Poetry Forum

Last night we roused the house
With noisy flames of love
But the morning creeped
and you doused it out

That look I've seen before
The accepted rejection
of a decade-long romance
Back to old, in new surrounds

Liked roused/doused sound combo. Perhaps you could thread a bit more of that sound play in the poem?

cheers

mac

enjoyed the first stanza very much. Not that I dislike the second

I rather like it. It's thoughtfully constructed and quite poignant, I think. A sharp comment on staling relationships.

For me, the lonely, somewhat forlorn, comma in the last line is a bad move. Either remove it, or punctuate the piece properly. As it is, the comma plays a telltale role - implying that the freeform structure of the poem is accidental rather than deliberate. And I'm sure (or am I?) that it's the latter.

And the title is quite witty, but perhaps a bit long-winded and clunky? Don't know. Agnostic on that one.

Interesting piece though.

peter

Rather like this account of a one night stand and think that the first half works well on its own and doesn't really need the second half.

Sort of like the roused / doused rhyme as well -

And a big fan of the title - so hurrah and well done.

Hey, thanks for the feedback.

Regarding the title, it actually comes from the Hot Chip song One Life Stand. It's a bit of a tendency of mine to change song lines/titles to suit my thoughts or writings. It is a bit long, but I like it.

Arian, you are absolutely correct about the comma. Looks a little bit lost out there on its own. It will be removed if I re-write this.

I did look at ways of getting a rhyme in the second stanza, similar to roused/doused in the first, but I opted against it. It felt too forced, although I will look again. But I'm keen not to lose the essence of the feeling of the poem just to add a rhyme in.

Cheers for all your comments.

I like the simplicty and strong message it conveys...its kind of chilling, but honourable at the same time...as weird as that might sound..

It was the title that attracted me to the poem, so I have to say I like it!

EatMyPoetry wrote:But the morning creeped
and you doused it out

The prepositions don't strike me as natural here. Could this be instead,

But the morning creeped in
and you doused it.

Also, could you consider rewording the second stanza to leave out the second line? I feel like it's telling me what to think, and I'm trying to hard to figure out what accepted rejection looks like to you.

I like the unifying the rouse/douse/surround assonance brings to the poem.

Jackie

Last night we roused the house
With noisy flames of love
But the morning creeped
and you doused it out

That look I've seen before
The accepted rejection
of a decade-long romance
Back to old, in new surrounds

Hi E.M.P. A couple of observations, first verse, line 4, the word it is ambiguous, the only things that can be "doused" are the flames so should the it be them

Second verse line 2 starts with a capital.
line 4 should read "back to the old"

seeya...David