaches the lips during the kiss. The tears in her eyes, or sorrow brimming in her eyes is her recognition he truly loves her in that moment, that he is truly there for her in life and death in that moment...that his willingness to...

Resist a thousand alibis...

...or excuses or what not for truly loving her and all that might entail, even the stark reality of its loss. I guess...

The sweetness in your aftertaste...

...was this recognition on his part that she realized all of this, all this strength and vulnerability in this single kiss, the whole poem being what took place in a single kiss.

Anyway...that's what I was trying to do. Obviously not too successfully. LOL

Thank you so much for your thoughts, constructive criticism, and kind encouragement.

Best to you my friend.