No More

[Brendan]

She says no more.
No more.

I glimpsed her among this crowd
though time has passed
since she drifted through this malaise.
Yet here i know
she was.

She is

in the faces of strangers,
Though strangers we remain.
The thought of her here,
draws me,

draws me to this place.

One day I will not sense her
at times of no meaning.

One day I'll stop running
in dreams with no ending.

Please, don't cloud this she whispers.

Yet against my cheek she rests
no more
the scent of her skin engulfs me
no
slowness of release sings to me,
no more

in this moment
both
want more

no more she says to me.

No more.

[PhilipCFJohnson]

Very good imagery. It's almost has a feel of reading a diary of a person that's too sad to write in it, so you end up with a sense of a skeletal kind of existence, but that is all offset by this deep nostalgia factor and living through memories, and really puts the humanity into it!

Your brackets, I must admit, I found a bit off putting. I wasn't sure whether I should be reading it once with the brackets and then once without, or half ignoring them or what.

I think there's a definite artistic strength in saying exactly what you feel, and I find it hard to believe that people can truly have feelings "in brackets", as brackets can imply that the content can be taken or left.

However I do admire the device itself as original and would love to see it better in a more objective, gritty context (which is where I think brackets are best suited to.) I think this poem is too strongly rooted in human emotions to be allowing brackets to dilute any of the true meaning.

Hope this helps, and my sincerest apologies if you feel very proud and content with your brackets and I just said a bad thing, but as always please feel free no ignore me, (each to their own and all that!)

Very nice work! This type of poem operates on a level at which I am most comfortable (for both reading and writing) so I look forward to reading more from you soon!!

Sorry it's such a long post.

Many thanks,
Phil

[Brendan]

I hear what you are saying about the brackets. My thinking was that the words in brackets are this repetitive statement of no more coming from the other person intermingled with the thoughts of the writer. Each sentence / statement being answered by a No or No more. I think I shall take the brackets out, but leave the responses in italics to emphasise that these are the words of the other person. what do you think?

[PhilipCFJohnson]

I verily agree!

[Suzanne]

Brendan,

Oh, gosh, I loved that. I really loved it.
I am so new to poetry I can not comment in any sort of detail ... but I loved the pace, the structre and the images.
More, please. Great.

Suzanne

[smiffey]

Hi Brendan,

This piece was bittersweet to me.

Sensing or remembering a 'lost love' in various places and seeing similarities of a loved one in the faces of others is well described here and works well, the only exception for me being:

She is

in the faces of strangers,
Though strangers we remain.
The thought of her here,
draws me,

This section just missed it's mark as I initially attributed 'Though strangers we remain' to the lost love and not the initial strangers - however it's all down to the reading and a second reading cleared that part up.

Other than that I was impressed.

Cheers
smiffey

[ray miller]

I didn't think much of this the first time I read it but now I have returned to it(after a few beers- it always helps). I don't agree with the first respondent that the imagery is very good, it is rather subjective and prosaic for my liking, however I find that it reminds me very much of Joy Division, very tense and hypnotic and, if in a certain state of mind, lines such as "one day I will not sense her/ at times of no meaning. One day I'll stop running/ in dreams with no ending" which, after all, can signify much or little, are suddenly laden with great import. Anyway, that's what it did for me.