Falling In Love

[2X2E5]

Our bodies are composed of trillions of cells,
I allow a few million to rebel.
Start a revolution from my heart down my left arm.
Let the message sing across my veins.
Send the poet with a notice of warning;
from the heart to the calculative men upstairs:
David’s in Love

Let the shivers and the rivers; of sweat,
borrow troops that will make the heart melt.
Swallow unpityable human cowardliness,
control the accelerating tongue and hands;
from cute embarrassment.
Sing with the mind, dance with words, speak through the eyes,
connect with burning numb hands.

Tonight we fly through the night sky together,
Up, down, and twirl around.
We’ll race with shooting stars.
Lets paint the canvas with our tears.

[cacian]

This is a great piece 2X2E5. I mostly enjoyed the last stanza but the very last one

Tonight we fly through the night sky together,
Up, down, and twirl around.
We’ll race with shooting stars.
Lets paint the canvas with our tears.

I would have preferred a much lifted ambiance at the end of this piece which should tie up nicely with the title.:)

[hillwalker]

So many have written poems about love that it's impossible to come up with anything new to say. Although you try with a metaphor about blood cells behaving like an army the entire piece becomes muddled very quickly. And the closing verse is unfortunately rather like something out of a pop song.

H

[2X2E5]

So many have written poems about love that it's impossible to come up with anything new to say. Although you try with a metaphor about blood cells behaving like an army the entire piece becomes muddled very quickly. And the closing verse is unfortunately rather like something out of a pop song.

H

I can see how it sounds pop songy...originally I was trying to portray the feeling of a Chagall painting and a part from Master and Margarita by Bulgakov...the feeling of being on top of the world, free, off the ground...any suggestions how I can edit it to be less pop songish? Is it in the words or the ideas?

[hallaig]

Be much better if the first verse stood alone, ending in David's in Love

[hillwalker]

I agree that the first verse is the strongest and the closing one the weakest (in fact the closing verse is beyond salvaging)

v2 - 'shivers' and 'rivers' is over-alliterative - 'make the heart melt' belongs in a Hallmark greetings card - 'Swallow unpityable human cowardliness' is a mouthful and not remotely poetic - 'accelerating tongue and hands' is approaching '50 Shades' territory - Sing with the mind, dance with words, speak through the eyes, is just as bad as your closing verse, and I don't really see how burning numb hands fit in.

How would I really go about improving this? Write about something more original that might enlighten your readers.

H

[firefangled]

I like the attempt here to change the venue for a love poem. The first stanza is the best, I agree. With a few tweaks. L1 sounds too much like a text book intro and

L4 might work better if it sounded less like a proclamation. There are some punctuation problems; L3 is not a sentence and could be included as a clause with L2 by using a comma or "and." After warning, requires a comma instead of a semi-colon, as the phrase up to the colon is not a sentence.

I do like how S1 uses relatively simple language. S2 has too many amplified adjectives; it's distracting.

You should definitely work on this some more. It is an original idea as far as I can tell. Love always can use a new way to talk about itself. :)

[hallaig]

How would I really go about improving this? Write about something more original that might enlighten your readers

You curmudgeon, Mr Walker. Folk are aye going to drivel on about love.

[hillwalker]

'drivel' being the operative word, is it no?

H

[2X2E5]

Thank you for all the feedback, i'll keep it in mind when rewriting it :)

I'd like to ask you guys, does poetry need to have a particular purpose? Because my intentions in writing my poems were kind of to recreate a feeling I experienced or at times a kind of perspective on life I have while growing up and struggling with naivity. This one tried to kind of combine elements of both. Is it enough to try to just recreate one of those joyful moments or is that kind of simplistic in writing poetry, because thats the impression I got.

If not, which Im guessing is not the cause but out of probability and I guess from a hint of defensiveness, does my poem fail if it does not make the reader grasp/feel my intentions of my purpose for writing it? How true should the poet stay to their inspiration. Considering that I have not developped technique or mature taste in poetry, and can be considered in the process of learning, should I treat all criticism absolutely? Or are these questions ones I should be figuring out for myself...?

Based on other member's poetry that I've read in the last few days, I'm confused by the purpose of poetry...although your comment about writing to enlighten the reader does help me very much in approaching my rewriting and future poems.

[hillwalker]

By all means write a poem about a particular feeling you once had - preferably one that had some significance in your life.
But if it's not going to resonate with your readers - and let's face it, a poem about falling in love is hardly going to seem original since most people do it at least one time and think it's a unique experience that no one else can possibly have felt in exactly the same way as them - it's difficult to treat such work seriously. I know from my own experience.

When I was in my teens I scribbled entire books of 'love poetry' because I realised I was going to be the next Leonard Cohen.

When that ambition failed to become reality I chose a new path in life.

Poetry can be therapeutic and serve a purpose for the writer regardless of having it read by anyone else. But generally if you hope to engage an audience it has to shed a new perspective on something. Leave the reader enthralled by your exquisite choice of words perhaps, or enlightened by your original way of approaching a particular subject, or at least have them take away a worthwile memory after coming across your work. Even if it's just a single well-crafted line.

H