I want to capture you

[kelby_lake]

I want to capture you, delight you, entrance you
So I am everything you think about.
I'd give you all I could conceivably give you-
No, not my heart, not that.

Even if all I give you is flesh
Or if you only think of me fleetingly
Perhaps in annoyance at the way
I'm too vulgar.

But if I could capture you...
You'd want to give me everything
Even your heart, even that.
And all your nights would be drawn-out aches
And you'd analyse every word I say
You'd consider yourself beneath me
(How I wish you were beneath me!)

I can't capture you
I am caught, guilty
Of giving you everything.
Sometimes in my dreams I give you my heart
And secretly I have given you my soul.

[kelby_lake]

Critique?

[tetyanaroi]

Critique?
This poem is about our life. It's realistic. Sometimes we don't want to open our heart and soul to others but abruptly we notice that we have already done it. We have already devoted ourselves to anybody else...

[everyadventure]

This poem is made doubly creepy by the freaky 80's avatar. The best lines were "You'd consider yourself beneath me / (how I wish you were beneath me!)

Don't be offended if I don't send you a friend request ;) *SHUDDER*

[Jack of Hearts]

It does come off a little rapey...

But it's very direct communication where one would want to poke at poetic device.





J

[qimissung]

H-m-m-m. I didn't find it creepy. there are some people who feel vulnerable-but they come off as obnoxious, or distant, cold, or elusive; perhaps they "love too much" like Hugh Hefner (now he makes me shudder).

But secretly, although they make not be able to say it aloud, they long to love and be loved.

[kelby_lake]

Interesting looking back at something I wrote five years ago...

I think that the speaker wants the object of their affection to suffer the pain of unrequited love and the frustration that they cannot be with this person in any sense. I think the poem flicks too much between the speaker's control and lack of control and that the concept of them being in control because of their self-control in keeping silent and yet embarrassingly out of control could be dealt with better.

There is a faint 'rapey' quality but I think it's true to life that people do think embarassing thoughts when they are completely stuck on someone. The speaker is incapable of the commitment they fantasise about.

[Jack of Hearts]

Yes.

There are some poems that read like an underwear drawer (credit: hillwalker).

And anyone who's paid attention to the realm of their own experience knows they themselves have had embarrassing thoughts. It's only human.

Your assessment may be right about the poem. On the other hand, it could be more about your feelings now.

Either way, we're far from good poetry in this example. As someone who has spent plenty of time far from good poetry, Jack of Hearts feels credentialed to say that.




J

[AuntShecky]

Interesting looking back at something I wrote five years ago...



And a very wise thing for an aspiring poet to do! Very often we dash something off, consider it great, post it and expect the raves to come roaring in. Actually, one's work often benefits from distance. After a (unspecific) length of time, it's good to look back on an earlier work with a different set of eyes and from that more objective perspective write a revision.

Did you know that Auden never gave up on his poems, that he kept revising and revising the same works for years, even after the original poem was published?

Wordsworth's definition: "Emotion, recollected in tranquillity."

[Lykren]

That's good advice to remember, Aunt Shecky.