Phantom Kiss

[Bandanna]

That lingers on these lips
promise this;
you my last to notice.
Your slipping sweetness
turns never noxious
and it sickens me,
as does falling
in a dream.

[Bar22do]

That lingers on these lips
promise this;
you my last to notice.
Your slipping sweetness
turns never noxious
and it sickens me,
as does falling
in a dream.

Here - "that" and "these" and "this" are too close one to the other, in my opinion. I also do not understand: how this phantom kiss sickens you if it never turns noxious? But I understand you do not like falling in a dream, while I love the expression! ("falling in a dream").

[Bandanna]

I wanted "never" to be more prominately noticed as something personified.
The phantom kiss's slipping sweetness turns "never" itself noxious. Never, as in something that will never happen then, now or again. The slipping sweetness of the phantom kiss is causing particularly that; the something that will never happen then, now, or again, to become absolutely sickening.

The speaker wants the phantom kiss to be the last that it experiences.
"Promise this;/ you my last to notice."
As the phantom kiss's sweetness slips
it turns never noxious. In the aspect that it turns never itself into something noxious. Not that it never turns noxious. I tried to express that through the syntax but I suppose I should find a better way.

[blank|verse]

I think there's something in this, but it's a bit of a poem of two halves.

Phantom Kiss

That lingers on these lips
promise this;
you my last to notice.
I like this part, and particularly the sibilance – the repetition of the 's' sound – which lingers from each line to the next, like the kiss it describes. (And do you mean 'you my last to notice'?) However, I think the continuation of the sound...

Your slipping sweetness
turns never noxious
and it sickens me,
as does falling
in a dream.
is a bit too much. I suppose you could argue it becomes itself 'sickening' but still, I think I would have liked something different here. I don't mind the ambiguity of being 'sickened' by something that 'turns never noxious' (maybe you're suspicious that it's too good to be true?) - which is how I read it, rather than 'never' being personified.

I wasn't sure about 'phantom' kiss, which suggests something sinister (particularly combined with 'noxious'); and thought the ending was a bit flat, or worse, comes too close to saying 'it was all a dream!' especially as it is a 'phantom' kiss you're describing.

Keep writing.

[Bandanna]

Phantom kiss
that lingers on these lips
promise this;
you my last to notice.
Your slipping sweetness
turns never noxious
and it sickens me,
as does falling
in a dream.

Waking to find only
her memory in scuffled sheets
and all this distance
keeping those lips
away from me.

[dizzydoll]

Personally, I think its perfect. Well done. :thumbsup:

[Hawkman]

Hi bandanna,

Having read all the posts in this strand, your explanation of the poem and your revision, I would suggest turning the "never" into "ever". This would make the expressed sentiments more cohesive and less contradictory.

Best, H.

[Bandanna]

Hawkman,

I've actually been debating the very idea of doing so for a long time now.
Though, I think I will leave it be.
After noticing that bar22do did not see "never" as being personified as I had originally intended, I realized that the word never actually is much more dense with meaning than I had at first thought and that very epiphany is what helped spark the revision of the poem.
For a time I was contemplating the use of ever as you suggested, as it does make interpretation a lot more cohesive.
While, in a certain interpretation, "never" could be personified or viewed as an object and thus is then turned noxious by the "slipping sweetness" of the "phantom kiss". Then with another view altogether, a reader may gather that the "slipping sweetness" of the kiss never turns noxious but still creates a sickness in the speaker. The reader could become confused because the speaker would imply that he turns sick because the phantom kiss's sweetness never turns noxious, which indeed seems contradictory. But, it is for this reason that I would like to keep the poem the way it is.
That particular line serves to create in the reader the same emotion the poem should convey.
Does the speaker really want to forget the phantom kiss?
Obviously the speaker's lover is away from him, but why?
The ambiguity of never is used to reflect the speakers complex emotion of his situation.
I did not want to change the line to anything less complex, contradictory as it may be.

[Jesterhead]

the 'never' is confusing me a bit, so the phantoms kiss's sweetness fades and the fact that it will never happen again sickens the speaker.