Homing Pigeon

My heart is an untrained homing pigeon.
It will not return once I set it free,
Or swoop to avoid head-on collision,
Or show the slightest loyalty to me.
It won't be content with the crumbs you drop
To coax it up onto your calloused hand,
But I'm finding that it will always hop
To the barren plains of the lovelorn's land.
For, once it's flown, it can never return
To a place where your eyes are not the sun.
I sit in grounded nests and pray I'll learn
How to love and not hurt who I'll become.
Fleeing from frost, my heart took the wrong course
And rotted through sweetness I can't endorse.

This was an enjoyable piece to read and I thought that it was written with depp emotion and passion that made me want to ask - can I have more? The imagary throughout stays equal and therefore doesn't bombard the reader in places with too much description and not enough poetry.

You flow worked well with the meaning of the poem - if that is possible, to me it is ^^ - and I enjoyed how you wrote some of the simplist [I can't spell] most minute things and made them poetic and beautiful.

One thing I think you should change is the fact that your third and fourth line begin with the word 'Or' and this puts a strange and almost dulling effect to the beginning of the poem, making the just starting flow jump and skip, feeling abrupt. Just a suggestion.

Hope this helps, and this was a good piece of work.

A quick suggestion: in the first line, you bluntly state the simile that you carry through the entire poem. It's a beautiful comparison, but it's the entire poem summed up in one line. Try making the comparison more subtle. Or at least, don't state it so matter-if-factly. It doesn't really work.

On a happier note, I really did love the poem. The problem with critting is that you usually have to find something bad to say. I had to dig a little to find something wrong with this poem.

Keep writing

Aussie

The analogy was beautiful, apt and well followed. Some of your rhyming was spectacular and I love the way you kept to the rhythm. But (and you knew this was coming) I felt it fell a bit short of what it could have been.

Firstly, I agree with Aussie - the first line ruins it a little. If the poem can be summarized in one line, why should the reader keep going? I almost didnt, and I would have missed out on a lovely piece. Is there any way you could perhaps change that line, and let the title inform the reader if they dont get it?

Secondly, a few of your lines felt a little confused and forced. I'll highlight them in bold:

My heart is an untrained homing pigeon.
It will not return once I set it free,
Or swoop to avoid head-on collision,
Or show the slightest loyalty to me.
It won't be content with the crumbs you drop
To coax it up onto your calloused hand,
But I'm finding that it will always hop
To the barren plains of the lovelorn's land.
For, once it's flown, it can never return
To a place where your eyes are not the sun.
I sit in grounded nests and pray I'll learn
How to love and not hurt who I'll become.
Fleeing from frost, my heart took the wrong course
And rotted through sweetness I can't endorse.

The two lines beginning with "or" are hard to say one after the other and nearly ruin the rhythm. I dont know about "lovelorn's land"..seems...er...weird? "How to love..." seems irrelevant and is not built on - the rhyming seems forced. And the last line is a bit mangled IMHO. Plus the rhyme hurts. I'm not sure why o.0

Other than those lines, it was a very pretty piece. I especially loved "I sit in grounded nests and pray I'll learn" - very well done.

Cheers,
~bubbles

I like the metaphor you used, because sometimes I can feel like this! Over all it was pretty neat, but there are some things you could fix up.

To a place where your eyes are not the sun.

this line didn't really make sense to me? I think the metaphor went over my head. I think "Are you looking into the sun?" but someone else's eyes would watch you, so why is it the sun...? It lost me.

The poem has a really good metaphor to work off of, but it didn't have a whole lot past that. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad, but I think you could do a lot more with it. More imagery, and visuals, and metaphors, and all that stuff that makes up good poetry. I think you really need to pay attention to word choice, because that could really help you out. It's a good idea, but it's almost like it went up and up and up, then dropped like a rock. I know you could make this into something really, really good. ^_~

Thanks guys. Is this better or worse?:

A homing pigeon's beak slipped round my heart.
It will not return once I set it free,
Sure never to mourn when we are apart,
Or show the slightest loyalty to me.
It won't be content with the crumbs you drop
To coax it up onto your calloused hand,
But I'm finding that it will always hop
To the barren plains of the lovelorn's land.
For, once it's flown, it can never return
To a place where your eyes are not the sun.
I sit in grounded nests and pray I'll learn
To fly hearts and not hurt who I'll become.
Fleeing from frost, my heart took the wrong route
And then urged my senses to follow suit.

Personally, I'm not sure, I think I may have just made it worse. Opinions/thoughts welcome.

I like the first one heaps! It was really nice, and I much prefer the first first line, since a beak can't slip around a heart.

But the first version, I really enjoyed!

I personally like the first version better. I love how you compare your heart to a homing pigeon. I had never thought of it that way, but now that I look at it, it makes perfect sense. It's really nice and I like it.

Keep up the good work!


Lots O' Luv,
Lindsay