mementos

one who lost at love, now she loves him...can it work?

a babe in woods, they laughed at me

seeking to snuff my appeal

even though glimpses of memory revealed

my doubts reflecting back to me.

she quickly disallowed my grief

in pseudo-royal fashion

for all who ridiculed my passion,

my reasons for my beliefs.

 

a mess of photos on the floor, scattered like

toothpicks, the rain man’s milieu,

recalling how he loved her light,

her knack for loving purely mattered for

what he needed, two loves not shattered

but not exactly feeling right.

 

her voice would guide him, trembling as it was,

a twisted turn around the shifting bend

racing to a love that he feared…

now sitting on thorns, he grasped for the morn

the photos find him now, sitting in scorn

and sifting through old souvenirs.

 

mementos rest in boxes now,

ringing loudly through the years and

prompting wishful tears.

 

dan and dee © 2015

Music: "More Than Words," by Extreme

 

Author's Note

Reviews

[Nadia Gerassimenko]

Omg, I thought it was always momento! And I swear, I even read momento when I watched that movie (very good if not seen). And now I read memento...LOL...as they say, "you live and you learn."

I agree totally with the lovely song's lyrics. It's by actions that we truly feel loved. My hubby always says he loves me, but he needs not because I feel it every day for all that he has done for me and keeps doing on a daily basis.

As for your poem, lovely pictures, fluid format (even rhyming from time to time intentionally or not). It's a little ambiguous, but only because it seems so personal and at the same time the readers can make their own conclusions that can be as personal to them, but different from the author (or the protagonists in the poem). It feels like there was love between two people, but one loved more passionately than the other. And even though beautiful memories were made, it never quite felt like it would last for too long when two people are not in the same wave-line. This does happen often in love, unfortunately, one loves one but the other doesn't or not in the same intensity.

[dan]

Nadia, I love the way you analytically review my writes so dispassionately, even this one that is injected with so much (unrequited?) passion...and I don't mean that to disparage you; emotion and passion are not welcome distractions to finite analysis. And just to let you know, the rhymes that occur within the lines are what I call internal rhymes, and yes they are intentional. As far as the rhymes that occur at the END of lines (traditional rhymes), well they just happened to work out that way. Thank you so much for the time you take to read, understand and offer such salient insights to the reviews. Hey, can I ask you a favor? Since you are so good at disseminating writes and really digging into meanings, I want to ask you to really be constructively critical of my writes. I seem to have a lot of people here that respect my writing, for whatever reason (and I'm not complaining), but they don't offer any kind of constructive criticism. If I post something and you see portions that should be strengthened or are just not up to snuff, can you tell me? Like, "Hey dan, this is pretty good but that second stanza is pretty weak. Punch it up!" Could you do that because I really respect your opinions and I would appreciate it very much. If you don't feel like doing so just tell me, I will understand. Thanks so much! take care...dan

[Nadia Gerassimenko]

I thought that they were intentional. Either way, I liked them...they made the poem more fluid and they are not redundant (like roses are red, violets are blue, bla bla bla, I love you, etc). I am very honored that you'd want me to help you in making your writing better! So I will be sure in my following comments to be more analytical. To tell you the truth for now I have not found anything you could improve on because 1) you are faultless to a fault (lol) at writing and 2) how can I just tell you to omit this word or change that word or completely change the stanza without changing the meaning of the poem? But I am usually honest in my views and do offer suggestions where I see fit. I will do the same for you.

[dan]

Nadia, Just to clarify, on this piece I read it to my wife. She is not into poetry, and though she loves mine I think she's just being partial because...I don't know...she loves me or something. But this time I read it to her (the original draft) and she told me that the first stanza didn't fit in with the rest; I re-worked that stanza, so now she's my collaborator. If you look at the bottom of my piece where I always put the copyright, instead of dan (C) 2015 I wrote dan and dee (C) 2015. We did it together. So you don't have to be specific (telling me to change words) but if you say something like, "Hey, the 2nd line in the 3rd stanza's a little muddy...you should clean it up," I would appreciate that tremendously. Thanks Nadia. take care...dan

[Nadia Gerassimenko]

Your wife is awesome! And Dan & Dee makes a great team (same first letter, how cool)! Absolutely, I will do my best to provide the best feedback I can. And you are always free as honest as you see fit for my poems too. I always want to improve as well, especially not being a native speaker. I tend to make often overlooked errors.

[dan]

I would like to read your poetry regularly. I have a hard time keeping up with all of my reviewing obligations; I'd really like it if you could send me read requests when you post one. I ALWAYS respond to read requests. And I might add that if English is your second language it is not at all noticeable, you speak extremely well. Thanks again! take care...dan

[Nadia Gerassimenko]

Hehehe same here! I shall be sending you review requests from now on! I just don't usually want to burden the readers unless they wish to read my poems freely or I have something urgent about a poem I need fixed. And thank you so much. I try to be the best I can be, almost like a native speaker!