Just me

[love&hate]

Narcissism so bleak
under narcotic stars
shadow thoughts whisper
as I float past mars
wisdom unfathomed
faith left to the wise
so I just watch
as earth passes me by

[hillwalker]

I loved the way this began. An enigmatic, poignant vision of solitude with some powerful opening imagery.

But then the line about floating past Mars took away all the potential this has to engage the reader. We're left contemplating the fate of an astronaut floating in space and nothing more.

I'm assuming that was the intention right from the start. Unless the line was put in to fulfill the need for a rhyme - in which case it was an awful choice. Because the reader has no alternative but to focus on this particular 'Space Odyssey' scene instead of being allowed to visualise all sorts of other images related to isolation.

The same applies to the earth passing by - the poem finishes up as a frivolous piece, well-written but with nothing new to say, when it could have been so much more.

And as for the poll.... I wonder what value that can possibly serve. I suggest you stick to hoping for comments and responses. In general they will provide you with more meaningful feedback and your poems will probably be taken more seriously.

Good luck.

H

[love&hate]

floating past mars and watching the earth pass by
are relating to the narcissism thinking that the person
is so high above everyone else but thinks for your thoughts.

[tailor STATELY]

Enjoyed your poem.

I especially enjoyed the minimalistic quality of your poem.

Your touch of surrealism for metaphor worked for me. I have had similar thoughts of the world passing me by on occasion, narcissism notwithstanding.

And welcome to the forums !

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[Silas Thorne]

I just voted for all of the options, sorry about that (I didn't think I could actually get away with that anyway!). ;) I'm with hillwalker, I think you should ignore polls with poetry. An answer on the poll wouldn't mean anything.

I'll give you a bit of feedback in a wee bit-

(five minutes later)

OK, back again now. Good start, but...
I can't help feeling you've forced the rhymes here to fit. There is a strong feeling of isolation here, but also due to these rhymes which seem to keep each pair of lines separate from each other. Floating past Earth, Mars...I'm wondering if it could do with a bit more depth to it. I'm looking for some more consistency to it to hold all the bits together.

[Delta40]

I just voted for everything as well! That means polling folk has no value whatsoever Yay!

I quite like the mysterious feel to your poem. the rhythm of the last line is out of snyc a little and you may want to edit it accordingly.

[hillwalker]

floating past mars and watching the earth pass by
are relating to the narcissism thinking that the person
is so high above everyone else but thinks for your thoughts.

Ok - I understand your reasoning. Interpretation is a difficult part of poetry because if the reader gets a different 'message' to what was intended the writer may be left thinking they had failed somehow.

Every reader will discover their own 'message' - which is sometimes better than making the poem so obvious that there can be no possible hidden meaning. In this case your poem can be read at least two ways. Hats off to you for that.

H