Perfect Love

[ShadowsCool]

Perfect Love

Perfect love is like
Soaring waterfalls from heaven
It's the eyes of entwined lovers
Watching each other with scintillating joy.

Each breath in the cleansed air
Is of anticipated wonder
Pure as a nod of slumber
Kept locked in a guardians hold.

A treasure from above
That came not of self
But from a divine source
So not to be misunderstood.

It wait at the feet of an alter
To exult in one another
As they would freely
Without requirement being asked.

It's the gift that must keep on giving
For true love cannot be divided
In time nor death
It lives from above
Forever and day.

And that moment spent
In the sparkle of her eye
From great warmth in her smile
You turn around and thank
The fate of your existence.

~

[Twota]

Sweet, I like the last stanza the most.

[ShadowsCool]

Thanks Twota, I'll take any comments I can get.

[Hawkman]

Hi shadows, I'm afraid the idea of soaring waterfalls doesn't quite work for me. I think the opening verse would be better as:

"Perfect love is like soaring,
waterfalls from heaven,
it's in the eyes of lovers
entwined in scintillating joy."

S2:

"Each breath is of anticipated wonder
in clean air"

might be neater, but

"Pure as a nod of slumber"

is just odd. Purity and slumber aren't a well matched pair. You might want to come up with a more appropriate image here.

"Kept locked in a guardian's hold". is also a little odd. Think of all those literary references to wicked guardians and you're left with an image of false imprisonment!

In S3 you switch tenses. You have been saying what love is like so grammatically you should say:

A treasure from above
That comes not of self
But from a divine source"

but it is rather telling, as if you are lecturing the reader and is bereft of imagery. The last line is really clunky. It's a place filler and looks like one.

"So not to be misunderstood".

You could drop the entire verse without any ill effect.

The next verse is confused, not only gramatically but in subject. You start talking about It and They when the poem is about true love. I'd cut it.

"It's the gift that keeps on giving
For it cannot be divided,
Not by time nor death
It lives from above
Forever and day."

You can see I've pruned this a bit to smooth the flow but the last "forever and a day is a bit of a cliche, I'm afraid and "it lives from above" is a strange expression. Living from something doesn't make sense. "Given life from above" makes more sense.

"And in that moment,
spent with the sparkle of her eye
the warmth of her smile,
You turn around and thank
(The Fates) or Fate for your existence".

It is a sweet poem, if a little syrupy, but I guess it has it's appeal. I hope you find my notes helpful and not discouraging.

Live and be well - H

[ShadowsCool]

Thanks Hawk! I'll look at your points carefully and try to see If I can learn something.

[Bar22do]

(A) moment spent
in the sparkle of her eye

kept locked
in a guardian's hold.

constitutes the essence of your poem, Shadow, at least for me. But it's of course a rather massive squeeze, I'm aware.

Still, to reach this essence I enjoyed reading all the strophes of your poem to start with! And thanks for the experience!

[MorpheusSandman]

I disagree with Hawk in that "soaring waterfalls from heaven" is probably the strongest line in the poem, primarily because it gives the reader a sense of vertigo, where we begin with thinking "upwards" with "soaring," then we think of "downwards" with "waterfalls," then we think of upwards again with "heaven". It's a wonderful effect. But much of his other criticisms I agree with.

Watching each other with scintillating joy.

Ezra Pound once said “go in fear of abstractions,” and the idea was that when you have an image, you should beware of diluting it’s power with something that can’t been imagined. Here, “joy” is the abstraction, and it would be stronger if you simply made “scintillating” into the noun “scintillation”.

It wait at the feet of an alter
To exult in one another

Similar here, the image of the speaker waiting “at the feet of an altar” (I do think you meant “altar” and not “alter”) is stronger than them “exulting in one another,” which can’t be imagined, and it drowns out the image.

And that moment spent
In the sparkle of her eye
From great warmth in her smile
You turn around and thank
The fate of your existence.

Here’s it’s mostly cliches that hurt: “sparkle of her eye” and “warmth in her smile.” I do like though the rhythm created between “thank” and “fate.”

[ShadowsCool]

(A) moment spent
in the sparkle of her eye

kept locked
in a guardian's hold.

constitutes the essence of your poem, Shadow, at least for me. But it's of course a rather massive squeeze, I'm aware.

Still, to reach this essence I enjoyed reading all the strophes of your poem to start with! And thanks for the experience!

Thanks Bar!

[ShadowsCool]

Here’s it’s mostly cliches that hurt: “sparkle of her eye” and “warmth in her smile.” I do like though the rhythm created between “thank” and “fate.”

Okay thanks Morpheus. Much to ponder and learn from. You make some real good points like Hawkman. This is something I can learn from.