The Void At My Side

[love apollon]

We sat around a glowing pit
Spit out from cherries
We chewed on the hemlines of
Each story told you not to leave me
Hear that sound? It's loud my heart
Beat in my chest of drawers you'll
Find a photo Left
Behind is how I felt the cold at my side.
 
When you stood up I looked to the stars in that void. 

A menacing thought train. 
One long chain of words to convey the spin of mind
when you are and aren't at my side.
 
You leave a void there...left a void there.
And it's cold and icy and makes me miss home.
Miss you, the home in you.
 
That stain on the curtains of your hearth...and heart.
It's like a water mark that lifts the fibers of the wooden
table your mother was so protective of. 
I fit in there, well I did. I used to fit in there.
Warm and happy in the evening light, basked in conversation.
 
But you stood up to go find drinks at another party,
drinks at another party with other parties. 
Left me here with this swirling void to the left of me. 
Attempting to absorb what's left of me.
 
Most would find it pathetic...but I miss you. I miss missing you. 
When you stand up to go find drinks. 

(Alex Brand [also Love Apollon] 2015)

[tectak]

We sat around a glowing pit
Spit out from cherries
We chewed on the hemlines of
Each story told you not to leave me
Hear that sound? It's loud my heart
Beat in my chest of drawers you'll
Find a photo Left
Behind is how I felt the cold at my side.
 
When you stood up I looked to the stars in that void. 

A menacing thought train. 
One long chain of words to convey the spin of mind
when you are and aren't at my side.
 
You leave a void there...left a void there.
And it's cold and icy and makes me miss home.
Miss you, the home in you.
 
That stain on the curtains of your hearth...and heart.
It's like a water mark that lifts the fibers of the wooden
table your mother was so protective of. 
I fit in there, well I did. I used to fit in there.
Warm and happy in the evening light, basked in conversation.
 
But you stood up to go find drinks at another party,
drinks at another party with other parties. 
Left me here with this swirling void to the left of me. 
Attempting to absorb what's left of me.
 
Most would find it pathetic...but I miss you. I miss missing you. 
When you stand up to go find drinks. 

(Alex Brand [also Love Apollon] 2015)

Hello apol,
It almost works...it really does. But it doesn't...and I think I know why. You have not paired poetic device with content. This would be an absorbing poem written "straight"...you know, boring old precise punctuation, no retro line start capitals, pride in the "free thought" links. It would also work as a quippy, cleverly (if unoriginal) quirky word-play piece. But not both.
Rather than a line by line I would happily wait to see which way you go. As it is, I am unable to decide how much of the piece is deliberate and how much accidental...and that's your fault, not mine
Best,
tectak

[love apollon]

I was attempting to write in the vignette style and was more concerned with sound and feeling as well as the use of repetition with a bit of alliteration. Are you suggesting a mere reformat? I appreciate the feedback but I fear I may be missing what exactly your suggestions are.


Thank you

[tectak]

I was attempting to write in the vignette style and was more concerned with sound and feeling as well as the use of repetition with a bit of alliteration. Are you suggesting a mere reformat? I appreciate the feedback but I fear I may be missing what exactly your suggestions are.


Thank you

Clarity. That is all I am suggesting. Your comment on the "vignette style" puzzles me. The idea of a vignette is the encapsulation of a single thought, small enough to "write on a vine leaf". The form you choose is often used in comedy sketches where innuendo on innuendo goes line by line, as in Dinah Shore's "censored" rhyme, "Sweet Violets"

There once was a farmer who took a young miss
In back of the barn where he gave her a...
Lecture on horses and chickens and eggs
And told her that she had such beautiful...
Manners that suited a girl [etc.]

A "mere" reformatting is probably a good starting point.
Best,
tectak

[milo]

Hello and welcome to the pigpen.  For me, this mostly did not work.  The sentence structures were too often poor and/or awkward and the punctuation was sporadic and unhelpful.  The worst of it, for me though, was all of the cliches.  I tend to enjoy fresh, original language and cliches can be real poem killers.

We sat around a glowing pit
Spit out from cherries
We chewed on the hemlines of
Each story told you not to leave me
Hear that sound? It's loud my heart
Beat in my chest of drawers you'll
Find a photo Left
Behind is how I felt the cold at my side.

So, first stanza and there are some people sitting around a glowing cherry pit.  They are chewing on hemlines of something, but that part is never revealed.  i would mention the linebreaks throughout here, but just by mentioning them, i will feel obligated to mention others and, frankly, it would be a monumental task to fix all of them and probably not worth the effort for the poem at this point. Sentences like," It's loud my heart Beat in my chest of drawers you'll Find a photo Left Behind is how I felt the cold at my side." just don't make any sense at all.  

 
When you stood up I looked to the stars in that void. 

This line here is pretty good, possibly the sole redeeming feature in the whole mess.

A menacing thought train. 

menacing thought - cliche - thought train - cliche - put them together and you just have nonsensical cliche

One long chain of words to convey the spin of mind
when you are and aren't at my side.

sappy, ill-constructed, nonsense.  Put it in a country song after you clean it up.

 
You leave a void there...left a void there.
And it's cold and icy and makes me miss home.
Miss you, the home in you.

so, I would avoid putting strings of dots in poems.  It is a sure sign of hackneyed things to come.
 "leave a void, left a void, etc." = pop song cliche nonsense.
cold AND icy - even if we weren't in laughably hyperbolic pop song territory we would be in laughable tautologous pop-song territory.

 
That stain on the curtains of your hearth...and heart.

ugh, again with the strings of dots. curtains of your hearth(?!), hearth and heart - cliche

It's like a water mark that lifts the fibers of the wooden
table your mother was so protective of. 
I fit in there, well I did. I used to fit in there.

there = somewhere in your mind that you never bothered sharing with the reader.

Warm and happy in the evening light, basked in conversation.

"warm and happy" - laughing and out loud
"basked in conversation" might be somewhat salvageable in a different poem.

 
But you stood up to go find drinks at another party,
drinks at another party with other parties. 
Left me here with this swirling void to the left of me. 
Attempting to absorb what's left of me.
 
Most would find it pathetic...but I miss you. I miss missing you. 
When you stand up to go find drinks. 

(Alex Brand [also Love Apollon] 2015)

and, of course there is another string of dots to remind us that this is mostly a pile of hackneyed, poorly constructed sound bites taken from cliches and love songs.

i can't think of much positive to say about it.

Good luck.
Thanks for posting.

[love apollon]

why do you call it a string of dots when it has a name within grammar and punctuation (elipses) and denotes a pause within speech.
I won't defend the mess of this poem which is why i shared it for critique (which i do appreciate your thorough inspection). I especially despise the first "stanza"
most notably the last run-on sentence you mentioned. I was attempting to convey the feelings of anxiety when one's mind rambles on about love lossed and feelings of loneliness. It wasn't necessarily supposed to be comprehendable but to leave the reader with a sense of confusion that i hoped I could clear up in the body of the poem.
Obviously if i'm having to explain that I was less than successful.

You point out "Curtains of your hearth and heart" with the notated (!?) and i'm guessing this is because of the word Hearth and it's most popular meaning which references fire places. However historically the word was also used to describe a home in general because of the central importance of the Hearth in one's home. (it is however quite possible that I completely misinterpreted that definition of the concept of "hearth")

I was attempting to paint the "heart of the home" and feeling welcomed there. The Narrator is the stain btw.
I'm probably frolicking in abstraction and frivolity but there are elements of this poem that i do hesitate to walk away from.

All in all I will take what you have said into well received consideration for a rewrite.

Thanks again

[milo]

An ellipsis is created as follows, ". . ." And has long been the hallmark of hackneyed poetry met with multitudes of groans and the rolling of the eyes which is why I suggested you abandon it rather than learning to correctly type it.