A song again

[EugenistLee]

Hello all. This is my first (coherant) poem, as it is my first post here, and I'd greatly appreciate comments and suggestions. I hope its not too dull for you!

A song again

Melancholy as an unceasing tide
draws over the moonshade of my life.
A passing shadow of truth ignites:
still silent, it plies
the soul-sea forms of unbidden strife.

A groan of masked perturbations
resounds, from the deep-earth urn.
It stalks the forests, the night-velvet curtain.
Drummed in with hope, it is forced to stagger.
It would lift up short shrifts
and make the stars matter.

Like stolen voices steeped in the crowd of noon,
I would pour life into that promise of you.
From the prison, the stained glass prison,
that was the gift of skin too true.

[shortstoryfan]

I think this is lovely. You have a nice ear for sound, and I can see you trying to use the language in original ways.

Three constructive points:

1.) I think the beginning of the fourth line would make more sense if it was not capitalized.

2.) Omitting the "and" at the beginning of the 11th line.

3.) Getting rid of the "too true" at the end. The rhyme scheme isn't very regular anyway, and getting rid of those two words make the last line more resonant (just my opinion).

[GEETASHREE]

Like stolen voices steeped in the crowd of noon,
I would pour life into that promise of you.


Lovely lines!

[hillwalker]

Firstly, there’s no need to write a prologue asking the reader to consider the qualities of your poem. We assume you have posted it on here to obtain feedback – and telling the reader it’s your first post comes across as a desperate plea for us to be gentle with you. You should have the confidence in your piece to let it stand on its own without any support.

As for the poem – I’m still not certain what it’s meant to be about. Perhaps your attempt at suggestion was a little too subtle. But often one needs to read a poem a number of times to get to the gist of it anyway so there’s no harm in a little obscurity.

I agree with Geetashree – there are some wonderful lines here that repay reading.
But the rhyme scheme has forced you to include some rather weak expressions that would have been better left out

– ‘too true’ – ‘unbidden strife’ – ‘make the stars matter’ –

none of these add anything to the poem; rather they diminish it.

You have included a number of elegant phrases like

- ‘unceasing life’ – ‘moonshade’ – ‘the soul-sea’ – ‘night-velvet curtain’ – ‘stained glass prison’ –

which convey a sense of lyrical ethereality, suggesting a dreamlike state.

But then you create a clash of moods by adding rather convoluted expressions like

– ‘masked perturbations’ – ‘the deep-earth urn’ –

and the three lines

‘Drummed in with hope, it is forced to stagger.
It would lift up short shrifts
and make the stars matter.’

which sound quite clumsy; they don't make very much sense and for me break the spell. I’m not sure if that was your intention. This certainly shows promise but needs a little reworking.

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

I share most of the criticism of phrases and rhymes that feel forced or rather self-consciously 'poetic,' but there's an over-all lyrical quality to this that carried me happily along.

[EugenistLee]

shortstoryfan: I'm glad you enjoyed the poem. I've edited the punctuation. I agree; it dosen't make much sense when read as the start of a new sentence.

Hillwalker: Thanks for the detailed and perceptive comments. For myself, I was also concerned that the imagery was too vague and generalized to bring out the narrative of the poem - it does have one tucked away somewhere. Maybe the images could have been extended and developed into a longer poem so that the shifts in tone wouldn't be so jarring. I think its partly to do with the limits of my craft at present, and also with an overdeveloped sense of privacy.