To Tell Her Goodbye

[ShadowsCool]

I entered into the bravest hour
I checked my watch about the time
To tell her I'd all I could bare
A timely departure from all my despair.

I gathered paper with great urgency
With pen in hand I wrote with gusto
This being it I better get it right
Or down the tubes the rest of my life.

I gathered strength all I could muster
Somewhere along love lost its luster
Back in time I thought it could work out
Not knowing now I'd feel better without.

[Twota]

i like it =D and the last verse especially =]

[hillwalker]

I also liked the way you lay your heart on your sleeve in the final stanza.

If you can bear some constructive criticism might I suggest you trim the first two verses to the bare bones - and do away with metre (you seem to have tied yourself in syntactical knots trying to maintain the syllable count in each line).

Line 3 in the first verse took a few readings before I got the sense of what you were trying to say. Inserting the word 'had' would lend some clarity - but, of course, overload the line metrically.

And the 'with great urgency' and 'with gusto' in verse 2 are unnecessary because they add very little to the sense of what you were going through when you decided to put pen to paper. Although they do contribute to the syllable count...

Again, this looks like a creditable first draft but it would benefit from some tinkering.

You say you have written nothing for 15 years and had no formal training in writing. Join the club. It's a huge step exposing your creations to the big wide world - but you will become a better writer through doing so than by sticking everything at the bottom of a drawer or merely sharing it with family and friends who are pre-programmed to dole out nothing but flattery.

H

[everyadventure]

A great improvement over the last few postings. This poem is tighter, a little cleaner. And I like how you've thrown in a rhyme or two to give this poem life, but haven't resorted to the bondage of the ABAB format.

The line "or down the tubes the rest of my life" felt odd to me. It's a hyperbole people use blithely (akin to the awful "I could eat a horse") and so it feels too light, too offhand, to be taken sincerely.

Thanks for sharing!

[ShadowsCool]

Thanks guys.

I take everything to heart what you guys say. I do want to improve and will be working on it. I don't mind a little constructive criticism at all. Thanks to your comments.

Regards
Shadows