Moonless Delusions

[zahrakh]

(Confusing? Do tell me the problems in it. And if you liked anything about it. And I don't mind harsh critique )

In a moonless winter night,
Standing against a weathered wall,
Below a lonely street lamp's light,
I watched, transfixed,
Shades of life being mixed,
On that dimly lit street,
As if it were a canvas,
On which my thoughts were painting,
Their art of madness,
With brushes of memories, wishes and fears.
In that moonless winter night,
Standing against a weathered wall,
The shapes I painted with my thoughts,
Saw them slowly coming to life,
Below that lonely street lamp's light,
And I stood watching, transfixed,
With Reality, illusions being mixed,
On that dimly lit street,
That had now turned into a stage,
Where a ghostly opera, was being played,
By shadows, of spirits strayed,
Shadows familiar, but somewhat alien,
Each from a different dimension,
Floating and dancing in an unearthly fashion,
In uncanny tones they spoke and sang,
Teasing and negating each other,
Though to my ears didn't reach their voices,
But they did, to my mind
Or perhaps it was the source itself,
Of all this artful madness,
Which went on rising,
Till the last moment,
Of that lonely winter night.
As with the first ray of sun,
The stage disappeared,
Behind curtains of reality,
I walked to seek in my world of light,
Some traces of truth and sanity.

[billy]

there's a poem in there but you've buried it under cliche.
try not to use cliche.
the end rhymes in many places feel forced and are predictable. beside the fact that the rhymes scheme is neither here or there. chose rhyming of non rhyming. a lot it could be trimmed away. imagine it's a bonsai tree. and you're just starting out with the scissors; use them wisely but use them often.

(Confusing? Do tell me the problems in it. And if you liked anything about it. And I don't mind harsh critique )

In a moonless winter night,
Standing against a weathered wall,
Below a lonely street lamp's light,
I watched, transfixed,
Shades of life being mixed,
On that dimly lit street,
As if it were a canvas, why as if, take it up a notch [it was a canvass]
On which my thoughts were painting, painted
Their art of madness,
With brushes of memories, wishes and fears.
In that moonless winter night,
Standing against a weathered wall,
The shapes I painted with my thoughts,
Saw them slowly coming to life,
Below that lonely street lamp's light,
And I stood watching, transfixed,
With Reality, illusions being mixed,
On that dimly lit street,
That had now turned into a stage,
Where a ghostly opera, was being played,
By shadows, of spirits strayed,
Shadows familiar, but somewhat alien,
Each from a different dimension,
Floating and dancing in an unearthly fashion,
In uncanny tones they spoke and sang,
Teasing and negating each other,
Though to my ears didn't reach their voices,
But they did, to my mind
Or perhaps it was the source itself,
Of all this artful madness,
Which went on rising,
Till the last moment,
Of that lonely winter night.
As with the first ray of sun,
The stage disappeared,
Behind curtains of reality,
I walked to seek in my world of light,
Some traces of truth and sanity.

[cidermaid]

Hi,
This poem wasn't confusing as such, the basic image / story line is a rich vein of potential but it needs to be brought into focus.
I found the repetition and the aimless wandering style of the text distracting so that i wanted to speed read to find the meat of it.
I would suggest breaking this down into smaller blocks of text (that perhaps contain just one image / idea) and then condense and trim those lines down into a consise thought, then rework this image into the plot.
Try to avoid repeating a word and think about using puctuation to offer your reader some breathing time.
Hope these comments help
I have made some suggested breaks in the text to show where i thought the ideas broke into different images.

All the best AJ.

(Confusing? Do tell me the problems in it. And if you liked anything about it. And I don't mind harsh critique )

In a moonless winter night,
Standing against a weathered wall,
Below a lonely street lamp's light,
I watched, transfixed,
Shades of life being mixed,
On that dimly lit street,
As if it were a canvas,
On which my thoughts were painting,
Their art of madness,
With brushes of memories, wishes and fears.


In that moonless winter night,
Standing against a weathered wall,
The shapes I painted with my thoughts,
Saw them slowly coming to life,

Below that lonely street lamp's light,
And I stood watching, transfixed,
With Reality, illusions being mixed,
On that dimly lit street,
That had now turned into a stage,

Where a ghostly opera, was being played,
By shadows, of spirits strayed,
Shadows familiar, but somewhat alien,
Each from a different dimension,
Floating and dancing in an unearthly fashion,
In uncanny tones they spoke and sang,

Teasing and negating each other,
Though to my ears didn't reach their voices,
But they did, to my mind
Or perhaps it was the source itself,
Of all this artful madness,
Which went on rising,
Till the last moment,
Of that lonely winter night.

As with the first ray of sun,
The stage disappeared,
Behind curtains of reality,
I walked to seek in my world of light,
Some traces of truth and sanity.

[Mwaba don]

when i started reading your i thought your poem was going to have a consistent rhyming pattern as that of the first part of your poem but then it kept on changing. At times consistence makes the poem even much better. Overall it is a nice poem

[QDeathstar]

In a moonless winter night, it starts off ok. I can get into to this
Standing against a weathered wall, weathered wall is ok, but standing against is boring.  I like when poems dedicate their words toward creating a consistent mood, i dont think this poem does that.
Below a lonely street lamp's light,poetry is more than alliteration.
I watched, transfixed, why are you transfixed, are you transfixed so life can be mixed?
Shades of life being mixed,
On that dimly lit street, why did you switch point of view here? you've disconnected yourself from the street. Your standing on the street, not that street
As if it were a canvas,
On which my thoughts were painting, this is needlessly wordy. Also, the sentence doesnt make any sene. "I watched shades of life being mixed on that dimly lit street, as if it were a canvas????  As if what was a canvas?
Their art of madness, again, who is their?
With brushes of memories, wishes and fears. i like this idea, i think you could expand upon it
In that moonless winter night, i think that this could be a new stanza
Standing against a weathered wall,
The shapes I painted with my thoughts,
Saw them slowly coming to life, ? this is awkward, i think i know what your trying to say, but it doesn't add anything to the poem to be grammatically incorrect here. "my thoughts painted shapes against the wall, which slowly came to life and began to crawl"
Below that lonely street lamp's light,
And I stood watching, transfixed,
With Reality, illusions being mixed, why is reality capitalized? also, i think illusion is a poor word choice.
On that dimly lit street,
That had now turned into a stage,
Where a ghostly opera, was being played, how did we get here?
By shadows, of spirits strayed,
Shadows familiar, but somewhat alien,
Each from a different dimension,
Floating and dancing in an unearthly fashion,
In uncanny tones they spoke and sang,
Teasing and negating each other,
Though to my ears didn't reach their voices,
But they did, to my mind
Or perhaps it was the source itself,
Of all this artful madness,
Which went on rising,
Till the last moment,
Of that lonely winter night.
As with the first ray of sun,
The stage disappeared,
Behind curtains of reality,
I walked to seek in my world of light,
Some traces of truth and sanity.

hopefully i gave you a few things to consider....

[Erthona]

Don't start every line with a capitol, only the ones that start a sentence. The way it is now, makes it difficult to read.

"Below a lonely street lamp's light," How can a lamp's light be lonely?

"I watched, transfixed".  Tense is incorrect, should be "I watch (no comma) transfixed". The first three lines are in present tense.

"In a moonless winter night,
Standing against a weathered wall,
Below a lonely street lamp's light,"

I am standing against a weathered wall
on a moonless winter's night,
down the road I see a lonely street lamp,
casting a faint yellowish circle on the cobblestones> (or whatever your material of choice.

I'm all for terseness, but there is nothing here that deserves it, especially as this is a narrative. The reader has to see through the speaker's eyes, don't make the reader have to guess about what is being seen. Slicing it up only makes it more unclear, not poetic.


Dale