Live in the Very Minute

Worry not for tomorrow

Might it be filled with sorrow

It is a much better way

To live in each moment this day

 

Future is here soon enough

Living for Someday sounds rough

Tomorrow is not promised

I mean, let’s be honest

 

All we have is today - maybe not even that

But to live each moment as it’s our very last

We have this minute, not the next nor the past

This would be a much wiser time to pass

 

Plan for the morrow

Might it Someday come

But make memories for then

With the minute you’re in

Fill with laughter and love

Children grow fast enough

Reviews

[Christopher Robin]

Hiya Carol welcome to the site!

I think this is your second entry? Not too bad overall but I noticed a few things which might serve to improve your writing for future posts.

Any time you copy a document over from word and you've used a hyphen " - " for some reason the formatting tool automatically changes it to a quotation ". I think that may have been what happened for your line 'All we have is today - maybe not even that'. So just check through for hyphens after a copy/paste job.

Now onto the poem itself, it starts off with some simple AABB couplets but then slowly breaks down into nothing rhyming at all. I'm sure this is a deliberate action but I feel it takes away from the original pace and rhythm of the poem and gives it a new one, like reading two separate things at once. This can be confusing and off-putting for the reader. Especially with poetry of this nature you want your audience engaged and able to read through without checking that they're reading the correct thing. Obviously there's no strict 'rules' in poetry but changing styles this drastically without changing subject matter or providing a striking reason for the change feels jarring and out of place.

Just a brief run through of some grammatical anomalies which you might wish to review or simply take the advice for future writing.

-Might it be filled with sorrow. - when phrased in this way the line forms a question, not a continuation of the first line; correct structure should be 'it might be filled with sorrow'.
-Your context for 'Someday' does not require it to have a capitol letter, it isn't an owned property, or an officiated date, I'm assuming you mean it in the sense that somebody might say 'i'll get around to it someday'. If that is true then simply use single quote marks to indicate stress rather than a capital letter - it should read 'someday'.

-All we have is today " maybe not even that

But to live each moment as it’s our very last

The use of 'but' here is unnecessary, it creates one of many sentence fragments throughout the piece but this is the most jarring, if you simply drop the 'but' the lines run together in a much more sensible way. Imagine it was replaced with similes like 'however' or 'nevertheless' and perhaps my point will be a little clearer.

Finally, your poem itself presents a paradox which is very confusing to the reader. We are encouraged to 'live in the moment' right down to 'each minute'. I understand the sentiment of enjoying each moment, but you then say we should enjoy each moment whilst we simultaneously 'plan for the morrow'. Planning for the future and living in the moment are opposite things yet you say to do both. Don't get me wrong I understand the idea that you're driving at, but how it has been presented is very confusing.

I think there is a good poem here with a good lesson that should be more widespread knowledge, it's the few simple things that I mentioned that I feel may be holding it back from true greatness. Take what you will from my critique; I think the talent is there, just need to work on the structure, cadence and the clarity of message throughout the poetry.

Best of luck with future endeavors!

-Robin

[Carol Blake]

Hi Christopher and thank you for your review. I appreciate it.