Misty clouds

It leads to something when you can't even recognise what's right or you're trying to find the way out to the tunnel.

Misty roads can't reach the shore, I realized.
The epic journey might lead you to heaven or throw you into the depths of hell.
As the wind blows from the south to the north, people hope the climate will hold the rope.
Threads became threats, life became death and so I lost my control.
The silence speaks for me, oh so you mean I have a significant role? I drove to the limit so that I could see the hope. It was all just a mirage and again I lost my control.
Hence, the misty clouds seized it all.

Reviews

[JayG]

• Misty roads can't reach the shore, I realized.

Once, way back in 1956, in Mississippi, in the very early morning, I was driving a misty road down a steep hill, on my way to Montgomery Alabama. As I descended, I wondered what the large sign at the top of the hill, obscured by the mist, said.

So, I stopped, intending to back up to find out. But before I could, I noticed a shimmering ahead, as if of water. That's when I realized that, blinded by the mist, I'd nearly driven onto, and over the end of, the pier where the ferry would dock to cross the Mississippi River. So, yes, misty roads most definitely, can reach the shore.

But of more importance, Unless the reader knows what triggered that realization you've provided effect without cause, and so, the words have meaning for you, who have context, but none for the reader.

• The epic journey might lead you to heaven or throw you into the depths of hell.

And mashed potatoes have no bones. Both statements are true, but so what? They're also meaningless as they're read.

In this, you're talking to the reader about the result of unstated events. When you say, "The silence speaks for me, " To whom? And what silence? And why does it matter? Without context, the reader has words, yes, but that can have no meaning.

In short: What you say must be meaningful to the reader as-the-words-are-read. We can't retroactively remove confusion, so a confused reader turns away, right then.

Bottom line: They've been screwing up, and finding ways not to do that for centuries, as they refined the techniques of poetry. And one of the first realizations was that the reader doesn't care how the poet feels, or what's meaningful to them. Readers want you to make THEM care and feel. They want to be entertained, not informed. And to do that takes a set of skills not mentioned as existing in our school-days—the skills of the poet.

Learn them and you stand on the shoulders of giants. Skip that step and you're back making all those mistakes, not even realizing that they are mistakes.

Try a few chapters of Mary Oliver's, A Poetry Handbook. It's filled with insight and surprises.
https://dokumen.pub/a-poetry-handbook-0156724006.html

Sorry my news isn't better, but you did ask, and, since we'll not address the problem we don't see as being one, I thought you might want to know,

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

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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“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain