Poetry Forum

The Language of Her Eyes

Sweet sadness is the language of her eyes,
Singing beautiful sorrow through a half-washed light;
that illuminates the retreat of silent sighs;
but lends no ray of sun to unrequited night

No flicker of promise, no glint of desired advance;
just perpetual twilight across ambiguous orbs,
that lead a weakend mind a merry dance,
to a tune that's played with secret chords.

Hi Durante

i like the premise of this, and there's a few places where some original and interesting expression glimmers through the fog of cliche - I'm thinking particularly of:

half-washed light, the retreat of silent sighs, to a tune that's played with secret chords

...they're all fresh and descriptive, to me.

The trouble is, in my view (and I'm just one person, others may disagree completely), you've weighed the thing down with so much dog-eared - and often archaic - language, that your own originality is lost. Words/phrases such as:

Sweet sadness
Singing beautiful sorrow
unrequited
orbs

Are (in the context of contemporary poetry) a little(!) tired - and (again, my view only) act as lead weights tied to the poem's feet.

Hope I'm not being destructive - don't mean to be. Will watch out for other pieces from you.

Cheers
peter

Whilst appreciate your comments;
Forgive me if I test:
Why try and say a thing better,
If it's already been said at its best ?

Durante wrote:Whilst appreciate your comments;
Forgive me if I test:
Why try and say a thing better,
If it's already been said at its best ?

Ah, but surely it isn't, or you wouldn't be posting it in a working forum, you'd be popping it in the post to one of the better journals?

Many apologies, my fault - I just hadn't realised how brilliant it was until you told me.

Just to save us all time - are all your other pieces beyond criticism, too? Or are you just posting them to garner the praise you so clearly deserve?

Cheers

peter

The reference to 'at it's best' was to the platitudes used (orbs, beautiful sorrow etc), not the poem itself.

I post here to get feedback from other have-a-go poets, which is why I thanked your for your comments.

viewtopic.php?t=11473

Maybe you should take some of your own advice.

And maybe if your'e thinking of gaining anything useful from posting here, a little respect for the time that people take in reading and offering their thoughts in respect of your poems might, along with offering some meaningful replies of your own go some way towards making that happen.

To be fair Peter's reply is actually pretty generous and polite in tone, he stated clearly that he was offering his opinions, not a definitive condemnation of the poem.

Danté

Durante wrote:The reference to 'at it's best' was to the platitudes used (orbs, beautiful sorrow etc), not the poem itself.

I'm afraid I don't know what this means. But it may be that I misunderstood your slightly oddly phrased form of thanks, in which case I apologise.

All the best
peter

I do think "half-washed light" is a lovely phrase. That aside, there are quite a few fairly hackneyed ones. I take your point about it all having been said best already, but isn't that the fun of trying to write poetry now - trying to say it differently? Better then may, occasionally, be a side-effect of that.

Cheers

David

I have read the poem and the agree with Arians comments that the language is somewhat timeworn and as a relative new comer to the world of poetry, I can say that it was this type of language that originally put me off poetry at school.

Ands like Arian I will say that is just my opinion but it doesn’t really connect with me.

Don’t think that I’m jumping on the proverbial bandwagon – I am just giving my honest feedback – after all, isn’t that why we are all here?

Hi Durante, (as in Jimmy?)

I quite like the olde-worlde sonnety feel of this, but this is let down IMHO by clunky rhythm in places e.g.
Singing beautiful sorrow through a half-washed light

- "handsome" or "pretty" could replace "beautiful" IMHO.

Similarly "that illuminates" in the next line.

I don't have a problem with "orbs" because I'm guessing they means breasts as well as eyes.
Nor "unrequited" - to me a cliche is not a cliche in a surreal metaphor.


"Glint of desired advance" - sounds artificial, as if it's driven by the need for a rhyme for "dance".
You'd never say it, would you?

that lead a weakend/weakened(?) mind a merry dance,
to a tune that's played with secret chords.
- the only problem with this, and I'm being ultra-picky, is that you don't play a tune with chords; they are a background.
(The comedian in me is howling that you play a tune with an instrument - hang on while I tell myself to shut up!)
All I can suggest is:
to a tune that's sung to secret chords.

A good read, and please tell me if I have been over critical
Geoff

There are a lot of commas and semi-colons, don't you think? I think you could usefully remove almost every one.I presume you intended "weakened mind" but, after some reflection, "weekend mind" is rather a fabulous phrase, don't you think? "perpetual twilight across ambiguous orbs", that sounds rather weighty, I shall essay my mistress with it this night.

Like your poem, but I feel the flow is hindered by the use of semi-colons.

penguin wrote:perpetual twilight across ambiguous orbs", that sounds rather weighty, I shall essay my mistress with it this night.

What marks out of 10 did your mistress give you, prithee?

Four. Followed by a cough.

Thanks one and all for your helpful comments - will certainly feed in to the second draft! Please forgive the spelling mistakes - I normally write these on my iphone whilst on the tube!!

I take on board the point about punctuation - let's see if I can improve with my next effort...