Pain and Beauty

[Mikeodial]

Pain and Beauty

Searing shards of agony tear my heart apart,
Word swords are exchanged,
slashing and bleeding,
bleeding and slashing,
Until eventually, violence erupts, replacing anger with regret, finally.

To sit alone and endure,
the sharp words from those who know nothing of me,
incite mosquito bites of summer,
unknowing,
but in need of blood from another living soul.

Your thrusts are not the same.
You know me; I thought you loved me,
Do you love me?
How can you say such things if you do?
Is it to hurt me, or just to say something that will penetrate my bug repellent?

So now we sit,
exhausted,
covered in blood and tears,
finding bandages and warm water to nurse wounds opened many times,
with scars on scars, on scars.
Enough.




If only the thoughts didn’t do their daily work-out,
working their way free from the bondage of niggle to irritation,
then climaxing with my bad desire to communicate—to tell you how I feel about that habit or the dress that makes you look like grandma.
Why did you set me off?
Or did I set me off?

Meanwhile Lucifer,
now old; tired of revolving heads and horror movie re-runs, works diligently behind a newfound curtain.
Facebook and textifying,
Twittering and emailage,
ohhhh these new means of fear and disturbance,
All packaged up in something that can do good.
But so much evil as well.
The perfect disguise!

Relationships destroyed by a single text message,
embarrassing photos of a long forgotten misstep,
families separated when once adjoined.
All in the god of Social Networking.
If he could rejoice, he would!
10 points to the Pain team. Thank you.
 

But then we reflect,
taking minutes or years to see what pain is inflicted,
Where we are hurt, where we have hurt,
And gradually, sometimes over an ages a mist is lifted from this dreadfulness,
revealing a house on the lake, as dawn rises.
The home of forgiveness, where everyone is invited, and everyone rests.

So now, the pain is gone, and so is the scar, as if a miracle.
Of which it is.
The miracle of love, eventually all scars are gone,
Now I am beauty itself, not made by me, but by another.
It’s not the skin I see,
but below,
not blood,
or vessels,
or muscles,
but me.
The inner me that God made,
and I made only by letting Him mold me.

He is beauty; and pain made me beautiful, to Him and to some others.
Even if they still see the scars,
they are gone.
Just memories of a time when I wanted to hurt,
or be hurt.
How selfish is that.
For beauty is selfless.
For Beauty is God.

[rowens]

You have a lot of ideas, and they could all work in one poem. This poem could work, but it doesn't. There's just too much of something. Too much drivel, I think. Cut back on some of that and the whole poem might work a little better.

[Glittercake]

To me, it just seems like there's too much other subject matter. The poem could stand out more, and be more profound if it had less. Remember less is more, and you could understand it better if there was less extra information. Try to make it more to the point, and it will flow better.

All in all I do like this poem, it just seems like a little much.

[Mikeodial]

Revised Edit #1

Shortened and simplified ... awaiting feedback. Thanks for the input.

Pain and Beauty

Pain and Beauty
Searing shards of agony tear my heart apart,
Word swords are exchanged,
slashing and bleeding,
bleeding and slashing,
Until eventually, violence erupts, replacing anger with regret, finally.

So now we sit,
exhausted,
covered in blood and tears,
finding bandages and warm water to nurse wounds opened many times,
with scars on scars, on scars.
Enough.

But reflecting,
minutes or years to see what pain inflicts,
Where we hurt, or we have hurt,
And gradually, a mist is lifted from this dreadfulness,
revealing a house on the lake, visible as dawn rises.
The home of forgiveness,
where everyone is invited,
and everyone rests.

So now, the pain is gone, and so is its scar, a disappearing miracle.
The miracle of love, erasing all scars,
Leaving beauty itself, not made by me, but by another.
It’s not the skin I see,
but below,
not blood,
or vessels,
or muscles,
but me.
The inner me that God made,
and I made only by letting Him mold me.

He is beauty; and pain made me beautiful, to Him and to some others.
For beauty is selfless.
For Beauty is God.

To me, it just seems like there's too much other subject matter. The poem could stand out more, and be more profound if it had less. Remember less is more, and you could understand it better if there was less extra information. Try to make it more to the point, and it will flow better.

All in all I do like this poem, it just seems like a little much.

[rowens]

The poem is more concise now. But I think you got rid of the best parts. It's your poem, and so I guess you kept what you felt to be the heart or core of it. But what I thought most interesting is what you cut out.


If only the thoughts didn’t do their daily work-out,
working their way free from the bondage of niggle to irritation,
then climaxing with my bad desire to communicate—to tell you how I feel about that habit or the dress that makes you look like grandma.
Why did you set me off?
Or did I set me off?

Meanwhile Lucifer,
now old; tired of revolving heads and horror movie re-runs, works diligently behind a newfound curtain.
Facebook and textifying,
Twittering and emailage,
ohhhh these new means of fear and disturbance,
All packaged up in something that can do good.
But so much evil as well.
The perfect disguise!

Relationships destroyed by a single text message,
embarrassing photos of a long forgotten misstep,
families separated when once adjoined.
All in the god of Social Networking.
If he could rejoice, he would!
10 points to the Pain team. Thank you.
 

There's still a lot to play around with in these ideas. Most of the rest of the poem was what I referred to as drivel, because it's the same old, same old. That stuff isn't very lively. It's rehashed again and again. Though you could make new separate poems out of many of the images you cut out of this one.

[ellajam]

Hi, Mike, I was about to post about the original when I noticed your edit. Here's the site's suggestion on how to post an edit.

I think the poem suffers from some of your cuts. I found the mosquito coming around to the bug repellant interesting. I liked the inclusion of social media and how it can effect relationships.

I think the poem might be better served by going through each line to see what you can cut than by eliminating whole sections.

I also can't figure out the italics. I think if you strengthen and clarify your words they will do the job themselves.

Of course, just my opinion, your poem.

[Mikeodial]

Hi, Mike, I was about to post about the original when I noticed your edit. Here's the site's suggestion on how to post an edit.

I think the poem suffers from some of your cuts. I found the mosquito coming around to the bug repellant interesting. I liked the inclusion of social media and how it can effect relationships.

I think the poem might be better served by going through each line to see what you can cut than by eliminating whole sections.

I also can't figure out the italics. I think if you strengthen and clarify your words they will do the job themselves.

Of course, just my opinion, your poem.

Thank you for the feedback. I will relook at this poem again this week.

[billy]

in places it tries too hard. and in other places not hard enough. the first line feels forced and verging on cliche. this is where i see you trying to hard to be poetic. it does have an image attached though which is a plus (almost)

in general it's a voice over where the poet tells us a story but doesn't give us anything solid. we're talked through the strife instead of being shown it. a suggestion would be to reel the poem back and cut out and replace things along this theme;

Searing shards of agony tear my heart apart,
Word swords are exchanged,
slashing and bleeding,
bleeding and slashing,
Until eventually, violence erupts, replacing anger with regret, finally.

with something that will hold the reader's attention for more than a few seconds

mostly, torn hearts are a put off, they've been overly used

Pain and Beauty

Searing shards of agony tear my heart apart,
Word swords are exchanged,
slashing and bleeding,
bleeding and slashing,
Until eventually, violence erupts, replacing anger with regret, finally.

To sit alone and endure,
the sharp words from those who know nothing of me,
incite mosquito bites of summer,
unknowing,
but in need of blood from another living soul.

Your thrusts are not the same.
You know me; I thought you loved me,
Do you love me?
How can you say such things if you do? 4 lines that are very weak
Is it to hurt me, or just to say something that will penetrate my bug repellent?

So now we sit,
exhausted,
covered in blood and tears,
finding bandages and warm water to nurse wounds opened many times,
with scars on scars, on scars.
Enough.




If only the thoughts didn’t do their daily work-out,
working their way free from the bondage of niggle to irritation,
then climaxing with my bad desire to communicate—to tell you how I feel about that habit or the dress that makes you look like grandma.
Why did you set me off?
Or did I set me off?

Meanwhile Lucifer,
now old; tired of revolving heads and horror movie re-runs, works diligently behind a newfound curtain.
Facebook and textifying,
Twittering and emailage,
ohhhh these new means of fear and disturbance,
All packaged up in something that can do good.
But so much evil as well.
The perfect disguise!

Relationships destroyed by a single text message,
embarrassing photos of a long forgotten misstep,
families separated when once adjoined.
All in the god of Social Networking.
If he could rejoice, he would!
10 points to the Pain team. Thank you.
 

But then we reflect,
taking minutes or years to see what pain is inflicted,
Where we are hurt, where we have hurt,
And gradually, sometimes over an ages a mist is lifted from this dreadfulness,
revealing a house on the lake, as dawn rises.
The home of forgiveness, where everyone is invited, and everyone rests.

So now, the pain is gone, and so is the scar, as if a miracle.
Of which it is.
The miracle of love, eventually all scars are gone,
Now I am beauty itself, not made by me, but by another.
It’s not the skin I see,
but below,
not blood,
or vessels,
or muscles,
but me.
The inner me that God made,
and I made only by letting Him mold me.

He is beauty; and pain made me beautiful, to Him and to some others.
Even if they still see the scars,
they are gone.
Just memories of a time when I wanted to hurt,
or be hurt.
How selfish is that.
For beauty is selfless.
For Beauty is God.