Swallow Me Forever

(this is an oldie)


Her eyes are like the ocean
That she stares into endlessly
Trying to hide the tears that
Just won’t go away

Salty water splashes on the sand
No one could tell the difference
Between the tears and the waves
That keep crashing on the shore

I see her sitting there
Upon that rock every day
I keep wondering why
She never goes away

Her eyes are like a window into
A mind that is a covert diary
Only revealing the hidden secrets
To those who hold the key

I keep staring into those eyes
Long after she actually leaves
Trying to hold back the cries
That I just wanna let out

When will you be with me love?
I’m so lonely without you
Weighed down by the promises
No one in the right mind would keep

And while I sit in the shadows
You still watch the ocean pulse
Making sure that each wave
Never stops its eternal beat

I want to hold you forever
And gaze into you beautiful eyes
Until the rising pools of blue-green
Swallow me forever

Wow. The meaning was powerful. I love the way you made the ocean a part of it.

I see her sitting there
Upon that rock every day
I keep wondering why
She never goes away

Her eyes are like a window into
A mind that is a covert diary
Only revealing the hidden secrets
To those who hold the key

I keep staring into those eyes
Long after she actually leaves
Trying to hold back the cries
That I just wanna let out

Those three stanzaz frustrate me. In the first stanza, its ABCB rhyming. In the second stanza, it's the same. But in the third and throughout the rest of the poem, it was ABCD. It needs to have a steady rhyming pattern throughout the whole poem. That's what threw me off on this.
PM me if you have any questions.

guitargrl1323 wrote:Her eyes are like the ocean
That she stares into endlessly
Trying to hide the tears that
Just won’t go away

The last two lines of this stanza kill any potential the beginning could have had because of the way you completely contradict them in the second stanza:

Salty water splashes on the sand
No one could tell the difference
Between the tears and the waves
That keep crashing on the shore

Crashing waves have traditionally been, and play out in my mind as, images and symbols of something that is free, violent, and cannot be controlled. Why, then, and how is "she" trying to control her tears? You just threw that out in the cold air without bothering to give it an explanation or any justification.

Also, the second line of the above stanza is in past tense, which disrupts the tense flow.

I see her sitting there
Upon that rock every day
I keep wondering why
She never goes away

You just transitioned from stanzas filled to their throats with imagery and fluid language to a stanza that has absolutely none of that. I sensed nothing here that I could picture in my mind independently of the rest of the poem. This could be a good thing; we'll have to see, based on the rest.

Her eyes are like a window into
A mind that is a covert diary
Only revealing the hidden secrets
To those who hold the key

Please just delete this above stanza completely. I found myself thoroughly unimpressed with the lack of thought you apparently put into the contradictory symbols and poetic devices. Why would you choose to make her eyes windows, of all things, if they are completely closed and reveal no emotion? It makes no sense. Also, when you told us "covert diary", you eliminated the need for the two lines under that because what you are doing is essentially repeating the same thing in a rehashed, and trite, form.

I keep staring into those eyes
Long after she actually leaves
Trying to hold back the cries
That I just wanna let out

You mentioned above that she never leaves. What's going on here?

"Wanna" does not fit in at all with the language you've been using so far.

When will you be with me love?
I’m so lonely without you
Weighed down by the promises
No one in the right mind would keep

And while I sit in the shadows
You still watch the ocean pulse
Making sure that each wave
Never stops its eternal beat

I want to hold you forever
And gaze into you beautiful eyes
Until the rising pools of blue-green
Swallow me forever

Truthfully, I could barely get through the rest of this piece. It wasn't even a slippery slope downhill - more like a sheer drop off of a cliff. From the earlier narrator who spoke in beautiful undertones and who I could almost empathize with, you've turned him into a cowardly animal, an immature whiner. This is a terrible way to end a poem and it left a terrible note with me as I finished - when you end a piece, you need to leave the reader with a cathartic feeling of understanding, perhaps another take on the first or second stanza that shows an upward shift in mind. Instead, what you've done is shown us that the narrator deserved to get rejected by this woman. I am almost certain that that was not your goal.

In addition, the cliches you use alone make this poem nearly unbearable. I've heard "pools of blue" as metaphors for eyes too much to find any sort of romantic or poetic feeling in them whatsoever. The same applies to most of the symbols you've used, such as how you constantly refer to the ocean as a representation, gradually cheapening it's quality. Go through the piece and pick out every symbol; take out the cliched ones outright and replace them. For the ocean ones, once or twice is enough - after that, find inspiration elsewhere, perhaps something tangential to the ocean without being such a visceral part of it. That way, you can prove to the reader that you see something more in the ocean rather than the fact that your lover's eyes are blue.

In general, though, I will be surprised if you manage to save this poem and turn it into one that is thought-provoking and interesting to read. You can try, though, and should.

i thought it was a graet poem i did find one mistake, when you wrote "When will you be with me love?" did you forget to pace a comma after me. Other thatn that i love the poem

Her eyes are like the ocean
That she stares into endlessly Didn't get this. She stares into her own eyes? I'm not sure how that's supposed to work. Rewrite:
Her eyes are like the ocean
Blue, and staring endlessly
Trying to hide the tears that
Just won’t go away

Salty water splashes on the sand
No one could tell the difference
Between the tears and the waves
That [s]keep crashing[/s] crash ceaselessly on the shore

I see her sitting there
Upon that rock every day
I keep wondering why
She never goes away

Good rhyming in the above stanza. But you already said "keep" before in "keep crashing." It doesn't sound good.

Her eyes are like a window into
A mind that is a covert diary
Only revealing the hidden secrets
To those who hold the key

A nice simile, and possibly my favorite clause.

I keep staring into those eyes
Long after she actually leaves
Trying to hold back the cries
That I just [s]wanna[/s] want to let out

An abrupt end to rhythm here. And "wanna" is very juvenile. Those kinds of words don't mix well with poetry.

When will you be with me, love?
I’m so lonely without you
Weighed down by the promises
No one in the right mind would keep

And while I sit in the shadows
You still watch the ocean pulse I like that. "Ocean pulse" . . .
Making sure that each wave
Never stops its eternal beat

I want to hold you forever
And gaze into your beautiful eyes
Until the rising pools of blue-green
Swallow me forever.

Not bad. I think it would be more impressive if you kept the rhythm you had at the beginning. But the last stanzas are very good.

~Sunny