Absence

[belkar]

Draft #2

I wonder what nothing weighs.
Why is that absence weighs more
than substance. Why is it that
the hole takes up more space than
the chunk of me taken. Taken by the
ghost that passed through and didn’t
leave all of me behind.

It sticks like a splinter, the feeling
that it was a mistake to let go, erase
the imprint of her smile I juxtapose on others.
Force the chitter of her laughter from the rafters
of my mind like they were wrens scattered
into the blanketed night.

Nothing to do but watch the sands of time
erode her immaculate statue, revealing
the cracked clay it was built around.
Its better this way, I tell myself.

Letting go isn't a hiker resting his pack to the ground,
it is the act of clearing the sweat, blood and tears,
picking burlap sacks of rice and dragging them
until all of the rice have fallen out of the
small holes in the fabric. Until the bags becomes
nothing, but a whisper on your skin.

The definition of dramatic irony.

I stand at the top of the mountain,
a trail of rice snaking beneath my feet outlining
the path I carved through the brush, with four or five
empty burlap sacks held in my hand, all I would
want is to share this sight with you.

And just like that, my bags refill, and I start my trek once more.

Draft #1


Missing is a pain that is inequitable.
It can not fit within the small confines of
logic, or reason, time or space.
It is the presence of the absence.
The infinite weight of the endless void.
A tug on the heart. A ghost who drifts
through the body leaving a gap.
At the tips of the fingers but just out of reach.
It isn't simply the feeling of grief, or despair.
Those are too kind of emotions.
This is not a wound that heals over in
allocations of time or effort.
To fight the feeling is to give it power.
By seeing the problem, one lets it
make a home within the heart.
Letting go is worse than simply missing.
It is the choice to feel that pain. To put
on the vestige of a masochist and drink
the rotten poison that eats from the inside.
Nothing replaces the piece you willingly took
from yourself. Reason cannot force my heart
to quicken its sluggish, somber beat,
or quell the waves crashing at the back of my eyes.
I cannot take off the mask of constant regret.
Cannot shake the feeling that it was a mistake
to ever dream of letting go, to ever attempt to wipe
the smile from my dreams, to ever force the chitter
of her laughter from the rafters of my mind like they
were doves scattered into the blanketed night.
There is nothing to do but let her slip away.
Nothing to do but watch the memories
drain like sand in the hourglass of time.
Letting go isn't a hiker resting his pack to the ground,
it is the act of wiping the sweat, blood and tears
from his face and picking burlap sacks of rice
and dragging them until all of the rice have fallen
out of the small holes in the fabric. And the worst
part is, as I stand at the top of the mountain,
a trail of rice snaking beneath my feet outlining
the path I carved through the brush, with four or five
empty burlap sacks held in my hand, all I would
want is to share this sight with you.
And just like that, my bags refill, and I start my trek once more.

[ellajam]

Hi, belkar, welcome to the Pig Pen. I've read this many times but find it difficult to critique. I find the beginning so cliche ridden I fear you are losing readers who never get to your fine final strophe. I've put a few notes below.

Missing is a pain that is inequitable.
It can not fit within the small confines of
logic, or reason, time or space.
It is the presence of the absence.
The infinite weight of the endless void.
A tug on the heart. A ghost who drifts
through the body leaving a gap.  
At the tips of the fingers but just out of reach.
I am finding nothing new here, a bunch of cliches strung together.

It isn't simply the feeling of grief, or despair.
Those are too kind of emotions. This is awkward.
This is not a wound that heals over in  
allocations of time or effort.
To fight the feeling is to give it power.
By seeing the problem, one lets it
make a home within the heart.
Again, nothing really new here.

Letting go is worse than simply missing.
It is the choice to feel that pain. To put
on the vestige of a masochist and drink
the rotten poison that eats from the inside.
Nothing replaces the piece you willingly took
from yourself. Reason cannot force my heart  
to quicken its sluggish, somber beat,
or quell the waves crashing at the back of my eyes.  
Sorry, it just sounds same old, same old to me.

I cannot take off the mask of constant regret.
Cannot shake the feeling that it was a mistake
to ever dream of letting go, to ever attempt to wipe
the smile from my dreams, to ever force the chitter
of her laughter from the rafters of my mind like they  I love chitter and it's a beautiful image. I might have chose a different bird, maybe wrens.
were doves scattered into the blanketed night.  
There is nothing to do but let her slip away.  
Nothing to do but watch the memories  
drain like sand in the hourglass of time.

Letting go isn't a hiker resting his pack to the ground,
it is the act of wiping the sweat, blood and tears
from his face and picking burlap sacks of rice
and dragging them until all of the rice have fallen Great image here.
out of the small holes in the fabric. And the worst
part is, as I stand at the top of the mountain, Not a fan of And the worst part is.
a trail of rice snaking beneath my feet outlining beautiful
the path I carved through the brush, with four or five
empty burlap sacks held in my hand, all I would
want is to share this sight with you.
I think this has great potential, you might want to rework the breaks, some are awkward and some just ineffective to me.

And just like that, my bags refill, and I start my trek once more.
strong ending.

I hope this helps a bit, and that someone else will come along to give you more useful advice. Best I could do.

[belkar]

Thank you for your reply. I looked over the poem and I think I agree that the ending is more powerful. I did some serious editing, and I condensed the poem a lot. I tried to use less words, more content. Here is the edited poem.

Draft #2
I wonder what nothing weighs.
Why is that absence weighs more
than substance. Why is it that
the hole takes up more space than
the chunk of me taken. Taken by the
ghost that passed through and didn’t
leave all of me behind.
It sticks like a splinter, the feeling
that it was a mistake to let go, erase
the imprint of her smile I juxtapose on others.
Force the chitter of her laughter from the rafters
of my mind like they were wrens scattered
into the blanketed night.
Nothing to do but watch the sands of time
erode her immaculate statue, revealing
the cracked clay it was built around.
Its better this way, I tell myself.
Letting go isn't a hiker resting his pack to the ground,
it is the act of clearing the sweat, blood and tears,
picking burlap sacks of rice and dragging them
until all of the rice have fallen out of the
small holes in the fabric. Until the bags becomes
nothing, but a whisper on your skin.
The definition of dramatic irony.
I stand at the top of the mountain,
a trail of rice snaking beneath my feet outlining
the path I carved through the brush, with four or five
empty burlap sacks held in my hand, all I would
want is to share this sight with you.
And just like that, my bags refill, and I start my trek once more

[ellajam]

Hi belkar, the custom of the site is to place your edit above your original, that way newcomers to the thread critique the current version.
Also, did you mean to leave out the spaces between strophes? Oh, quick edit can lose your formatting but full edit won't. Be back to read.

[billy]

i copied and pasted the 2nd draft onto the original for those who commented previously. as it is i'll leave feedback on the 2nd draft only without comparison.
you have to go over the poem and make sure you don't miss an word out. that's okay in novice and in serious too if it's the only problem but everything here feels over developed. we can't see the picture because there's too much going on. try and dig out the bones from all the excess flesh and see what's left. then you can pad some of the sharper edges if you want to

lines like;
the hole takes up more space can be something to work with
and
Force the chitter of her laughter from the rafters
and
Letting go isn't a hiker resting his pack to the ground,

there are more [though not too many] find them and make the poem from them
this;

Nothing to do but watch the sands of time
is cliche, cliche unless used purposefully and well add nothing to poetry they tear down the readers imagination and make his thoughts mundane. 

there are many lines that say too little (not enough bang for their buck) if a sentence add too little, change or remove it, it isn't doing it's job.

you have some really good lines in the poem but they're buried. dig them out and polish them up

Thank you for your reply. I looked over the poem and I think I agree that the ending is more powerful. I did some serious editing, and I condensed the poem a lot. I tried to use less words, more content. Here is the edited poem.

Draft #2
I wonder what nothing weighs. [i wonder] sort of dilutes a reasonable question [what does nothing weigh?]
Why is that absence weighs more where is the [it] apart from that try and be more succinct; [why is absence heavier]
than substance. Why is it that
the hole takes up more space than
the chunk of me taken. Taken by the
ghost that passed through and didn’t
leave all of me behind.
It sticks like a splinter, the feeling
that it was a mistake to let go, erase
the imprint of her smile I juxtapose on others.
Force the chitter of her laughter from the rafters
of my mind like they were wrens scattered
into the blanketed night.
Nothing to do but watch the sands of time
erode her immaculate statue, revealing
the cracked clay it was built around.
Its better this way, I tell myself.
Letting go isn't a hiker resting his pack to the ground,
it is the act of clearing the sweat, blood and tears,
picking burlap sacks of rice and dragging them
until all of the rice have fallen out of the
small holes in the fabric. Until the bags becomes
nothing, but a whisper on your skin.
The definition of dramatic irony.
I stand at the top of the mountain,
a trail of rice snaking beneath my feet outlining
the path I carved through the brush, with four or five
empty burlap sacks held in my hand, all I would
want is to share this sight with you.
And just like that, my bags refill, and I start my trek once more

[Leah S.]

Draft #2

I wonder what nothing weighs.
Why is that absence weighs more
than substance? Why is it that
the hole takes up more space than
the chunk of me taken? Taken by the
ghost that passed through and didn’t What ghost?
leave all of me behind. The passive voice is not helping you here.

It sticks like a splinter, the feeling  
that it was a mistake to let go, erase  
the imprint of her smile I juxtapose on others. Wait, what? Who does 'her' refer to, the ghost? How does one juxtapose the imprint of a smile in the first place, much less inflict said juxtaposition on others?
Force the chitter of her laughter from the rafters Was she a really creepy girlfriend, with her chittering laughter?
of my mind like they were wrens scattered  Bats chitter, not wrens. Who is 'they' ? If it's 'her laughter' it would be "it was." If it's the wrens, then it would be "Force the wrens of the chitter of her laughter from the rafters of my mind and scatter them into the blanketed night." Yikes.
into the blanketed night. I do like "blanketed night."

Nothing to do but watch the sands of time Woop! Woop! Cliché alert!
erode her immaculate statue, revealing
the cracked clay it was built around. I don't know what kind of statue has a clay core.
Its better this way, I tell myself. Why? Why is it better? Why?

Letting go isn't a hiker resting his pack to the ground,
it is the act of clearing the sweat, blood and tears, Woop! Woop! Cliché alert!
picking up burlap sacks of rice and dragging them  
until all of the rice have fallen out of the  has fallen
small holes in the fabric. Until the bags becomes bags become; bag becomes
nothing, but a whisper on your skin.  why is that comma there? Also burlap doesn't 'whisper' on your skin, even if the bags are empty. Burlap is scratchy.

The definition of dramatic irony. Huh?

I stand at the top of the mountain,
a trail of rice snaking beneath my feet outlining
the path I carved through the brush, with four or five
empty burlap sacks held in my hand, all I would
want is to share this sight with you. Why would anyone want to look at a bloody, sweaty, tearful guy who dragged a bunch of leaky burlap bags of rice through the jungle to the top of a mountain for no explainable reason?

And just like that, my bags refill, and I start my trek once more. Huh? Well, if you are at the top of the mountain with magic bags of rice, better mend those leaks before you keep climbing. Also where did the ghost go that stole chunks of you? What happened to the immaculate eroding clay statue? Why is it better this way? What happened to those chittering bat-wrens after they got tangled in the blanketing night?

Draft #1


Missing is a pain that is inequitable.
It can not fit within the small confines of
logic, or reason, time or space.
It is the presence of the absence.
The infinite weight of the endless void.
A tug on the heart. A ghost who drifts
through the body leaving a gap.
At the tips of the fingers but just out of reach.
It isn't simply the feeling of grief, or despair.
Those are too kind of emotions.
This is not a wound that heals over in
allocations of time or effort.
To fight the feeling is to give it power.
By seeing the problem, one lets it
make a home within the heart.
Letting go is worse than simply missing.
It is the choice to feel that pain. To put
on the vestige of a masochist and drink
the rotten poison that eats from the inside.
Nothing replaces the piece you willingly took
from yourself. Reason cannot force my heart
to quicken its sluggish, somber beat,
or quell the waves crashing at the back of my eyes.
I cannot take off the mask of constant regret.
Cannot shake the feeling that it was a mistake
to ever dream of letting go, to ever attempt to wipe
the smile from my dreams, to ever force the chitter
of her laughter from the rafters of my mind like they
were doves scattered into the blanketed night.
There is nothing to do but let her slip away.
Nothing to do but watch the memories
drain like sand in the hourglass of time.
Letting go isn't a hiker resting his pack to the ground,
it is the act of wiping the sweat, blood and tears
from his face and picking burlap sacks of rice
and dragging them until all of the rice have fallen
out of the small holes in the fabric. And the worst
part is, as I stand at the top of the mountain,
a trail of rice snaking beneath my feet outlining
the path I carved through the brush, with four or five
empty burlap sacks held in my hand, all I would
want is to share this sight with you.
And just like that, my bags refill, and I start my trek once more.