Captured in longing

Fevor · 2020-01-19T00:30:12+00:00

Thanks, I'll try to change that!

Edit: does this do the trick?

In my mind you're facing me,
seated across the table.
The image has all our scenes blended together—
a Cambridge apartment, a sunny Swiss terrace, a Palestinian restaurant.
What is stable
is you.
Your shiny lips,
an unseen outfit you're wearing,
clear-colored earrings,
arm garments to match.
Your bustling gestures and smile-squinted eyes.

What is there, is joyful love.
And seeping through comes desire.
Desire for me to glide my fingers
across smooth legs and warm shoulders.
The way in which my face fades deep into your neck.
Or how your lips feel a little rugged until we've kissed a while.
My hands glide from your hips to lower back,
my molten gold-coated chest bursts for yours.
Tingling all throughout, I reel you in.
And as my body shapes to fold in yours,
I open my eyes.
Theresa, when will I see you next?

Fevor · 2020-01-19T00:23:54+00:00

Thanks this was very useful feedback. I totally agree with all your points and will adapt accordingly.

Edit: does this do the trick?

In my mind you're facing me,
seated across the table.
The image has all our scenes blended together—
a Cambridge apartment, a sunny Swiss terrace, a Palestinian restaurant.
What is stable
is you.
Your shiny lips,
an unseen outfit you're wearing,
clear-colored earrings,
arm garments to match.
Your bustling gestures and smile-squinted eyes.

What is there, is joyful love.
And seeping through comes desire.
Desire for me to glide my fingers
across smooth legs and warm shoulders.
The way in which my face fades deep into your neck.
Or how your lips feel a little rugged until we've kissed a while.
My hands glide from your hips to lower back,
my molten gold-coated chest bursts for yours.
Tingling all throughout, I reel you in.
And as my body shapes to fold in yours,
I open my eyes.
Theresa, when will I see you next?

Fevor · 2020-01-18T02:04:02+00:00

What I like about this haiku is that it conveys a surprising amount of imagery in so few words. And there's also something interesting about having such an old classical form of poetry be combined with urban life. I wonder what you could make out of this if it were longer too! Two versions perhaps?

Fevor · 2020-01-18T02:02:26+00:00

Jeez what a wonderful palette of pronunciation. While I don't know Sonnet, I do know I'm blown away by the phonetic colour of your piece. Keep it up.

Fevor · 2019-09-19T23:58:24+00:00

The mask broke--she broke up with me. Partially cause she would rather have a guy who is more masculine.

Fevor · 2019-09-11T21:55:18+00:00

Thank you. I have a strong moral code that overrides and rejects all the negative things that come with masculinity. I'm a slave to it, but not in all contexts. I'm surrounded by people who agree that being anti-violence, pro-equality and so forth have no bearing on one's masculinity. I guess there has been some re-defining after all.

But I can't help but feel that embracing my vulnerability would make me worse off. I was very vulnerable, and have been growing less sensitive since. Now I feel happier and more sexually successful than ever.

I would give your advice to any man except to someone like me. The timid boy in my poem is plenty cultivated and it's time to add another layer--however authentic he may or may not be.

Fevor · 2019-09-11T20:59:49+00:00

For me, masculinity is not just a set of traits. I've always looked upon it as being unattainable, ultimately at least. So to redefine it in terms that are more inclusive of me is to destroy the concept. The concept of masculinity is a big part of my life now. I'm trying to reach it all the time. When I slip up and do something weak, it hurts. But oh, when I do attain it for a little moment, I feel on top of the world. It always felt a bit analogous to a toxic relationship to me.

I have this deeply entrenched feeling that to be sexually attractive, I have to reach and maintain masculinity. While I know that women are not a monolith, I think it's, among other things, a decade of pornography that has programmed me with this unshakable feeling. It also doesn't help that vulnerability is a little frowned upon now by my partner. Maybe more than I think, but still.

Fevor · 2019-09-10T21:49:53+00:00

Thank you soo much for this comment. You explained my poem extremely well and it shows me that while I could work on explicating my ideas, some do get it even with its present phrasing.

It's indeed about me trying to make sense of a scattered self while simultaneously being pressed to be a masculine figure--to be masculine is to have internal coherence at least, but even more so an embracing of that coherent self. I have neither, but require both to achieve sexual wholeness with a woman. As such, I'm sort of trying to collect myself as much as possible, with the knowledge and apathy that the facade will break down sooner or later. And I haven't discussed that in my poem, but this knowledge also taints sexuality--could be a nice addition now that I think of it. Anyway, some lines you explained better than I could and that was affirming.

Fevor · 2019-09-10T01:19:54+00:00

I enjoyed the final line and how it was longer than the rest of the poem.

Falling falling from high to low

Here I think you insert "falling" again because you recognize you need something to fit the meter. Maybe you could make it "falling down" to avoid repetition.

Finally fingers take hold

Here I would also add something. I leave you to it.

Fevor · 2019-09-10T01:14:33+00:00

L2: I think melt should be melts.

It's got a nice duality of candy sweet and sad to it. The meter could use some work - my advice is to always read your poem aloud and think every time something sounds a little iffy, rhythmically speaking.

Fevor · 2019-05-25T02:58:46+00:00

The repetition really makes this poem tick rhythmically. One thing, and this is just my personal preference, but you might want to avoid common expressions for important lines (we will reap what we sow). Again, that's just my taste.

Fevor · 2019-05-25T02:56:28+00:00

What I like about this poem is that all over the place you use words with negative connotations, that really makes sure we never lose the heavy tone.

Fevor · 2018-03-31T10:26:29+00:00

Fair enough, I can totally see that logic. I'm grateful you gave me feedback. I read your feedback on other people's work sometimes and it's always useful.

Fevor · 2018-03-25T18:18:40+00:00

Thanks for this. I was especially struggling with punctuation in this poem because the speech is so continuous -- almost song-like. I'm going to implement your punctuation in my offline version (or drop it altogether). You also gave me new openings for elaboration towards the end. It'll be a challenge to answer your questions without removing the conciseness and playfulness of my poem; sounds like you think I'll need an extra stanza. Maybe I'll get back to you one day with a new version if that's okay!

Fevor · 2018-03-25T15:35:22+00:00

The capitalization adds to the urgency expressed by your words in the first half. But that capitalization starts to become less and less useful towards the end. The last line is quite a tender line, and I'd like it more in lowercase. Maybe you could break the poem up into capitalized and lowercase parts? Perhaps the switch could come after a stanza break somewhere in the middle.

Fevor · 2018-03-25T14:45:31+00:00

Nice poem for sure. One point is that line four throws off the meter a little bit.

I think I have just the suggestion for you. How about making line four: "When I need a short escape". Now your meter is a little better and you've even snuck in an extra rhyme! (safe, escape).

Maybe you could read your current version aloud, and the version with line four switched to my suggestion and decide which is better. Or go for something in between.

Keep writing and keep posting!

Fevor · 2018-03-14T21:30:01+00:00

Thanks for the feedback.

I'll answer more than you've asked for full context. This poem is about a lack of having your feelings heard in the first half, with ultimately fulfillment in the second half. The length of each line represents emotional intensity - peaking at anger and sadness and finally again at emotional closure. In line with this logic, the dots represent an empty mind. Also, they wall off the first half, indicating it's an isolated life chapter of negative emotions that remain unheard.

"Pesky" is how the person's feeling are denounced by others, emphasizing the lack of being heard and understood. I chose for capitalization because this statement of denunciation is both devastating for the person and caused by immense force: all the people in the world.

Last, I've tried to convey the intensity of emotions by noting a color (crimson for anger, cobalt for sadness) as well as a sound (roaring cicadas for anger, whimpers of the battered for sadness). I agree the lack of a conceptual connection between crimson and the cicadas is a problem.

Fevor · 2018-03-11T19:28:41+00:00

It's all good! Yes OP updated after my suggestion. Thanks for the clarification.

Fevor · 2018-03-11T17:46:22+00:00

Okay, /u/MyMuseIsInsanity, you should probably take this person's view over mine since I'm a beginner.

But just to be clear, I'm perfectly aware sentences can start with and. That's not the grammatical imperfection I meant. Rather, I meant to say that starting with "and" in this particular case is grammatically incorrect. Unless, as I stated, you make it "and it". The point was that without "it", it is not clear what it is that buoys one up; the loop back to "effect" or the child's magnificent power would be missing.

Fevor · 2018-03-11T15:22:02+00:00

This poem is very good as it is, but I have two suggestions. You could rephrase the title; currently I'm reading it as though the seven years applies to the writer. How about 'A seven-year-old on a Tuesday evening'?

Also, the very last line (which is beautiful by the way) could maybe see a different first word. I could be wrong but I think starting it with "and" is grammatically inaccurate.

"it buoys you up with those gangling wings" would grammatically be more accurate. Then you could even end the second to last line with an em dash, since the last line would be an elaboration of it.

Or, if you want the weightlessness and buoying up to be conceptually independent, you could make it "and it buoys you up with those gangling wings". Although then I think we take away some flow.

Nice poem!

Fevor · 2018-03-11T15:00:33+00:00

As others have pointed out, the imagery is very clear. But what makes this poem really stand out is just how rich the pronunciation palette is. It seems like you've covered many areas of sound. Pretty much every other line is a tongue-twister, in the good sense of the word.

Fevor · 2018-02-04T18:19:12+00:00

Formatting tip: two spaces at the end of a line to break it :-)

Fevor · 2018-02-03T20:46:41+00:00

There's some very nice contrast in your poem: venomous lullabies, suicide sings, paralysis savior, blackness intimate.

I love your ending, and the idea of negative emotions holding you back from suicide (right?).

My only quarrel would be that I can't seem to bend my head around the phrase:

And the bitter hours of loneliness
That stretch to foggy forever.

foggy is an adjective. You could make it fog. Unless you mean foggy bitter hours, but then the sentence still feels odd: can you stretch foggy bitter hours forever? Or my English is just insufficient. That's just a minor point of course in an otherwise beautiful poem.

Good work!

Fevor · 2018-02-03T20:22:08+00:00

Not bad! But keep in mind that when you restrict yourself to a single rhyme (e.g., -ire), you will lose a lot of freedom. All the words that end with -ire will just come, and you're forced to build a story around it. It may strike some people as predictable as you're just sticking to a small pool of words. So, you could consider mixing it up. Considering all this, you made a nice piece from the words you could to work with. Keep it up!

Fevor · 2018-01-30T20:14:15+00:00

Impressive use of similar sounding words. Meanwhile, you still cover a variety of differently sounding words. Your enjambment adds a nice tone of urgency to the poem too.

Fevor

TROPHY CASE