Handful Of Sand

[arunansu]

Life
for a debonair Mary,
is one cute corsage of flower
not earned by money
or gained by power,
only
-a wee bit hard to carry.

Life
for unoccupied "losers" like Pip
is dreaming & sleep
or fretting on a chair,
suspiring-
for a lost
love affair.

Life
for my wise old Uncle Roy
is a drama of joy
wrestling with sorrow,
begins today
-but ends tomorrow.


Life for me
is a mound of sand
held within the cage
of my acquisitive hand,
the more I crush
it falls with a rush
must keep the palm gaping
to let it stand.

[oranggunung]

I’m not sure what’s being said here. The texture of the words and the shape of the verses are very pretty, but what is the sum total?

Is the narrator superior in some way to the other characters mentioned? This isn’t clear to me. Are the others dreamers?

The names don’t seem chosen at random, or they would have fitted the rhyme scheme better. Perhaps this is a personal, observational poem. I’m afraid it doesn't engage me.

I don’t understand the dash (‘-‘) as punctuation. The verses aren’t fully punctuated anyway, why add these? Don’t the line breaks do the work for you?

-a wee bit hard to carry
This sticks out as a lone, vernacular word. Perhaps appropriate to the person described, but doesn’t seem to fit the poem.

Should the last verse be more dramatic?

Held within the cage
Could this be
suspended in the cage ?

the more I crush
it falls with a rush
the rhyme is good, but the tortured structure around it complains

I don’t like the word ‘gaping’ at the end. I’m sure it is an excellent description of an empty hand, but it doesn’t seem to be appropriate for a hand that is full(ish).

I’m afraid I don’t think this shares the majesty of description that some of your other works have. Perhaps personal works are difficult to explain to the masses.

og

[arunansu]

Dear Og,

The idea behind the poem is that for different people, life carries a different meaning.For me, it is 'differen' , not 'superior' or 'inferior'.Pardon me, if the tone in my poem conveys to you such a meaning.
"-a wee bit hard to carry
This sticks out as a lone, vernacular word..." yes thats deliberately done! For some, life "sticks out"!
"Perhaps personal works are difficult to explain to the masses. "- Rightly said!

Thanx for your thoughtful comments. Hope you shall be liking my future works.
-Arunansu

[Wabznasm]

Aranansu,

I like the rhyme scheme in the stanzas.

Life
for unoccupied "losers" like Pip
is dreaming & sleep
or fretting on a chair,
suspiring-
for a lost
love affair.

is my favourite stanza.
It's good how the dash stops the rhythm for a sharp delivery of the last two lines.

I like the odd, simple story telling of the first three and I think, as said before, it's a good idea. It's odd to see this sort of over all view in a poem though since, arguably, a lot of modern poetry does this in every seperate poem (i.e. justify and explicate people's life styles in this world). But I'd say this is original in so far as it has all of the narratives in.

I'm not sure about the last stanza. Again, this is when your 'poetic' voice comes in and I don't particularly like it. It's too ornate and seemingly profound and doesn't suit the voice of the rest of the poem. The last ptanza to me shouts out 'This is a poem!' and I don't like that. I don't like overt philosophy in poetry. I would like to see this handful of sand image handled a little more cleverly (i.e. perhaps an image in front of the viewer, or a memory of a trip to a beach, etc). At the moment it's too grand.

Hope that helps
Dave

[David]

Aru (can I call you Aru?),

I like this. Just a few thoughts, that may or may not be helpful ...

I like "debonair Mary", and the use of "corsage", but I'm not sure how "carry" relates to anything that's gone before.

"Pip" - you have to be careful, some names come charged with too many other literary associations, not to be used lightly, and this is one of them.

Not sure about "suspiring" either. Doesn't sound quite right.

I'm with your wise old Uncle Roy. "Your" view of life is a touch too quiescent for me, but that's entirely a matter of personal choice. There's a bit of Blake in this verse though, isn't there?

Another good one, I think.

Cheers

David

[Gypsy Cake]

I would say this poem stands out to me very much. I found it interesting and well-written. I think the point of individual ideas of life came across really well.

I found that I didn't notice the rhyming until the last stanza; which to me makes sense. The rhyme sort of represents how much of others' opinion one understands,,of course, you completely understand your own so the rhyme is more consistent. I doubt you meant to do this but it's how it read to me.

And imo you finshed well
"Life for me
is a mound of sand
held within the cage
of my acquisitive hand, "

Well done. Dec

[Amadeus]

I like the you have cleverly rhymed. Some people build the poem around the rhyme, but here it seems that the words that you have chosen are inevitable.

Please don't lose the "Wee bit hard to carry". Your accent is your signature.

[kozmikdave]

Gidday

I quite liked this. My only question would be the dashes used in three of the verses. Was there any reason for two being at the beginning of the line and one at the end? I'm not so sure they are needed at all, anyway. You have line breaks there for pause. (Has all this been said before?)

OK, maybe a couple more comments then!

Life
for unoccupied "losers" like Pip
is dreaming & sleep ["of" would work better than "&"]
or fretting on a chair, [loses a bit of rhythm with "fretting"]
suspiring- [great word]
for a lost
love affair.

"Acquisitive" was another great choice of word in the last verse. I wasn't overly keen on the last four lines, although I am happy with what what I think they are saying. They could sound a little more natural and have more impact.

For what it's worth
Dave.