Poetry Forum

I’m full to the brim, feeling it lap at my eyelids with each rising tide. My skin, my paperthin skin creases at elbows and knees, tears at the edges, ready to dissolve. I hold still, focus on breath bubbling wetly in my lungs, their shape …………………………………….. inflating …………………. deflating then our finge...

This is a deeply moving and well written account of a very sad event, Brian. It brought tears to my eyes. There's just one criticism I'd offer. and I can see the weight of this moment has jumped into the pools of his eyes, I know I always seem to be commenting on your imagery to do with eyes - I thi...

Thanks for the comments, Ros. Oh dear, I'm confusing people again. I'm glad you like the separate verses, at least. Yes, you're on the right track about it being my father. I thought the "black sheep" and the implied "yes sir, yes sir, three bags full" made that clear. I daresay ...

I like it.

I've always hated clowns, and I've always liked elephants.

Thanks for an enjoyable read.

Helen

Very nicely constructed, but as a mosquito hater I find it hard to sympathise :D Also not sure about the silently through my sash, a mosquito's whine it one of the most irritating sounds I know. One other point which could be totally wrong, I'm sure I heard it is only the females that drink blood, ...

Sunday lunchtime, visiting "in loco parentis", cast yet again in the role of black sheep, the last thread snapped. I'd had three bags full of it, and wrenched off that mask of lofty disapproval, but it was knitted to your flesh, and your face bled, raw with hurt and hate. The roast was ser...

I don't mind when a poem has layers of meaning that aren't immediately apparent - it can make it more interesting - but in my opinion you should be able to get the basic idea on the first read. Helen, with all respect, I find that a quite preposterous proposition. How dull the world would be if it ...

Hi Dave, What a weird poem - a great idea - I really like it. I imagine it was inspired by body dysmorphic syndrome. I think the revised version works better. Not much to add - I just noticed a couple of spelling mistakes in the line "Our cutlery draw teams with adolescent eels". It should...

He comes silently through my sash (that's just like him - slipping the net again). He comes and I know it's him after he's gone, bold but never rash. If it bleeds, we can kill it (he doesn't know this - I am like medicine to him). If I wake and he hasn't been I may even miss him, oblivious in my bi...

Hi Oskar, This is intriguing, but I agree that it's far too obscure. I didn't have a clue what it was about. I don't mind when a poem has layers of meaning that aren't immediately apparent - it can make it more interesting - but in my opinion you should be able to get the basic idea on the first rea...

I didn't call you a witch, that was Helen Bywater. I merely repeated the assertion.Actually, Helen's not been around for a few days, you didn't turn her into a frog? No, Suzanne didn't turn me into a frog. I've just been busy entertaining the ma-in-law. Hi Suzanne, I like this. I haven't got much t...

Helen The lingering tone of the poem makes for a pleasant read. However, I'm sure you could cut a few words/lines here and there to improve the flow. The first line isn't working for me. I don't fully understand what is intended by 'I knew you didn't exist'. I imagine that you are talking about the...

Thanks, David.

I shall mull over all you've said when I rework this.

I think my answer to Sandpiper has probably answered your question. There's only "the one" in the sense of the ideal, but in real-life relationships, there are a number of possibilities (if we're lucky).

Cheers,

Helen

Helen, I like the natural voice in this except for L2. It read awkward, "I never could stop looking" I'm thinking "I could never stop looking" would read smoother. Was also a little puzzled at the shift in tenses with the "I see you everywhere" as up until then it soun...

Thanks, Lovely.

Yes. S3's much improved.

Thanks for your comments, Ray, Lovely and Stuart. I guess the last stanza isn't needed, at that. Stuart: it's hard to write about the dawn and avoid clichés. I hoped I'd accomplished it - I suppose the fact that it's not an actual dawn but a metaphor for a new beginning is a cliché - and comparing m...

Helen This is not an easy piece to write and have it sound fresh due to elements of the subject. I personally think having skimmed through your responses to some of the crits already offered that the set of ideas you are working with are overpowered by some of the rather predictable descriptions in...

I like this very much, Suzanne. I think it's getting there. Your changes have improved it on the whole, but there are a couple of things that seem wrong to me in this stanza: Laced her boots, confident to find an aged pine, gnarly and twisted, a perfect balance of prickly tipped branches, she'd soug...

Even when I knew you didn't exist out there, I never could stop looking. There were many passing resemblances, like fragments of you, glinting brashly back at me from city streets. Sometimes a sudden stab of brilliant intensity would fix me for good, compelling me to look anywhere else. Under soft l...

Interesting, Helen! Enjoyed reading this. I also didn't get the castration idea. I'd interpret 'yawning hellmouth' in a wider sense, that he'd got in too deep with a woman would would generally give him hell. I also didn't get the writhing serpents - what are they a metaphor for? From the first sti...

Thanks, Stuart. You're quite right - a poem should stand on its own. I wasn't sure from Suzanne end Lovely's remarks whether they'd got it or not, and Ray has said before that he often doesn't understand poems, so I explained in the hope that other people would say "I got that" or "I ...

I like this a lot, Ros. The first and last stanzas are my favourites. I wasn't sure about the ice cream van at first, but on re-reading, I like it. One small point of grammar: I cannot go back, yet I wait at the still point. Each stands alone, their own harvest flowing. We touch briefly at the angle...

Castration scene!That's worse than vasectomy, much,much,worse. Perhaps this is a metaphor for married life after all. It's interesting what you say about smell.On an unconscious level the smell of another person is thought to be very significant sexually. However, consciously, I think other senses ...

My pleasure.