Tender Mourning

10 posts
User avatar
Gender Female
Points 19189
Reviews 110
The grass leaks
With emerald-green light
Which I savour tenderly
In my melting brown eyes

The sun cries
For all its lost,
For all its mourned,
In its crooked light

The birds sing
Their endless songs
Which kiss my ears
That mock me with their silence

My heart beats
My eyes search
My hands fiddle randomly
With my white dress

And suddenly he’s here,
Tearing my dress,
Scratching my face,
Kissing me until I can no longer breathe.

The shining silver on his finger
The tenderness of his face
The whisper into my ears
That can suddenly hear

It’s going to be alright

And then he’s gone,
Leaving me alone
Leaving me mourning
Endlessly waiting
For his return from the dead.
“Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.”

~Hans Christan Andersen




Random avatar
Gender Male
Points 4518
Reviews 115
If this was your first serious piece of work in poetry,its a really good beginning.

The poem has really good imagery and the choice of words is also really simple.

What I could not understand was this:

The shining silver on his finger

The tenderness of his face

The whisper into my ears

That can suddenly hear



It’s going to be alright



And then he’s gone,

Leaving me alone

Leaving me mourning

Endlessly waiting

For his return from the dead.


Its a really fast and confusing transition that makes the poem a little incomplete.One moment he's with the narrator and the next he's dead.You should really think about revising the last stanza.

Overall,nice stuff.
Too bad we don't live to experinece death




User avatar
Gender Male
Points 2351
Reviews 17
Lilicia wrote:The grass leaks
With emerald-green light
Which I savour tenderly
In my melting brown eyes

The sun cries
For all its lost,
For all its mourned,
In its crooked light

The birds sing
Their endless songs
Which kiss my ears
That mock me with their silence

My heart beats
My eyes search
My hands fiddle randomly
With my white dress

And suddenly he’s here,
Tearing my dress,
Scratching my face,
Kissing me until I can no longer breathe.

The shining silver on his finger
The tenderness of his face
The whisper into my ears
That can suddenly hear

It’s going to be alright

And then he’s gone,
Leaving me alone
Leaving me mourning
Endlessly waiting
For his return from the dead.


Very nice! I like the obscurity, the questions it fills your mind with. "Who is he?" "Who is the narrator?" "Return from the dead?" "Whaat?" Its puzzling and thought-provoking, like something by Edgar allen poe.
On that note, like Poe, it also posseses a sense of... timelesness. The outside world kindof fades away as you read it, and everything is quiet and still. I love how it flows, how the words are formed, how its all so bizzare and yet... beautiful. Well-done! :-)

The only thing that threw me off was the part about the sun crying. It took me a few read-overs to get what you were saying. If I were you, I would change "for all its lost"/"mourned" bits to "for all that its lost"/"mourned." That would make more sense. Then it would be more clear that the sun is crying for its losses. Yeah, I know, not really a big deal, but its really the only problem I could find. (Trust me, I read it like 7 times.)

I gotta go, so this might be an abrupt ending, but... its a really good poem!
God bless! :D
Mr. Realms
They say the eyes
Are windows to the soul
I say the earth
The sky
The moon
The very breath upon my lips
All of these
Are windows
To you




Random avatar
Gender None specified
Points 2608
Reviews 37
Lilicia wrote:The grass leaks
With emerald-green light


Drop the with, and come up with a different word than emerald -- most grass isn't emerald green really. I do like the idea of 'grass leaking light' a great deal, though. You could perhaps do something to convey the idea that the grass had turned the light green -- 'green-stained', or rather, something along those lines, but less clumsy, since I am not exactly thinking this through, while I hope you will be.

Which I savour tenderly
In my melting brown eyes


'Savour tenderly' is... weird. Savour will do well on its own. I'd also change 'in' to 'with' -- unless you're trying to compare your eyes to mouths, which could be interesting if you expanded on it. And describing your own eyes visually is strange: I'd suggest using a tactile description instead, maybe just 'my melting eyes', which conveys that liquid feeling eyes can get after too long in the sun, or so forth.

The sun cries
For all its lost,
For all its mourned,
In its crooked light


"Its mourned" is awkward; you might want to sacrifice the admittedly nice parallel structure, especially since crying for one's mourned is somewhat redundant. Play around with that. 'Crooked light', on the other hand, is really lovely.

The birds sing
Their endless songs


I think there are adjectives that would do better than endless, which just doesn't sound good.

Which kiss my ears
That mock me with their silence


This doesn't make sense to me. The birds sing songs which kiss your ears but mock you with their silence? Or, the birds sing songs which kiss your ears, and your ears mock you with their silence? Neither is very... possible. Rewrite for clarity.

My heart beats
My eyes search
My hands fiddle randomly
With my white dress


Could do with some commas here. Also, randomly is annoying, and fiddle less evocative a verb than it could be. 'My hands twist at the hem/ Of my white dress', or something.

And suddenly he’s here,
Tearing my dress,
Scratching my face,
Kissing me until I can no longer breathe.


I know you have some talent for imagery from what you've already written, and thus I know you can come up with something better to convey this wild embrace. SO DO IT. :'D Also, suddenly is an ugly adverb. Besides, the abruptness isn't convincing; she seems like she's waiting for something in the sketch of beautiful monotony the first few stanzas set up, so play on that. Ghosts aren't sudden; if they were, it wouldn't be haunting.

The shining silver on his finger
The tenderness of his face
The whisper into my ears
That can suddenly hear


Again, commas are nice. Maybe 'the tenderness in his face' rather than 'of his face'.
In general, I think you should be a little more explicit. I assume the silver is a ring? You have a lovely list, but it needs to come to a point; what do the shining silver and the tenderness of his face and the whisper into your ears do to you? Do they combine to tell you it's all right? Or what?

It’s going to be alright


Despite common colloquial usage of alright, this should really be all right. And come up with a prettier phrasing of this sentiment? It should be a let down, that fits the general tone and subject matter, the 'rinse and repeat' feel of the end, but it does not have to be cliche about its disappointing...ness. Er.

And then he’s gone,
Leaving me alone
Leaving me mourning
Endlessly waiting
For his return from the dead.


Slow this down, like his entrance. A fading presence instead of 'and then he's gone'. The words you repeat -- leaving, alone, mourning, endlessly -- are not interesting enough to work that well, and I'd suggest some variation on the expression of her grief. Also, mostly arbitrarily, 'awaiting his return from the dead' is nicer than 'waiting for his return from the dead'. Better yet, 'his next return from the dead', to confirm the feeling of weariness and mourning along with the love, which is conveyed so well.
Nunc lac est bibendum.




User avatar
Gender Male
Points 7718
Reviews 136
Sounds like the set up for a Romero film.

Anyways.

It was very good, not even being curt, I loved how you composed each description and even added in some artistic contradiction, very good.

I'd have like to have seen a bit more of an expansion on the whole return theme other than its mention.

otherwise, good.
A story's not a story till you've made it up you see.
Look Mexico.




User avatar
Gender None specified
Points 5715
Reviews 206
Hiya there!

I thought that this poem had some lovely imagery - for example, the first three stanzas. However, I thought that the ending was a bit too abrupt - kinda jarring with the whole poem.

And another thing I noticed was the manner of punctuation. Some periods were absent. Is this intentional?

Anyway, not bad, just needs a bit cleaning up.
Keep writing! :D
Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.




User avatar
Gender Female
Points 4532
Reviews 57
Hi there.
I'm not a huge fan to be honest.
I do not really get it. A lot of lovely figurative language but the point is not there.
I dare say that you fluffed it up a bit. There are some sentences that don't have to be there.
But the good stuff
Nice flow and structure, nice whimsical language. very nice
Who is John Galt?




Random avatar
Gender Female
Points 1216
Reviews 3
Over all an amazing poem, but
My hands fiddle randomly
it just doesnt fit. You're using soft discriptive words for the rest of it and then "fidde randomly" just sounds too blunt. I love the title. Tender Mourning really draws you in, and the poem keeps you hypnotised. It needs a little work, but excellent so far.




User avatar
Gender Female
Points 1803
Reviews 9
Wow, this poem kind of scares me. Ha ha, no, it's beautiful. So simple, and yet...so mysterious. I particularly like the imagery, which is usually my favorite aspect of poem. I also love the ending, "back from the dead...", really leaves the reader hanging on a thread.

Very nice!




User avatar
Gender Male
Points 1040
Reviews 13
Cool Poem. I really liked the word choice.
It’s going to be alright

I really liked how you added that. It was interesting, the poem that is. I liked the plot of the poem, it seemed like a solemn and ligh-hearted. Keep Up The Good Work. You Have good Poetry. I think thsi poem diserves a star.
"My only regret is that I didn't learn the value of life sooner"
- Tariq Muhammad



I feel like if men sent unsolicited dragon pics instead of *other* unsolicited pics they’d get a lot further in life
— ShadowVyper