A Day Less

[darkprince]

It is like,
the sun hasn't risen,
the birds are fast asleep,
the leaves have no life,
the day you don't call.

I'm not an adventurer,
no tales of wondrous deeds,
no stories of marvellous actions.
The only words I tell you :
"I'm there for you, my love! "

The soil on my land,
It grows no plants,
I need to make it fertile,
I need to hard work,
our tomorrow then secure.

But you are busy,
many seeds to sow,
You may not find time,
no time to call me and smile.

I do understand,
I know that pain,
I know that longing,
that feeling of tearless cry,
for my heart is with you.

Oh remember this my beloved,
A day without your voice,
a day unborn,
a day not part of my life.

[hillwalker]

The way you begin by listing the delights of a typical morning - and how they are not the same when they herald a day without communicating with your loved one - is very effective, especially the reference to the soil on your land lying fallow when there is no contact.

But I felt some of the metaphors were rather confusing:

But you are busy,
many seeds to sow,

I would expect the person with soil on his land to be the one with seeds to sow - but the way this is written suggests it is his loved one who has the seeds (?)

And by the end you had stretched the idea out rather too thinly. This poem cries out to be cut, in order to make the message more effective.

Also certain individual lines would benefit from a trim :

the birds are fast asleep, [no need for 'fast']

no stories of marvellous actions. [repeats the preceding line - but more awkwardly - I would leave this out]

I need to hard work,
our tomorrow then secure. [not sure what this was meant to mean - needs a rewrite so it makes more sense]

I do understand,
I know that pain,
I know that longing,
that feeling of tearless cry,
for my heart is with you.

[this weakens the piece and line 4 is clumsy - you are condensing what you have already written into a soppy verse that takes away all the elegance of the piece]

and the last verse is also a little overblown - that opening 'Oh' smacks of desperation.

But if you tighten up the metaphors and trust them alone to convey the feeling of a lost day then you are on to a winner here.

H

[Delta40]

I rather liked Many seeds to sow - as if to suggest the different agendas involved here. The writer is focused on producing fertile land while the love of their life sows their seed.....

[darkprince]

@hillwalker : thank you 4 ur review my friend.
A part of it, you have misunderstood. "The soil on my land" is referred to my current status i.e a not so gud career and future...that is why i said "i need to make it fertile"..and so securing our tomorrow.
And she "sowing her seeds" means tht she is currently studying.
"tearless cry" is something that i felt when i missed her.
Thanx alot for ur review, do review my poems in the days ahead.

Ohh i dint mention dat her land is different!....my mistake !
It evn changd the whole meaning...hehe

[hillwalker]

Now I understnd the point you are making about the 'land' being your shared future perhaps this line needs rearranging :

I need to hard work,
our tomorrow then secure.

as it is ungrammatical as it stands

and 'that feeling of tearless cry' is a clumsy expression
- how can you have a feeling of a cry? or even a feeling of crying (I'll admit that crying, unlike a cry, can at least be tearless)?

H

[darkprince]

@hillwalker: i undrstand :-)

[darkprince]

@hillwalker: i'm a novice in poetry but let me tel u wat i had in mind

feeling of tearless cry : i tried my level best to meet up with her but our meetings ended up all in failure...those days wen i was with my friends and they were happy, i had to smile with them but inside i was crying...i cudnt bring out ths cry since i dint want to make it public..so whenevr i thought of her, tht cry came as a feeling in my eyes but it had no tears...ths is frm where i got tht line...
Correct me if u stil thnk i was wrng...

[hillwalker]

It's your poem - so you get to write it the way you want.
There is no 'right' or 'wrong' in that case, so don't feel obliged to change any of your lines unless you really want to.

But as an impartial reader I took a 'cry' to mean a sound you make with your mouth (like a 'cry for help') - unlike 'crying' which is what you are actually describing here.

Often how well a poem works is down to interpretation (no matter how artful the language is that you use) - if most readers 'get' the picture you were trying to convey then your poem has succeeded.

The main problem, of course, is that being the writer you usually know exactly what you mean - you can see the whole picture even before you have finished writing it. But the reader only has those pieces of the puzzle you give them in order to complete the same jigsaw.

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

I agree with all the positive things that were said about this poem, but I couldn't swallow


I need to hard work,

which would be more colloquial and understandable as: "I need to work hard"

[Haunted]

I like this a lot but it gives the impression you're trying too hard to make it into a neatly organized poem. I don't think you need the land and sowing symbolism, it's sounds primitive if not biblical and out of place next to the phone.

[Jerrybaldy]

Hi darkprince
I am so late joining this that I can do little more than add my agreement to what has been written above.
One thought. I get the impression you are fairly young and their is a gap bewteen your poetic language and your comments above. Maybe you could bring the two closer together to get a truer voice. I don't mean to write poetry in text talk but to write more in your own voice. If that makes any sense.
best wishes
Jerry

[MarkBastable]

Actually, that should be 'A Day Fewer'.....


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