Untitled 1st poem

[Mogra]

Pain, like a shadow in the dark,
Banished it seemed in the light of your smile,
Hiding, biding waiting,
Always there

With claws to rend, and talons pierce,
Inflicting cuts at first not deep,
Scarcely felt......,
That first cut

Time passes in an unseen haze,
Tinged red from hearts blood
Spurting free, now exposed
From the ravaged soul

Yet still I crave,
And hope and pray,
For healing from your smile,
From now until my grave.


Becomes with editing:
Succor

Pain, like a shadow in the dark,
Banished it seemed in the light of your smile,
Hiding, biding waiting,
Always there

What once was whole
Is now ravaged
Scarcely felt…
That first blemish

Time passes in an unseen haze
Skewed through the prism
shards of fragmented possibilities
All become one- Alone


Yet still I crave,
And hope and pray,
For healing from your smile,
From now until my grave.

[Arriedo]

That last stanza was amazing i think your best. I enjoyed the imagery i could feel the talons. A few tips the over use of dots in "Scarcely felt......," isn't needed only one for the pause.

[Leanne]

I'm sorry, I don't mean to discourage you or be insulting, but this poem features almost every angst cliche I can think of: dark, shadows, cuts, heart's blood, ravaged soul, claws and talons. By themselves these ideas are fine to use, but using them all together makes this very predictable. If your emotions are that strong, they deserve better than to be thrust into generic phrasing. Also, they deserve a title.

Of course, there are people who like this kind of thing.

[Mogra]

I'm sorry, I don't mean to discourage you or be insulting, but this poem features almost every angst cliche I can think of: dark, shadows, cuts, heart's blood, ravaged soul, claws and talons. By themselves these ideas are fine to use, but using them all together makes this very predictable. If your emotions are that strong, they deserve better than to be thrust into generic phrasing. Also, they deserve a title.

Of course, there are people who like this kind of thing.

I thank you for the criticism and you're probably right, maybe I should spend more than 10 minutes writing it. Still it's a good place to start from I think.

[Leanne]

Any place is a good place to start from

Now, take that emotion and show us what it feels like, in your own words.

[Mogra]

Pain, like a shadow in the dark,
Banished it seemed in the light of your smile,
Hiding, biding waiting,
Always there

With claws to rend, and talons pierce,
Inflicting cuts at first not deep,
Scarcely felt......,
That first cut

Time passes in an unseen haze,
Tinged red from hearts blood
Spurting free, now exposed
From the ravaged soul

Yet still I crave,
And hope and pray,
For healing from your smile,
From now until my grave.

{Edit new verses and title}
Succor

Pain, like a shadow in the dark,
Banished it seemed in the light of your smile,
Hiding, biding waiting,
Always there

What once was whole
Is now ravaged
Scarcely felt…
That first blemish

Time passes in an unseen haze
Joy skewed through the prism
Of dreams denied
Becoming instead bereft, alone

Yet still I crave,
And hope and pray,
For healing from your smile,
From now until my grave.

[Leanne]

What an improvement!

Blemish is more potent than cut, because it implies a mark on something previously pure. I do like the idea of "joy skewed through the prism of dreams denied" -- the dreams could be more concrete perhaps, but it gives us a good image.

[Mogra]

What an improvement!

Blemish is more potent than cut, because it implies a mark on something previously pure. I do like the idea of "joy skewed through the prism of dreams denied" -- the dreams could be more concrete perhaps, but it gives us a good image.

Glad you like the edits.
Not sure what you mean by more concrete though. Dreams denied seems a good image for the loss of what was hoped for in a relationship.

[Leanne]

"dreams" is just a little bit vague -- what sort of dreams?

[Mogra]

"dreams" is just a little bit vague -- what sort of dreams?

Well the point was to keep it short, so how to encapsulate all that was hoped for, looked forward to and expected? Dreams seems a good expression for that.

[Leanne]

If you're happy with it, leave it. However, it would only take one word to change it from a standard expression that requires the reader to fill in the blanks, to a more substantial impression of the nature of the relationship and its effect on the writer/poetic voice. Just now I really only get "you broke my heart but I'd take you back".

[Mogra]

I think I understand what you mean, how about instead of :
Of dreams denied
Instead I say
Time passes in an unseen haze
Skewed through the prism
shards of fragmented possibilities
All become one- Alone

[edited]

[billy]

hi mogra. good to see you taking feedback to heart. while your edit so far has improved the poem, it needss a lot more work. (i know being told that can be heart wrenching and i do feel for you or any poet such a thing is pointed out too. lets start with simile
pain like a shadow in the dark; while it works it feels a little weak

pain, a shadow [now you have a metaphor, and a solid image]
banished in the light of your smile [seemed] is padding.

another point to watch out for is cliche, you still have lots [a cliche is a well known phrase or part of one,] things like; your eyes shine like stars in the night. the light of your smile is another. so lets see what to suggest for that?

Pain, a shadow,
banished by your incandescent smile, [even 'smile' can be done away with to make it less obvious or pointed if we change it to incandescence.]

then we have
Hiding, biding waiting, [biding and waiting often mean the same or a similar thing] only one or the other is needed. lets say it's binding, now what? well we have two words and they are connected to the lines above
but are stock words in this kind of poetry. we need to make them pop [stand out better] we can do that by removing them, (by that i mean their intent)

Pain, a shadow,
banished by your incandescence
waiting for the black
and your absence

okay, it's not the greatest example but it's just a suggestion as to how you can break and remake the poem through edit in stanza by stanza way. sometimes the poet has to be really brave and cut a lot of a poem away in order to give it a new heart. the biggy though is no clichés

Pain, like a shadow in the dark,
Banished it seemed in the light of your smile,
Hiding, biding waiting,
Always there

With claws to rend, and talons pierce,
Inflicting cuts at first not deep,
Scarcely felt......,
That first cut

Time passes in an unseen haze,
Tinged red from hearts blood
Spurting free, now exposed
From the ravaged soul

Yet still I crave,
And hope and pray,
For healing from your smile,
From now until my grave.


Becomes with editing:
Succor

Pain, like a shadow in the dark,
Banished it seemed in the light of your smile,
Hiding, biding waiting,
Always there

What once was whole
Is now ravaged
Scarcely felt…
That first blemish

Time passes in an unseen haze
Skewed through the prism
shards of fragmented possibilities
All become one- Alone


Yet still I crave,
And hope and pray,
For healing from your smile,
From now until my grave.

[Todd]

HI Mogra, welcome to the site! I'll address these comments to your edited poem below:

Succor

Pain, like a shadow in the dark,--This isn't a bad opening the structure feels a bit choppy. I'd be tempted to lose the comma after pain and add an is. It would make the flow better. The idea though of pain being nearly invisible in the presence of this other person's smile is a good one.
Banished it seemed in the light of your smile,--look for areas where you can simplify read it out loud. When it sounds a bit forced or choppy smooth it out. Like with this line if you did the simple changes to line one above, it could read: "in the light of your smile"
Hiding, biding waiting,
Always there

What once was whole
Is now ravaged
Scarcely felt…
That first blemish

Time passes in an unseen haze
Skewed through the prism
shards of fragmented possibilities
All become one- Alone


Yet still I crave,
And hope and pray,
For healing from your smile,
From now until my grave.

I'm going to hold off from saying too much in this forum. Simply look to smooth out and simplify and it should get stronger.

Just some thoughts.

Best,

Todd

[Mogra]

Thank you all for your criticisms.
@Billy, not quite sold on the idea that poetry needs to be obscure to get across it's meaning.
@Todd:As regards choppy and forced, the 3 rd verse definitely to me seems that way.

Overall happy with verses 2 and 4, 3 definitely needs work, and 1 perhaps some polish. The idea was that sorrow is always there, but it was hidden by her smile and also the use of "seemed".

[billy]

a poem doesn't need to be obscure. it doesn't need to be overburdened with wordiness either. though there are instances where wordiness works, this isn't one of them. i think the poem is an extend cliche that needs cutting down. but of course you're the poet

[earlymorningnoises]

I might be an amateur, but i dont think that because you used a bunch of cliches makes your original poem less important. If nothing else its simply a stone to step from. a cliche ridden stone, maybe. i dont think you should change it.

[Mogra]

a poem doesn't need to be obscure. it doesn't need to be overburdened with wordiness either. though there are instances where wordiness works, this isn't one of them.....

Succor

Pain
Subterfuge

Pristine
Corrupted

Distorted
Prism

Forlorn
Hope

Better?