Forgive my Absence

O my dear, how can I speak of being apart from you?
The eyes know a hundred tears, and the soul has a hundred sighs.
-Hafiz


Did you think for a moment
That my heart had grown legs
And gained the ability to
Walk away from you?

Ah, it cannot, it shall not—
It is quite content in its lodgings
In the confines of your mind
And the apartments of your soul.

It pays no rent to you yet you so
Diligently and lovingly keep
it in your arms but oh, lord knows,
it has been a bad tenant.

But, dearest, do not think that I can
Walk away from you—
I cannot, I shall not, but I simply
Also cannot always be here with you.

Forgive me.

Such a pretty little poem this is, and -- oh! -- how true. Thank you for writing a love poem that is original, and does not tell the same old cliche tale of "My heart is like a wilting flower."

I like the little quote from the beginning. It shows that you know what you're talking about, and have taken your time perfecting this poem.

KnightlyAngel09 wrote:Did you think for a moment
That my heart had grown legs
And gained the ability to
Walk away from you?

In this first stanza, I like how you take a commonly used idiom, and put it into your words. You could have just told us that your heart wouldn't get up and walk away, but you added in the fact that for it to do so, it would have to grow legs, and gain a unique physical ability.

KnightlyAngel09 wrote:Ah, it cannot, it shall not—
It is quite content in its lodgings
In the confines of your mind
And the apartments of your soul.

Again, you bring your heart to life hear, and show that it is happy where it lives.

KnightlyAngel09 wrote:It pays no rent to you yet you so
Diligently and lovingly keep
it in your arms but oh, lord knows,
it has been a bad tenant.

This stanza throws me off a bit. There could be a comma in the first line after the first "you," and, because the whole stanza is one sentence, it seems to me to be a bit of a run-on. In every other part of the poem, you capitalized the first letter of each line, and yet here, the "it"s are lower-cased. Perhaps you could omit the "but" in the third line here, and begin a new sentence. " . . . It in your arms. Oh, Lord knows, It has been a bad tenant."

KnightlyAngel09 wrote:But, dearest, do not think that I can
Walk away from you—
I cannot, I shall not, but I simply
Also cannot always be here with you.

Might I say I am a bit confused? Are you trying to emphasis that you "cannot" always be there, or is it a mistake that you used the word twice, and wanted to put another phrase in there, like "will not?" I don't understand, but maybe that's just me.

KnightlyAngel09 wrote:Forgive me.

You ended the poem with a short and all-explaining phrase. Great job!

bf, i had watery eyes after i read this! it's just LOVELY! sorry, i know you really can't count my comments as 'reviews', but what else can i say? Perfectly written to suit my liking, and everyone else's, i presume. luv, luv, luv you!:]

Wow. This poem is the stuff greatness is made of. I greatly appreciate the honesty of it. It is raw, it is powerful. I love that you used an epigraph so fitting. You know what you are talking about and you are determined to face it head on. No complex metaphors, few similes. Simple and straight from the heart.

Great work, my friend. But as advice for the next poem. I would love to see you use an extended metaphor. This poem speaks to me, and I wonder if perhaps you would take up this challenge and lull me once more with your words. I look forward to it if you do

This was a very beautiful and heartfelt poem. I could just feel your emotions in the poem. Your description about the heart and the apartments, that was creative and I really enjoyed this poem.

Hi KnightlyAngel09,

KnightlyAngel09 wrote:Did you think for a moment
That my heart had grown legs
And gained the ability to
Walk away from you?

This all looks like fluff so far. Why only for a moment? If that's important, expand on it; is a moment all you had together? Why would he only begin pondering the wanderings of your heart for such a short time? If it's not important, delete it.

The last three lines look so stretched that it's painful. You're trying to convey one idea and one idea only, and for some reason you use 75% of a stanza to do it. There are no poetic devices present, except for an overused personification that barely ties together the concept, and nothing to make the reader want to keep reading on, and on, and on, and come to the realization that this was basically an elongated sentence. Present an image. A heart walking away is vague. What about the evanescence of its thump, the continuity of its beat? Tie it in to another symbol if you can.

Ah, it cannot, it shall not—
It is quite content in its lodgings
In the confines of your mind
And the apartments of your soul.

The first two lines sound almost technical in their execution. Read it out loud. "Quite content in its lodgings" sounds, if even possible, worse than the stanza above. Why the weasel word? Quite?

Confines and apartments have nothing to do with each other save for that they are both shelters of some kind. Why is the mind confined and the soul so free, as you imply? If you were trying to say that the subject of this poem tries not to think of you but loves you anyway, then you have not weaved that theme in to the rest of the poem. Yes, you've shown that he wants to reject you or feels that he must do so, but after that? Where is the description of his subconscious love revolting against the denial of his mind?

Of course, that is only one interpretation of the stanza. Whatever the real meaning was, it needs to be fleshed out.

It pays no rent to you yet you so
Diligently and lovingly keep
it in your arms but oh, lord knows,
it has been a bad tenant.

More fake words are present here everywhere. "Diligently", "lovingly", "bad". These things mean nothing. To mean something, they must be explored from within, images waxed on the surface so that you can see them and see, at the same time, a form pulsing within. Right now this is bare, stripped of any interior meaning (this stanza, that is). Fit it in to the rest of the poem like a gnomen - that is, a box within a box, a stanza within a stanza - and it would look more complete.

But, dearest, do not think that I can
Walk away from you—
I cannot, I shall not, but I simply
Also cannot always be here with you.

Forgive me.

This was a good ending. For a reason, I am always partial to full-circle poems and so my opinion here may be biased, but you did well to race the beginning and ending stanzas somewhat parallel to each other. It set a settling of emotion for the reader, after an upwelling.

Overall, this was decent. Keep working on it.

Hope that helped,
Galerius

Great poem! I may just quit writing now
But... a couple of comments:

1. "It pays no rent to you yet you so"
this line is just a bit too much, you need a comma or somthing to break it up.

2. "I cannot, I shall not, but I simply
Also cannot always be here with you."
I am also confused as to why you have used "cannot" twice. This needs looking at.

3. I love the final short sentence, it killed me Excellent choice!

All in all one of my favourite poems, it spoke to me.

Hello, hello.

The two cannots are confusing, I see. To explain it, the first cannot would describe the lines above it. The second is for the final line in the stanza. hmm... though I shouldn't have to explain it. I suppose it is choppy. I shall try to fix it.

Thank you for all the reviews, my dears.

--Knightly