Short-lived Or Eternal Love?

[SonOfAlbania]

Hello poetry friends! I'm new here but not new in poetry in general, although I mostly write poems in Swedish. Today I wrote this poem and choose to register here to post. It would be fun to hear your opinion - negative, constructive as well as positive! The poem is partly autobiographical - I mean the first part is true and the the last part just my imagination as how things could be. Because of the semi autobiographical character I became puzzled if I should delete it or not. I realized then that my dreams and desires are somehow also completely autobiographical cause they are emotions and urges. Or something like that. I hope you like the poem! But I somehow think my poems gets a bit pathetic. But it's better to write to become good! Enjoy!

We don't talk anymore
Am I hopeless who causes heartless pain?
I ask for myself
Why our love quickly vanished
Was everything a brief moment?
I wonder as I wander
In the lonely streets
I come back home
And write what I like
Read and relax myself with Merlot wine
I pick up the telephone and tell you:
Enough is enough!
I'm coming home to you and only you
You say yes and you let me in
My kiss then touches the north
and then the south
of your lips
Then I touch the west
and then the east
of your rosy cheeks
Our languishing body at last meets
Tonight we too are one
The night is eternally ours!
And the room is on passionate fire
And our hearts trembles forever more.

[billy]

hi SonOf Albania
will get to it later but on the face of it i'd say you should repost it in mild crit.

[billy]

Hello poetry friends! I'm new here but not new in poetry in general, although I mostly write poems in Swedish. Today I wrote this poem and choose to register here to post. It would be fun to hear your opinion - negative, constructive as well as positive! The poem is partly autobiographical - I mean the first part is true and the the last part just my imagination as how things could be. Because of the semi autobiographical character I became puzzled if I should delete it or not. I realized then that my dreams and desires are somehow also completely autobiographical cause they are emotions and urges. Or something like that. I hope you like the poem! But I somehow think my poems gets a bit pathetic. But it's better to write to become good! Enjoy!

only delete or edit those parts that need it. that you wrote it in english (if it's a 2nd language) is something to be admired. that said we shall not feel sorry for any syntax problems

We don't talk anymore a weak start and cliche as well
Am I hopeless who causes heartless pain? a syntax problem, one after hopeless would fix it
I ask for myself for isn't needed if you're asking yourself
Why our love quickly vanished
Was everything a brief moment?
I wonder as I wander
In the lonely streets
I come back home
And write what I like
Read and relax myself with Merlot wine probably the best original line you have
I pick up the telephone and tell you:
Enough is enough!
I'm coming home to you and only you
You say yes and you let me in
My kiss then touches the north
and then the south
of your lips
Then I touch the west
and then the east
of your rosy cheeks
Our languishing body at last meets
Tonight we too are one
The night is eternally ours!
And the room is on passionate fire
And our hearts trembles forever more.

the sex stuff is pretty much old hat in the way you tell it. aka; cliche.
try and use imagery to show us the tale, at present you're just telling us in a pretty mundane fashion. if i had to make one suggestion, it would be to go over each line and make it original, the odds are if you think you've heard a phrase before, it's been overused already. that aside, i think you'd be better to post in the mild critique forum so as to not get overloaded with feedback. great to have you at the site.

thanks for the read.

ps have a look at our class forums we're i and Leanne set people a small task to do. Leanne's is in the novice section and mine is in the willy wonky forum.

[addy]

There's a general love theme running through, and the passion is indeed palpable, but I felt there was no central theme that tied together the beginning of the poem (fleeting love) versus the end of the poem (eternal love). You need something more to elevate it beyond a runthrough of events. Something simple like (for example) fire would suffice (powerful when its big, fragile when its small and limited), but you could get much more creative.

I think there's also an opportunity for you to better establish the drama. Why was their love in danger anyway? Was the man just paranoid? (he said their love vanished, but based on the interaction of the hero and heroine they are very much in love). I think you could do more in bringing the conflicts of the narrative to life (whether they be internal or external), because at the moment they seem to just glide by pretty smoothly. the details as a whole seem cliche, and don't provide enough friction to texture the plot.

Thanks very much for the read

We don't talk anymore
Am I hopeless who causes heartless pain?
I ask for myself
Why our love quickly vanished
Was everything a brief moment?
I wonder as I wander
In the lonely streets
I come back home For me this seems rather abrupt. One moment you are in the streets then immediately tell us you've gone home, so there was little point establishing that to begin with.
And write what I like
Read and relax myself with Merlot wine
I pick up the telephone and tell you: This part is a mystery to me. Does he relax himself, in order to calmly come to a decision. But his outburst to the women in the telephone is anything but calm.
Enough is enough!
I'm coming home to you and only you
You say yes and you let me in Again quite an abrupt scene change for me, from a phone conversation to sudden physical presence
My kiss then touches the north
and then the south
of your lips
Then I touch the west
and then the east
of your rosy cheeks "the north-south of your lips, the west-east of your cheek"... around this point the imagery gets much more interesting for me. Lovely stuff.
Our languishing body at last meets
Tonight we too "two" are one
The night is eternally ours!
And the room is on passionate fire
And our hearts trembles forever more.

[SonOfAlbania]

Hello billy! Thank you for the suggestion about moving the thread to a more appropriate subforum. I hope the moderator can move the thread instead of restarting.

I'm taking the opinions of you members seriously in my consideration. The poetic sexual content needs overall improvement/beautified. I will work on it as well as other parts needs to be corrected to be aesthetically pleasing. I'm satisfied with the love theme cause the common situation as many people experience makes it down-to-earth. The story of the love poem begins with thoughts of being abandoned (lonely) by the love partner (i.e. a break up) and that all was short-lived. In the middle (my new part) tells the confession for the reader that he was cheating. And in the end things brighten and ends well (and the love becomes eternal). Thank you for the clearness addy!

Here are some fragments I have been on working on (state your opinion!):

I wonder as I wander
Down these lonely streets
My thoughts are alone
The day is ending
Moonlight shadows comes
Bright city lights shines
I return home
I sit down
And write what I like
And read verses about love
Drowsy of red wine
I call you one last time
You answer sweetly

Plenty are enough!
You, my one and only
My everlasting love!

[Erthona]

"I Wonder as I Wander" is the title of a Christmas carol written by John Jacob Niles, and is also the first half of the first line. Generally posting a phrase of this length as your own when it is not would constitute plagiarism.

Most of the rest could probably be traced to song lyrics from various songs or poems

"Walking down these lonely oneway streets" is from a poem by James Adair

Most of the lines are like that, parts of, or snippets from other sources. I don't feel inclined to chase them all down. I'm not saying they are all plagiarized, just that they are extremely common and very overly used. I really see nothing I would count as original.
Pretty much the same can be said for your other piece. Really no different than most people's first jump into love poetry. It tends to be highly derivative, packed full of cliches and trite expressions. The overall problem with both is lack of any originality.

Personally, I think these would fail to pass a "Turing Test", they certainly give me pause.

Definitely post in the mild critique from now on and try and come up with something (from your own mind) that doesn't resemble something that has already been used thousands of times. Especially try and avoid complete phrases that also happen to be the title of well known songs

Dale

[SonOfAlbania]

Hello Erthona!

Thank you for your message! You point out an important flaw in my poetry writing. Not necessarily my alleged copying but the uncreative way of using common and widely used phrases which scale of the originality of the lyrics. I acknowledge "I wonder as I wander" was completely taken from one of the autobiographical works of Langston Hughes, as well as "Moonlight Shadow" which is a song title by Mike Oldfield. That's about all I guess. "Down these lonely streets" and its similarity with "Walking down these lonely oneway streets" is a mystery. The thought of authors walking alone in the streets (Franz Kafka, Charles Baudelaire etc.) is not uncommon and is also a phrase I use to describe my lonely life in public. I think the theme and the language I use is nothing new, thereby the uniqueness. The only good thing with this poem is (as explained by addy):

My kiss touches the north
and then the south
of your lips
Then I touch the west
and then the east
of your rosy cheeks.

I can't remember my inspiration but the original text written by myself was posted in English on another, Swedish poetry forum as a different poem.

Best regards!

[Leanne]

moved from serious critique/ admin

PS. Thanks for being gracious in receipt of criticism, SonOfAlbania, your attitude is great to see.

[billy]

on the basis of some of the feedback SoA
have another go and try to make the words original.
it's so easy to call to mind a phrase or such
and write it down as apart of a poem etc.

start from line one and use you're own images and imaginings.

[addy]

I'd love to see what direction you take this with a rewrite . From what I could see (in the original and the snippet you posted) you tend to fall in love with single phrases. This is good, but focus also on how they thread together and run into one another .... less putting the puzzle pieces together and more weaving the story.

[SonOfAlbania]

I will try rewriting it tomorrow but with the story as background.

My interpretation of the poem: The begining starts with a pessimistic approach on life because of short-lived love, the story reveals it self in the middle why the love relation ended quickly (which is because of unfaithfulness) and this tie the episodes together, and the end is finished with a optimistic tone on life because the eternal love is realized through the reunification of the soul mates. This is a thought poem (a poem with primarily intellectual content). I think the story might be a typical love poem but I got my own twist and I like especially the part about the main character walking alone in olds streets, author texts and drinks alcohol because of love misery (a metaphor of me). - "The disadvantage of interpreting your own poem is that you reveal its secrets" (an expression coined by a famous person).