My angel - My first attempt - Help welcome

[TonyM]

Hello all, I've been reading alot of stuff on here and have really enjoyed it.

I have deceided to write my wife a poem and have tried to keep it simple but still convey to her how much I love her and what she has did for me.

I made an outline with some things I wanted to include and have got alot of it roughed out. Being this is my first one and I would really love to impress her with this since I'm usually not the romantic type.*

Any help finishing or polishing this would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully I havent made this to horrible to understand.

Thanks again.
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Poem outline

- Should start out like a dream. Meeting an angel and spending the day with her seeing things... Turns out the day is 15 years of marriage and the points below reflect actions or events of that single 'day'


- me lost
- the meeting
- first impressions
- date
- fall in love
- disappointment in myself( pushing her away be us not good enough, find out she has already changed me)
- world complete

Wife's Attributes
- sweetness
- enduring love
- gives completely
- makes me better
- attitude
- amazement
- elf like features and beauty
- big round elf like eyes - brownish green
- light blonde long hair

This is a tale
Of one life that changed
By blind luck or by wisdom
Or is it all pre-arranged

I was just a young lad
Who's way was not clear
Life was taking its toll
On one lost souls fear

I was searching for something
Someone or someplace
Sometimes when we're lost
Time is nothing but waste

Just when I gave up
And deceided to quit
In walked this angel
Grace and beauty did emit

She looked like an vision
Her features all flawless
Compared to this angel
Most women are formless

She had Ocean green eyes
And a smile like sunshine
Her hair like fresh cotton
Her figure divine

I took her all in
Trying hard not to blink
My mind was still reeling
I didn't know what to think

She said she was sent
From above with some teachings
To open up my heart and relax
And enjoy what I'm seeing

She whisped me away
To a new land I'd not seen
A land of milk and honey
Now I know it's a dream

We laughed and we danced
Her feet never touching the ground
She had me entranced
By her beauty profound

Then she took me again
To a place in my head
She showed me one path
that could be mine instead

a family complete
With with faith hope and love
If I'd only surrender
To the plans up above

My head was still spinning
This possibility now gleans
Like a beacon of light
Could this still be a dream

This time we moved
In the blink of an eye
To A place of such beauty
All I could do not to cry

She reached in my chest
And grabbed hold of my heart
With her delicate fingers
She willed it to start

She then took the hurt
The longing and pain
And sent it away
I had no more disdain

She let to of my heart
And then took my hand
Explained our time was soon ending
But to accept gods new plan

Our time was now over
I was back at the start
A new outlook on life
A new healed heart

When I woke up
I was still shaken and confused
Trying to get my bearings
The angel, my soul, now has been fused

Then I sit there dazed
Wondering why I had been shown
Such peace and such joy
to never be known

Out of the haze of my mind
Comes an image so clear
Around the corner
Walks my angel, my dear

Then I remembered
That the dream is my life
For the last 15 years
My angel has been my wife

[MorpheusSandman]

I can’t help but let out an “awwww.” I’ve never had the courage to write any of my girlfriends a poem, probably because poetry makes me feel self-conscious enough without having to make it THAT personal. But I think no matter what your wife will appreciate this. Keep in mind that everything I say below is just meant to polish it up as much as possible.

Firstly, if you’re going to use end-rhymes, you should really read up just a little bit on meter. Meter is one way that rhythm is measured in poetry, and it’s especially important in poetry that employs end-rhymes. End-rhymes are kind of like a downbeat in music, and like rhythm in music, those beats have to come at regular intervals or else the listener is lost. The same is true of poetry; when the intervals between the end-rhymes is irregular, the whole poem struggles to “keep the beat.” Secondly, you are generally employing what is known as a dimeter, which means there’s two “beats” (accents, stresses – whatever you want to call them) per line, which is not a meter that’s typically used in English. Tetrameter (four beats/stresses per line) and pentameter (five beats/stresses per line) are usually more common. Tetrameter gives poetry a more sing-song quality, and, in fact, most music you listen to has lyrics that work on tetrameter rhythms. So the first thing I’d recommend is to change this poem from dimeter to tetrameter by simply merging every two lines together like such:

This is a tale of one life that changed
By blind luck or by wisdom, or is it all pre-arranged

What’s more, it’s not necessary to use stanza breaks after every couplet. You can actually put as many together as you want, and one way to think of them is like paragraphs where you break them when the focus/sense changes. You could also just arrange it as a single paragraph, which gives the piece a smoother flow because it isn’t “breaking” every other line or every four lines, and just reading over this I think the single paragraph approach would be best. Now, allow me to get to some individual bits, piece by piece:

This is a tale
Of one life that changed
By blind luck or by wisdom
Or is it all pre-arranged

The last two lines here have too many beats and interrupts the flow. I would rewrite them as: “By luck or just maybe / it was all pre-arranged”

Just in general, read your original stanza, and read this rewrite:

This is a tale of one life that was changed
By luck, or just maybe, it was all pre-arranged

IMO, the second flows much smoother, both because the meter is consistent and because it’s written in two lines of tetrameter rather than four lines of dimeter.

I was just a young lad
Who's way was not clear
Life was taking its toll
On one lost souls fear

The last line maybe: “On a lost soul in fear” If you keep your original, “souls” should be “soul’s”.

Just when I gave up
And deceided to quit
In walked this angel
Grace and beauty did emit

“Decided” is misspelled. Last line is off the beat, but you need to watch out for these types of syntactical inversions. Inversions are when you change typical word order by, eg, in this stanza putting the objects “Grace and beauty” before the verb “emit.” It sounds archaic, and while it can be an effective tool, you have to be selective about when and where you use it. You could change the last line to something like “with such grace and such wit,” or you could change “quit” to another word that would make for a more natural rhyme.

She looked like an vision
Her features all flawless
Compared to this angel
Most women are formless

“Flawless” and “formless” are only half-rhymes, and usually when you’re rhyming in tetrameter I advice avoiding them, but here I think it works because the fact that the rhyme doesn’t quite work emphasizes the rhetoric of the idea expressed in that last line. Probably an unintentional bit of cleverness, but good nonetheless.

She had Ocean green eyes
And a smile like sunshine
Her hair like fresh cotton
Her figure divine

I would write “and a smile that shined” as “sunshine” compels one to put the stress on “sun” which weakens the rhyme. These are all a bit clichéd, but I don’t think your wife will care unless she’s a poetry connoisseur. ;)

I took her all in
Trying hard not to blink
My mind was still reeling
I didn't know what to think

Last line maybe: “I couldn’t even think” to help the meter.

She said she was sent
From above with some teachings
To open up my heart and relax
And enjoy what I'm seeing

Take out “and relax” in line 3.

She whisped me away
To a new land I'd not seen
A land of milk and honey
Now I know it's a dream

“Whisped” isn’t a word… do you mean “whisked”? Third line maybe: “full of honey and milk” (for the meter, and reversing the usual order gives it a bit of freshness).

We laughed and we danced
Her feet never touching the ground
She had me entranced
By her beauty profound

Second line maybe: “Her feet touched no ground”. “beauty profound” is another Miltonic inversion. Maybe “with eyes so profound”?

a family complete
With with faith hope and love
If I'd only surrender
To the plans up above

Last line maybe: “to plans from above”.

My head was still spinning
This possibility now gleans
Like a beacon of light
Could this still be a dream

Line two maybe: “This option now gleams,” and I do think you mean “gleam” instead of “glean”.

This time we moved
In the blink of an eye
To A place of such beauty
All I could do not to cry

Last line maybe: “I started to cry.”

She then took the hurt
The longing and pain
And sent it away
I had no more disdain

First line I’d add “all” before “the hurt”.

She let to of my heart
And then took my hand
Explained our time was soon ending
But to accept gods new plan

I think you mean “let go” rather than “let to”. The third line is very clunky. Maybe: “Said our time would soon end” The last line is rough too. Maybe: “Just accept God’s new plan.”

Our time was now over
I was back at the start
A new outlook on life
A new healed heart

Last line maybe: “A brand new, healed heart”.

When I woke up
I was still shaken and confused
Trying to get my bearings
The angel, my soul, now has been fused

It’s a bit of a cliché, but “dazed and confused” works for the meter. Line 3 maybe: “Tried getting my bearings”. Line 4 is tough… it may actually be a good idea to cut line 3 and start line 4 on line three. Something like: “This angel, my soul / had now become fused”.

Then I sit there dazed
Wondering why I had been shown
Such peace and such joy
to never be known

Line 1 maybe: “I sat there still dazed.” Line 2 I’d contract “I had” to “I’d”. Line 4 reads weird. Maybe: “that never was known.”

Out of the haze of my mind
Comes an image so clear
Around the corner
Walks my angel, my dear

Line 1 maybe: “Through the haze of my mind”. Line 3 maybe: “From just ‘round the corner”.

Then I remembered
That the dream is my life
For the last 15 years
My angel has been my wife

Last line maybe: “My angel’s my wife.”

Hope that helped.

[TonyM]

Hey thanks for all the help, I truly appreciate it. I am working to make the changes you recommended and make it a little smoother all around.