A certain sadness

A certain sadness,

seems to start,

ignites my madness,

I'm falling apart.

They say time will heal,

but they're wrong,

All I can feel,

is your empty song.

It doesn't consume me,

like once, I thought,

only seems to empty,

emotions I sought.

And one day I swear,

I saw you ahead,

but that's unfair,

because you're dead.

Author's Note

First attempt at heartbreak poetry, its definitely shaky! but I'd really appreciate reviews, good or bad!

Reviews

[Inject Positivity]

This speaks to me of a heartbreak that is still roaming in the Poet's heart... The tone is very melancholic and yet it's beautiful in its own way... The ending was very sad and really hard for any person who have witnessed heartbreak... Well done mate...

Sincerely
Dhiman

[Jocie de Jaune]

Thank you Dhiman :)

[D. Mansfield]

I like your poem alot, it speaks of a sadness not all can relate. Nice job

[Julie McCarthy (juliesp..]

love the last 2 verses especially thanks so much for this heartfelt poem, just wondering is it non fiction for you, thanks so much for entering this into my poetry competition, i can relate to this having lost several family members and the music is healing but still leaves me empty as they are not there, their favourite songs etc memories eh great to bring out of our grieving heart, well written, thankyou

[Phill Oz O'fee]

The last stanza caught me out - until that point I had images of a broken heart - not the loss of a loved one - but - that made your write even more appeasing to read - Très intelligemment écrit - gentil :-)

[Chris Shaw]

The stages of grief. Your poem is well written and conveys deep sadness.

Chris

[00000000000000000000000..]

Well you did great with it and shared feelings to see but the end sad yet I understand it all.

[Jocie de Jaune]

Thank you Jon :)

[0000000000000000000000000000]

Your very welcome Jocie

[Cindy Marietta]

The ending of this is so good, definitely dig it :)

[Jocie de Jaune]

Thanks ahaha xx

[Megan R. Toy]

This is perfection. I love how powerful this piece is. *Thumbs up*

[Jocie de Jaune]

Thank you so much!!!

[Chris]

Poetry is meant to be read aloud - be wary of where you put punctuation and how you break the tonal flow.

Rhyming is a common way for many - and nothing at all is wrong with using it, but try not to force the tones to fit into your thought flow. The more natural you are, the smoother the words flow.

And lastly - Read your work aloud. If YOU can feel the words affecting YOU then most likely your readers/listeners will feel them too.

"And the petals fell
one-by-one
one by
one...
tears by any other name..."

Chris

[Jocie de Jaune]

Thanks...Great advice! :D

[Nigel Newman]

Jocie Hi. You were kind enough to write some lovely things about my work, so I'm hopefully returning the compliment. Like the other reviewers, I 'enjoy' this poem, if 'enjoy' is appropriate for the content. But I have some questions and suggestions:

(1) The poem ALMOST scans but not quite, and I ask myself whether or not this matters, or so what. Generally I'd say it doesn't matter, but still it niggles away at me. You COULD make it scan perfectly by changing a couple of words (e.g. I'm torn apart instead of I'm falling apart) ... but I think there is a more interesting opportunity that you may wish to explore. There's probably a name for it, but I'll call it the delayed rhyme. With the delayed rhyme you are free to extend the third line to say more or be more descriptive, emotive, etc before you finally resolve onto the closing rhyme. Meter becomes less important and it creates a degree of suspense, almost discomfort, for the reader, which can draw them into the pain more. Anyway, it's just a thought.

(2) I agree with someone else's point about commas and the importance of every little thing, small as it seems. Take your V2 as an example. After 'heal' I'd suggest you don't need a comma - the new line creates enough of a pause; after 'wrong' I'd be tempted to have a full stop, because this is a definite point of view being expressed - end of! And after 'All I can feel' I'd be very tempted to either have (a) the slightly corny but effective dot dot dot or (b) just carry the line right on 'feel is your empty song'.

(3) I wonder if you could play with spacing and new lines a bit more. Specifically, for example, you have a key word on the 4th line of each verse and it could potentially go on its own line, e.g.
falling
empty
This emphasises the power of these strong descriptive words

(4) Like I once thought. Each time I've read this to myself it has sounded better to have 'Like once I thought'. I think this is to do with meter and scan. I know it's odd grammatically but hey.

(5) emotions I sought. Hhmmm ... did you actually actively SEEK these emotions? I may be being unjust here but this is the one place in the poem where I wondered whether the desire to rhyme overcame the real truth you wanted to express. My guess is you didn't seek these emotions - an alternate interpretation (I'm not in your head, obviously) might be 'only seems to empty the love you bought' which would have shades of being swept, duped or fooled into love by the other person, and now that 'love' is eroding or perishing. I could be a million miles out, but I'd hold to my instinct that rhyme was your first consideration for using 'sought'. If I'm wrong, truly I'm sorry.

(5) Because you're dead. I think you can tell from above that I'm seeing this as a split relationship rather than you mourning. The reason I interpret this way, I think, is 'empty' being used twice - for me it has an edge of bitterness and anger about it. So the last line, again my interpretation, is that for you this person is no more. As far as you're concerned you have wiped the slate clean and your intent is that they're gone. So I come back again to my delayed rhyme idea, because that would give you scope to 'qualify' or contextualise 'you're dead'. Again, if I've misread this, I'm truly sorry.

Just to emphasise again Jocie how good this poem is. I wouldn't spend time suggesting so much if I didn't like it very much. Well done and keep on writing!

Best regards
Nigel

[Jocie de Jaune]

Nigel,
I can't express how grateful i am that you took the time to review my poem so deeply. I really appreciate it! I can all your comments have been seriously considered and I will definately listen to them! You really know what you're talking about! Wow, thanks again, hopefully I'll have enough time tomorrow to edit my poem and review some of yours in return! Thanks!
JO!x