the past's shrill song of sorrow..
a siren's call to forgotten dreams,
hushing;
swaying--
embracing my being; 
leuring me to my destiny....
the gentle touch of eternity,
reassuring my present state.
the shining glow of her merciful charm;
making constant the revololation of the univerese...
now beside me to bring my endless fall to a halt.
i've overcome the fate's cruel joke,
now all i have left to truely conquer--
is the chill of time...

31 responses total.

"to truely mature, one must stop blaming everything wrong in their life 
on the past..."
                --M. Breuk

nice...short and sweet

        If I don't rein myself in .... I could sing praises, I could soar on
your works .... not a dry eye left in my house ... How do you do it?

there is a fine line between blaming and accepting

--me

(and thats the second time someone's slipped in on me in this item :)

Interesting.

This *is* nice, this being shorter than your usual, but still just as 
effective.

This poem is about the narrator.  We know that because it is in the first
person.  Beyond that it's purpose gets a little fuzzy.  At first, it seems
like the narrator is considering suicide.  Lines like
        "embracing my being;
        leuring me to my destiny..."
tend to enforce this idea in my mind.  Later on, 'though, it seems to switch
subject, instead being about overcoming some sort of internal struggle.  So
what is happening?  Let me put forth this hypothesis; The narrator is
contemplating suicide, after being wracked with some sort of depression.  It's
looking better and better to this person.  But something happens, the
        "shining glow of her merciful charm;"
inspires the author to fight back against the depression.  This is supported
by 
        "making constant the revolation of the universe...
         now beside me to bring my endless fall to a halt"
So the mercifull charm thing helps the narrator to stop feeling so wretched
horrible (By the way, the "endless fall to a halt" bit is a good line).  The
fall into dispair is brought to a halt.  Which doesn't mean that the narrator
is out of the dumper just that s/he isn't getting any worse.  Now it has to
fight back.  The last line, about "the chill of time" indicates that this is
a continuing struggle, against which the author may never be free.
        Having fathomed a working hypothesis, one askes, what works in this
poem?  Well, the use of time works; it begins by talking about the past, and
moves on to the present ("reassuring my present state) and finishing with the
future, which is what I believe the "chill of time" to be.  This helps unify
the poem.  I like the imagary, such as "the constant revolation of the
universe".
        There is quite a lot of "telling" in this peice, and very little
showing.  Personally (and, as always, this is my oppinion) I'd like to know
a little more about what happened, what is happening?  It speaks in such broad
terms that I find it hard to connect with the narrator.  It could stand to
be lengthened up.  Explain why the narrator is depressed, what happens to
cause him/her to start fighting back?  What's the story behind this?  I
personally think that by going into more detail "showing" it would help the
reader to get more into the poem, and be more interested in it.  My oppion,
take it or leave it.
        Finally, the most minor detail, stylistic notes.  These are the most
biased toward my oppinion, so be warned.  I count four elipsis and two dashes
in a fourteen line poem.  I think that's too many.  Think about including more
sentance breaks.  Also, lines four and five could be combined into one, and
watch what you do with semi-colins.  Grammatically, they should only be used
to connect to full sentances of the same thought, so "hushing;
                      swaying--" doesn't work so well.  Instead try, perhaps
"a siren's call to forgotten dreams,
         hushing, swaying,"  instead.  
        This is purely me, but I prefer that lower case "I"s and suchlike be
used very carefully.  IMNSHO, it should only be used to de-emphasize the
narrator, but lines like "i've overcome the fate's cruel joke," are
triumphant!  The narrator beat fate!  Yo, who the wo/man?!  See what I'm
saying?
        That's it.  I hope I haven't scared you away from further postings.

i'm not good with the whole punctuation-thing.. never have been.. when 
i first bagan writting i never put anything in.. not even capital 
letters <<<a bad habbit that still haunts me>>>.. never pay attention 
to my punctuation.. 

Eep!  Usually, I don't have the concentration level or the time to 
carefully analyze these kinds of poems like Josh just did.

Punctuation, capitalizing, and even grammar can be broken, if you know 
what you're doing.  e.e. cummings often wrote in lower case and devised 
his own rules for punctuation, but he knew exactly what he wanted to 
convey by it.  Even the spacing breaks dictate the pace of how the poem 
should be read and how long the pauses should be.  Don't let it be a bad 
habit, but let it be another one of your tools.

Exactly my point, Jon.  You can do just about anything with poetry, but you
only *should* do something if you know exactly what you're doing.  If
something worked for e.e. cummings, that doesn't nesessarily mean it'll work
for every piece.
re:8
When I read a poem I find it hard to ignore things like punctuation. 
Punctuation and line spacing dictate the flow at which a poem will be read.
Asking the reader to ignore it is an unreasonable proposition.  But that's
why we have this conf., right?  It's a place to get critiques and suggestions
for improvements.  You may not want to revise this poem, but the next time
you write, Zoe, I'd suggest taking the time to think about those elements.
You may find, that by simply re-reading a piece you "just plonked out", to
use one of my favorite expressions, you'll be able to find numerous places
for correction and improvement.  A simple proof read, in my experience, offers
a much more rewarding poem for both the reader and the writer.

As always, this is my oppion, and you feel free to disagree with me if you
want.

Well, I disagree with your "only if you know exactly what you're doing", Josh.
Usually, the things I do with punctuation or line breaks or capitalization
just "seem right"; I don't have any technique behind them, I don't know why
they work, but there are places where it just seems fitting to punctuate or
capitalize a certain way, so I do.  
The problem comes - in my opinion - when people punctuate or capitalize
funny Because They Can, not even because it feels right: "I'm gonna write in
all lowercase so I look poetic" and so forth.

Right.  I don't think it has to be a concrete, conscious thing.  That 
would make poetry too much of a science and not enough of an art.  A 
good poet has a feel for what works, and to technically explain the mood 
sometimes ruins it entirely.

OK, I'll concede that.

I understand the use of punctuation and caesurae to convey meaning.

e. e. cummings wasn't the only poet to do that.  


(caesurae is the technical term for line breaks)

'tis but a bone chilling reality only kept sane by the truth of it.

the works of I a 13 yr old shall soon be up!

"caesurae"...I like it.  I'll have to remember that one.

Caesurae is plural
The singular is Caesura

I think it's latin or greek or something.

If it ends in -ae, it's probably Latin, or a Greek word borrowed through
Latin.  

13 huh? the age of recognition to the corrupt society around one's 
self...

Scary, huh?

I knew about the corruption of the world when I was 8.
By 12, I had deluded myself into a pollyannish view.
By 13, I was having my first midlife crisis. I've had two or three major ones
since.

I'm probably still at where you were at twelve, Paul.  Though I have had 
one or two rude awakenings during my life.

my midlife crisis occured when i was five.. the candy-coated part of my 
life melted away and i was left with the brittle bones of reality after 
the whole rape thing.. after 13... life was just a smack across the 
face i was so use to taking... but "statistics" claim that 13 is when 
people mature.. i'm yet to truely see it.

Yeah, it sucks when people tell kids there's no Santa Claus and no Tooth 
Fairy, because it makes kids feel like they were betrayed by their 
parents, but it also destroys their dreams.  Kids chould be allowed to 
mature when *they* are ready not when the so-called "grown-ups" think 
they should.

That seems kind of silly to me.  I mean, I _knew_ there was no Santa Claus
and no Tooth Fairy pretty early on, but that that didn't keep me from
pretending that they exist, and I enjoyed the pretending just as much.  (For
that matter, my family still goes through the whole "Santa Claus" routine each
Christmas even though the youngest member is 14 years old now.  It's a neat
game even still)

I'm sure it depends on the person.

Yeah, My family still does the Santa thing, too.

What I'm talking about, though, is something I heard a while back.

There was this Elem. teacher who told his entire second or third grade 
class that Santa Claus was a lie.  Lots of parents were really upset 
because of it.  The teacher eventually lost his job.  Before the 
incident was dropped he commented in the paper that, the reason he told 
them was that he figured it was time for them to grow up.  It's people 
like that who really bother me.  What do they know about when kids 
should grow up.  Kids grow up at their own paces.  They should be 
allowed to imagine, pretend, and dream for as long as they can.

<rant=off>

And then there was the time I worked as a Santa at my hometown mall.  
I'm still debating about how long I want to hold the mystery, but I'm 
sure my children will let me know when they see Santa as a symbol of 
generosity and goodwill, and not a mythical figure.  Everybody loves 
Santa whether they believe he's real or not, and working as Father 
Christmas really taught me a lot of things.

I learned a lot about children and their ability to trust.  Many times, 
I had to make things up to satisfy children's curiosity.  But that made 
Santa real to me.  When I donned the suit and greeted people, I was 
Santa.  I found it very natural to give the belly 'ho ho ho' laugh.  
Most of the time, I was very jovial, when my buttocks weren't sore.

But it wasn't just children.  Young couples, grandmothers, available 
young women (hehe), families, and friends all wanted to talk to Santa 
and have a picture taken.

I had much the same response when I was the mascot of a burger and 
spirits restaurant in Kennewick called Red Robin.  Yep, I wore a bird 
suit.  You wouldn't believe how much more I learned about people.

Children alone do not have the corner on the market of dreams, as you 
know.  I suppose as adults, we just devalue it sometimes as not grounded 
in reality.

Wish we valued dreams and dreaming more.  Bet we'd be more fun.

        Dreaming about things that don't exist, and never did, is a good
way to wind up bitter and disappointed in your adult life.

true, but dreaming is what got us many of the things we now have 
including interesting books, music, and poetry.

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