unbearable

I want to believe that I am not the pit in my stomach

All my friends are drowning and the sky is no longer blue but the colour of our eyes and our emaciated faces 

I want to believe that just because, it would become easier and I will stop trudging through tar 

I don't remember my mornings by night and no one finds the marks I've made on my body beautiful,

I am not transformed by my sorrow and I can only sit with it like a child taking pity on their lonely classmate 

I want to believe that my vision will no longer be glacial and I will feel organic 

The city lights have not washed me yet and I am still in the passenger seat of this car,

all of my feelings are within bags and I hope that a stranger will stop and stare at my eyes one day 

I want to believe that these walls stop pushing in and that someone will bring the air back into my lungs 

I try to scream but the only sound made is my veins constricting and my bleeding gums peeling, I have forgotten how to touch

Reviews

[JayG]

Think about it... How many people woke up this morning wondering what you believe?

How many woke wanting to hear you talking about you in terms that lack context for anyone other than you?

In other words, what's in it for the reader? You, who have both context and intent guiding you take meaning from the words, but for a reader it's words in a line. meaning uncertain.

But poetry isn't us talking about what's meaningful to us. Readers come to poetry to be entertained, not learn how the poet feels that day, and what matters to them.

The field has been under refinement for centuries. So simply sitting down and saying, "I'm going to write a poem seems a bit short-sighted, and too often reads like Bunthorn's, OH, HOLLOW! HOLLOW! HOLLOW! (below)

Better to take Wilson Mizner's advice: “If you steal from one author it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many it’s research.” So, research. And a great place to begin is with Mary Oliver's, A Poetry Handbook. It's a brilliant little gem that's filled with surprises and insights. And, you can download a readable copy at the address below (though it can't be read on a phone).

https://yes-pdf.com/book/1596

Sorry my news isn't better.

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

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OH, HOLLOW! HOLLOW! HOLLOW!

What time the poet hath hymned

The writhing maid, lithe-limbed,

Quivering on amaranthine asphodel,

How can he paint her woes,

Knowing, as well he knows,

That all can be set right with calomel?


When from the poet's plinth

The amorous colocynth

Yearns for the aloe, faint with rapturous thrills,

How can he hymn their throes

Knowing, as well he knows,

That they are only uncompounded pills?


Is it, and can it be,

Nature hath this decree,

Nothing poetic in the world shall dwell?

Or that in all her works

Something poetic lurks,

Even in colocynth and calomel?

I cannot tell.

[iWriter]

@JayG, I really find this helpful. In this term I mean that the beauty of every poetic piece should be loved and savoured by the reader and not a piece which is always to the author alone

[nadia dmitri]

Amazing as always. Such brutal and poetic descriptions really drive home the theme of intense emotion. Bravo :))