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Sorry about the mix up! This is the actual poem; the other one was a work-in-progress for a different forum. Thanks for the feedback, though, now I'll know what to fix! ;) Cheers!

I glance upon the shops once more,
remembering the life I led within,
and walk down life's unhappy way
that takes me from my gray-bricked home.

That store was more than just a place
to be looked at, lived in, ignored;
he was my father, sister, brother,
mother; guiding angel in the dark.

He sang me lullabies so sweet
to make me sleep when nights were long.
He hugged me when I cried so hard
that crying made me feel ashamed.

I swipe a globe of salty sadness
from off my weepy, transient cheek
and walk from home and friend and mother,
keeping calm as untouched snowdrifts.

While walking, my thoughts slip away
just like the gust of customers
and leaves me parted from my store
just like a leaf rent from its tree.
Last edited by Ligea on Thu Nov 25, 2010 6:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Without the oceans there would be no life on Earth." - Peter Benchley
And without Earth, there would be no oceans, or anything on earth.




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I am a little confused as to what you are trying to say...
Grammar is in bold.

Ligea wrote:"Lost," I tell myself,
"Lost, but can be found again,
that's all I am."

But I am not.
When you lose yourself,
you can be found again.

With closing,
you hide yourself away
from hard feelings,


but what they always forget
to tell you
is that you lose yourself.


It seems a little redundant on the last stanza. The reader may get confused when trying to actually decipher what you poem means. What are you trying to get across to the reader?

In the middle is a great opportunity to add something more.You could balance your poem out a little by adding a hint as to why you feel lost.Another stanza could be about what exactly they tell you, this way, the last stanza doesn't seem so disconnected.


Hope this helps!
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Greetings I'm LastPaladin and I shall be your reviewer, what caught my eye about this piece was the title, now I'm sad to say huge let down on what would have been a superb powerful title if you had used as much creativity in stanzas as you used in the title, then we wouldn't be having this discussion would we?

Now let me explain why this is bad, you break one of most important rules of poetry 'SHOW DON'T TELL' --- well you could argue it's not a rule but it's a guideline and guidelines believe it or not are put in for a purpose, mainly to help people write something that isn't bad.

You begin 'Lost' two things come to mind a TV show which went round and round in circles, and how you feel by the end of the poem. Both are very bad entertainment and leave you with a bad taste in your mouth.

Then you contradict yourself and go 'But I am not' in the case of one being lost it's not exactly a challenge to know whether one has any ideas of where they are and if one doesn't, is it?

The next stanza just seems like advice rather than a poetical stanza, and well if one part tries to be poetical and next part is an instructional video, then at this point I'd say failure apparent. And on it goes with next stanza and what do we have in the end a loosely built mental video about break downs and depression, this doesn't equal a poem, it equals many things but a poem isn't one.

Overall this is very chaotic and doesn't really end up anywhere other than leaving the readers hell of confused and unable to comprehend what was it they read and what planet do they live on again?

Hope this helps.
You poor take courage
You rich take care
This earth was made a common treasury
For everyone to share
All things in common
All people one
We come in peace
The orders came to cut them down

Billy Bragg - The World Turned Upside Down




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Whoa. Totally different.
This one is much nicer. Really Beautiful.
Just a few tweaks.


Ligea wrote:I glance upon the shops once more,
remembering the life I led within,
and walk down life's unhappy way
that takes me from my gray-bricked home.

That store was more than just a place
to be looked at, lived in, ignored;
he was my father, sister, brother,
mother; guiding angel in the dark.

He sang me lullabies so sweet
to make me sleep when nights were long.
He hugged me when I cried so hard
that crying made me feel ashamed.

I swipe a globe of salty sadness
from off my weepy, transient cheek
and walk from home and friend and mother,
keeping calm as untouched snowdrifts.


While walking, my thoughts slip away
just like the gust of customers
and leaves me parted from my store
just like a leaf rent from its tree.


That stanza right there is a little confusing. I understand what you are trying to get across, but maybe you could try to word it differently. For example-

I swipe a globe of salty sadness
from off my weepy, transient? cheek - I looked up synonyms for transient, and things like temporary,brief, and fleeting came up. What exactly are you trying to say? Did you mean translucent?
and walk from home and friend and mother,
keeping calm as the untouched snow drifts.


For the underlined part-
I am referring to how you characterize the store. When describing it, you used words like home, mother, father, sister, etc. May i suggest that you try a different, more uni-sexual pronoun(if you get what i mean). It gets a little confusing when you use "he" to describe the building and then double over and describe him as a mother or sister.
For example-

It sang me lullabies so sweet
to make me sleep when nights were long.
It hugged me when I cried so hard
that crying made me feel ashamed.


Other than that, really nice!
Hope this helps!
-jojo
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