sorrow.

one for you

this one is for you.

oh my love, my aching spirit is inclined to be by your side.

until i close my eyes for good, this love we understood.

passion and heat when you are near.

i fear of your loss.

for we know all to well.

nothing, yes... nothing lasts forever.

think of me too, i hope. 

summer days, winter nights. broken hearts and endless fights.

what would it take to keep you forever? i will put you in the sky along with the falling stars hoping one-day to be yours again.

this is a promise. 

holding my breath i look into your open eyes and kissing you so hard i forgot who i am. 

just to get close to you, make you understand. 

Reviews

[Betty Hermelee]

Nice words, soft and loving , anger as well...what's new?? that's the epitome of a relationship...I think is should come under poetry, not stories... it is a bit short and no plot really for a story...next time perhaps categorize it as a poem, will be better fit that way.... nice write..keep it up...
Best, Betty

[John the Baptist]

This is a relationship poem in the positive phase. If things get sour, will this idealization continue? I wonder.

[Kim S.]

This is amazing, i really enjoyed this piece

[cheyenne s garcia]

thank you so much !

[Patricia]

the title drew me in, I like the sorrow poems, I can almost always fit faces in them and this one was easy to do. although I don't read other reviews I did in this one. let me say with all due respect because I respect every writer, I'm not a fan of off set structural poems because I find them distracting but in this one not so much because it is just a right side off set but some do them like jig saw puzzles or road maps and I immediately turn the page and move on without ever reading it. upper case and lower case have their place in poetry though and can make a difference in a read. as far as poetry goes...well poetry has changed over the centuries and especially over the last few decades. yes there are rules to some styles of poetry but even those can bend but free verse, prose, well there are no rules. now I am not a teacher or an experienced writer with years of experience and literary credentials behind my name but when I read a piece of poetry I want to be able to interpret it my way and feel it my way and put faces I know in them and in this you succeeded. we are all here to express, learn, grow, share, so take what helps you and the rest of it don't take it to heart. there are many teachers out there, choose one that you can relate to if you are here to learn. be it one from your last review or someone else, otherwise share your poetry, your expressions, and feelings and I will always respect that. wishing you well and keep writing! Hugs!

[JayG]

First…dump the gimmicks, like giant fonts, not beginning a sentence with upper-case letters, and odd justification that makes it harder to read. If the words of the poem, in and of themselves, don’t move the reader emotionally and make them care, they’ll turn away. And glitter in the form of such gimmicks won’t change that. And if the words do work? You don’t need gimmicks.

But of more importance, in this, and in your other poems, there’s one consistent problem: You, the author, are talking TO the reader, about things meaningful to you, and never letting them in on anything more than how YOU feel. But given that, what’s in it for the reader?

Poetry, like fiction, is, or should be, emotion based. The goal isn’t to inform the reader, it’s to move them emotionally.

Suppose a stranger on the bus turned to you and said, “Oh my love, my aching spirit is inclined to be by your side.” Would you intuitively know who they’re talking about, and why they feel that way? Or would you move away and ask, “What in the hell are you talking about?” Will a reader react differently if you do the same?

We don’t inform the reader that we cried at a funeral. That’s data. We work to make THEM weep. In fact, as E. L. Doctorow put it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” And there is no way to do that with no more than the nonfiction skills of report-writing we’re given in school. That takes the techniques of poetry , skills that have, literally, been under refinement for centuries.

Problem is, our teachers never mention that we’re not being given skills useful for fiction and poetry, because, who’s to tell our teachers? They learned their writing skills in the same classes. And professions are acquired in addition to those skills (we all forget that one).

Did even one of your teachers mention prosody, or tell you that we must edit from the seat of a reader, knowing only what the reader knows, so we don’t automatically fill in any detail the reader needs but which we forgot to include? Of course not. How about the most basic items of fiction, like the three issues we need to address quickly, to provide context (applies to poetry, as well), and the elements that make up a scene on the page. If no one tells us what a scene truly ist, how can we write one?

Look at a line or three of this piece, to see how differently a reader will view the words than was your intent:

• one for you

One what? You know how this is meant, but the reader has only what the words suggest to them. Remember, if the reader doesn’t have context as-they-read the words, they have no meaning. And you can’t correct that, later, because there is no second first-impression.

• this one is for you.

So…you either just repeated line one, or we’re still missing meaning for line one.

• oh my love, my aching spirit is inclined to be by your side.

Umm… What’s an aching spirit? Is it an unhappy ghost the speaker knows? And, “inclined?” That means predisposed to do it. So while it wasn’t your intent, you just told the reader that someone unknown has just announced that they kind of wish that could be with someone you’ve not introduced.

What can a reader say to that, but “Uhh…okay.”? You’ve given the reader no reason to care—or to want to know more, because the letter is aimed at someone unknown, and written for unknown reasons. I call my sister, "my love." I also do it to my daughter, and my very good female friends. And I truly do love them. But it's not the same meaning when I use it on my wife. So how are we to take your use of the phrase, given that you've supplied not context?

• until i close my eyes for good, this love we understood

“WE understand?” Who in the pluperfect hells is this “we?” You know. The one the letter is written to knows. But shouldn’t the one you wrote it for know?

My point? See how different what the reader gets is from what you intend them to get? It’s not a matter of how well you write, or even talent. It’s that because no one told you differently, you’re trying to use the nonfiction skills that are all you presently own—whose goal is to inform—to write a poem. But poetry has moving the reader emotionally as its goal.

The answer to the problem is simple enough: Dig into the techniques of poetry, to give your talent something to work with.

Pretty much everyone recommends a read of Mary Oliver’s, A Poetry Handbook. You might also want to take a look at the excerpt, on Amazon, for Stephen Fry’s, The Ode Less Traveled. It’s focused mostly on structured poetry, but what he has to say about the flow of words is something every writer should know.

And you might drop by the Shmoop site. When you arrive, select Student, then use the pushbutton to the left of the midpage search-window to Select Poetry. They have lots of great poems analyzed in detail, to show how it works, and why it works.

So…I’m pretty sure this wasn’t what you were hoping to hear, but since it is pretty much the most common problem, and something the author won’t notice till it’s pointed out, I thought you might want to know.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[cheyenne s garcia]

Thank you so much for your encouragement! I hope to become a better writer someday. I will work on it.

[Coyote Poetry]

An amazing poem dear Cheyenne.
"nothing, yes... nothing lasts forever.
think of me too, i hope.
summer days, winter nights. broken hearts and endless fights.
what would it take to keep you forever? i will put you in the sky along with the falling stars hoping one-day to be yours again."
I liked the yearning in the above lines. Sometimes we can have what we need. Thank you for sharing the amazing poetry.
Coyote

[cheyenne s garcia]

How amazing it is to have your approval! Thank you kindly.

[Coyote Poetry]

I enjoyed your work and you are welcome dear Cheyenne.