Posts: 2
Threads: 1
Joined: Apr 2026
Eden’s sky
is hell
without you.
Clouds never move,
bodies never age.
Love will never change.
In this garden,
I will feed you every fruit from the tree of life.
We can live forever, laughing and dancing past eternity’s gate.
Reality could fall from my palm,
mere street change.
I’d stoop to pocket the universe
just to keep one memory of you.
Posts: 546
Threads: 238
Joined: Dec 2017
(7 hours ago)Rich Brown Wrote: Eden’s sky
is hell … why specifically would Eden’s sky be hell with or without you? It comes off as a half baked image. You started with something classically poetic - Eden’s sky - but couldn’t quite find a sky-specific image that fit.
without you.
Clouds never move,
bodies never age.
Love will never change. … these three lines are the entire poem. Good stuff.
In this garden,
I will feed you every fruit from the tree of life.
We can live forever, laughing and dancing past eternity’s gate. … a tired, unimaginative follow up to the preceding lines.
Reality could fall from my palm,
mere street change. …. The notion of anything abstract being “small change” is cliched, but the bigger problem is that this portion doesn’t really progress the narrative
I’d stoop to pocket the universe
just to keep one memory of you.
… so is the memory of you mere street change or something valuable? The previous strophe and tbis one say different things. Also, a cliched Image.
Hi Rich - some promise in there, needs a bit of editing
Posts: 161
Threads: 25
Joined: Jan 2026
Hi, Rich, welcome to the Pen. I'm enjoying the mix of the poems clarity and whimsy, It tells a universal story with memorable images. Some notes:
(7 hours ago)Rich Brown Wrote: Eden’s sky
is hell
without you.
I don't thinks you need these lines, the title and the last line make this clear.
Clouds never move,
bodies never age.
Love will never change.
This is a much stronger opener for me, a place humans never get to live in.
In this garden,
I will feed you every fruit from the tree of life.
We can live forever, laughing and dancing past eternity’s gate.
I love these images, I can feel the love and joy in caring for each other and being on one path together.
I think it would be stronger without "In this garden," and "We can live forever,". You have Eden and eternity.
Reality could fall from my palm, Strong image.
mere street change. It's a short poem, we know it's fantasy, for me blunt reality doesn't belong here, I'd cut this line and let palm sit nicely above stoop/pocket.
I’d stoop to pocket the universe
just to keep one memory of you. Strong emptiness in the finish.
So, I'd just give it a trim. Thanks for posting it, a keeper for me.