a song for when your powers out

[love-long-gone]

wait till we're set free
we'll roam the earth as one
and i'm sure love will grow
yes i'm quite sure of that,
i'll raise you up high
and i'll love you eternally
i'll love you till my last dying breath
then i'll love you a bit more

i wrote this simple song for you
as a monument to love
i hope you understand
that you've always been the one,
i sit here in this darkened room
just writing up a storm
because your love does things to my heart
which affects my brain in turn

i've loved others since i've known
but none are quite like you
so i kneel down here with ring in hand
and sweat up a nervous storm
you said what i hoped for
and now we're an item
but one of a kind no less

(it's not finished just yet but if anyone has any suggestions or anything they feel should be changed or added or anything PLEASE give some input because i'm writing this for a song to the girl i love the one all the poems are about so it has to be perfect...thanks)

[hillwalker]

I'm not sure how she feels about you but I would be cautious about wearing your heart on your sleeve quite so blatantly.

Girls like to be 'noticed' and 'worshipped' but if it's done in too sugary a way (and with references to a ring!!) it might turn her off. Thereagain she might be overcome with your efforts.

As far as the poem goes - it's a bit of a mix between old-fashioned love poetry (which has been done by so many other writers and in so many better ways) and rather matter-of-fact statements that detract from your message :

and i'm sure love will grow
yes i'm quite sure of that,

is repeating yourself unnecessarily

i sit here in this darkened room
just writing up a storm
because your love does things to my heart
which affects my brain in turn

not too fond of 'writing up a storm' - and I was left wondering how you could see to write anyway if the room was darkened

i've loved others since i've known

oops! I'd keep that information under your hat if I was you

so i kneel down here with ring in hand
and sweat up a nervous storm
you said what i hoped for
and now we're an item
but one of a kind no less

has she said 'she will'? - if so congratulations. But 'sweat' and another 'storm' are not very flattering when describing the effect she has on you - and why tell her 'now we're an item' when she presumably already knows that? It seems a little desperate to be honest. As if you're not completely convinced she's crazy about you so you've had to write this to prove it to yourself.

I'm not much of an agony aunt - :redface: - but I think you need to be a little less direct, a little more subtle, for fear of scaring the poor girl away. Good luck.

H

[Delta40]

When you've got the love bug everything is beautiful. For folk like me sitting on the perimeter, it is so cheesy but also very sweet, especially when I remember the dumbstruck expressions I wore when I was in love. Hill is offering you some practical advice and I'm sure you will find the right combination

As for it having to be perfect, it is our imperfections which add to our beauty....

Good luck

[MorpheusSandman]

The best thing you can do when writing love poetry is to learn from the masters. This (http://www.amazon.com/100-Best-Love-Poems-Time/dp/0446690228) would be a great place to start. Besides that, Hill offered some great technical advice, and I'll toss in some more:

wait till we're set free
we'll roam the earth as one

I think these opening lines are the best in the piece. I like the transcendental, metaphysical tone. I think it would be best if you actually elaborated on this concept, maybe describing how you were set free and describe your roaming of the earth as one and maybe throw in some contrasts about the differences of being apart VS being "as one".

and i'm sure love will grow
yes i'm quite sure of that,
i'll raise you up high
and i'll love you eternally
i'll love you till my last dying breath
then i'll love you a bit more

I think all of these lines should go. As Hill said, look to avoid repetition unless it serves some purpose. In this case, it sounds more like you're trying to convince yourself. The last line is also pretty bad. You'd do good to read Donne's Love's Growth to see how he tackles the concept of growing love, or Love's Infiniteness for an even more ingenious idea of the limits of love. Or you may check out Petrarch for the classic model of a poet who idolized his love.

i wrote this simple song for you
as a monument to love
i hope you understand
that you've always been the one,
i sit here in this darkened room
just writing up a storm
because your love does things to my heart
which affects my brain in turn

I'm also not fond of these lines. One thing you should avoid is getting too vague. Like "because your love does things to my heart". A great poet relies on metaphors, similes, and other devices to evoke how love makes them feel. "Does things" doesn't really tell us how this person makes you feel. "Affects my brain" is equally vague. What you should do is think of a metaphor for something that affects one thing, and then has a ripple effect on something connected to it. Here's a great example from Donne's Love's Growth:

If, as in water stirr'd more circles be
Produced by one, love such additions take,
Those like so many spheres but one heaven make,
For they are all concentric unto thee

i've loved others since i've known
but none are quite like you
so i kneel down here with ring in hand
and sweat up a nervous storm
you said what i hoped for
and now we're an item
but one of a kind no less

You equally get too vague here, and as Hill said, the repetition of "sweat up a nervous storm" is unflattering and unneeded. If you're going to include something about your love for others, you need to use some kind of metaphor or image to show how much this one is much greater than the others. You could equally develop the image of the ring like this. For instance, you might say that you encircled other women like the moon the Earth, yet she's the sun to your earth and moon, and then you could transition to the ring as the classic example of eternal love.

Finally, I think you should either decide to use rhyme or not. Your second stanza is in the classic ballad form of 4/3 with rhymes on each 3, but the rest of the piece doesn't have this form. It's a nice, simple, elegant form for expressing love. Robert Burns used it extremely well so you might read some of his love poems. You should at least learn the basics of meter and rhythm so you can avoid some of your more awkward rhythmic shifts.