rectangular cutscenes

this is how our love ends;
nostalgia won't save us from tomorrow:
there are too many fragments to collect
crumbling words speak volumes.

we are separated by history;
the waters of Sulis breathe antiquity
a thousand years from woodland bandits.
anachronism never looked so good.

this is how our love ends;
between the sheets we painted dreams
incongruent fantasies of new yesterdays
one click, we freeze memories

in rectangular cutscenes
collect our colourful fragments in volumes
slip them beside the smudged letters
this is how our love ends.

wayward road signs mark our fall
a long lost whisper we forgot to write
a funeral we never wanted to create
take a photo and watch us wander.

i like the poem you have now- you have a lot to offer for it.

at the same time, though, it seems as if you run on your own train of thought, one that strays a little too far from what you originally said. i mean this mostly on your second stanza... what are you really trying to say there?

you have many repetitions. i'm not sure if you really wanted to make the poem repeat itself, or if you ran out of ideas and thought repeating a phrase would be a good idea.

in rectangular cutscenes
collect our colourful fragments in volumes
slip them beside the smudged letters
this is how our love ends.

here is one place i mean. it feels as if you have said this before... maybe because you have? =)

i like the feel of the poem, the emotion, the dreariness, but i think you should sort out what you really want to be said from what is a digression or from something unnecessary.

hope this helps. glad to see you're writing poetry again!

i think, like emotion_less said, it could be a little condensed, but the direct repetition is nice, it adds a lot to the whole poem.
the puntuation seemed a little weak, it could probably be a bit clearer if you rethought it.
also some lines seemed a tad weak such as "a long lost whisper we forgot to write"...maybe a bit over the top.
overall i loved this though

It is a emotional piece, Jack. My critique might sting if the wounds are still fresh -- I don't want to come off as insensitive -- but here it is:

In my opinion, your poem is all over the place. It was hard for me to make sense of it: the writing jumps from broad generalizations to ancient history (or is it mythology?) to this brilliant idea of cutscenes. I love the cutscenes image -- these fragments of memories -- but I feel like it gets lost in the middle of everything else.

The only thing, presently, that ties the piece together is the repetition of the line "this is how our love ends." I do like it -- the repetition -- but the line is strained because there is nothing else backing the theme. It is like trying to hold a bunch of oddly shaped objects together with a rubber band. It doesn't work, not for me at least.

The first stanza is promising. "There are too many fragments to collect / crumbling words speak volumes." So good, Jack. I looked forward to reading, in the next stanza, more about that -- possibly an extended metaphor -- and you push "waters of Sulis" on me. I could have done without that stanza, on the whole. It is unrelatable and detatched (in a negative way.) It provokes no emotion, and seems to come from an entire different poem altogether.

Stanzas three and four: YES! These stanzas are achingly real. You can picture smudged paper, "painted dreams," "colorful fragments" -- and feel that they've meant something to the poet. The writing here is sharp, the images are clever, and repeated line at the end cinches the deal.

The final stanza was a letdown.

A long lost whisper we forgot to write
a funeral we never wanted to create

I understand where you're going with these, but it seems like overkill. The lines are confusing, and disrupt the flow.

"A long lost whisper we forgot to write" does nothing for me -- I would almost prefer you to say "an obituary we forgot to write" -- something pertaining to death, or cutscenes.

And I understand where you're going with "creating funerals," but it is a weak image -- not one you'd want to end a poem with. "Murder" or the idea of "killing our own creation" would be stronger, I think. Which wording would be more effective in your opinion, in regards to create vs. destroy?

On the whole, Jack, the poem has tremendous potential. With some revision to the the second and final stanzas, I think this could be an incredible piece. Feel free to PM if you want to discuss this further.

Thanks everyone, especially Shriek for that awesome indepth critique. The wounds aren't deep because they haven't been cut yet, the poem was supposed to be a projection of the future; however, I thought most of the lines would sound clumsy in future tense so I tried to avoid that. But it might be worth a try. I'll take your comments on board and look to improving this.

Well I really like some of your single lines especially :

nostalgia won't save us from tomorrow:
there are too many fragments to collect

I would look for a different word to replace the first 'volume' unless you're trying to make a pun, which (if that's the case) I think could use some more thought. Overall I'd say it's really good, I like the subject very original
-tangerine

i loved the line "nostalgia won't save us from tomorrow"