"oh love."

“i am,”
she said
“the kind of girl
you don’t see around these parts.”

“oh really?”
he said, raising a dark eyebrow.
she didn’t like the look
of him
but he sure did
of her.

the conversation fell
stiffly
starched
ungracefully unsmooth.
she pursed her mouth
refusing to let her thoughts roam aloud
shut away
mute.

but he read them
and he read them
again
until they were strung together on thread:
bright
gossamer pearls.

and this
he bestowed upon her
and for this
she finally spoke for
once more.

“oh love,”
he sighed,
“is a funny thing.”

I'm not entirely sure I get it, so perhaps this is one of those real deep poems where the surface must be severely scratched to find the meaning. I'm going to babble to try and comprehend, so pardon me! It was mostly the ending. So, he has beads of her thoughts, and he lies them on here--what is this for and what does it mean? Then you say "she finally spoke"--but then he speaks? It perplexed me.


Anyhow, to the poem. It may be that this just isn't my kind of poetry, but to me it seems empty. Where is the emotion behind it? The beautiful pictures? I love the idea of thoughts being strung on a bead--it's beautiful, don't think it isn't--but I don't see how the metaphor has anything to do with the rest of the poem. I'm a bit of a poetic idealist, you could say. I like to see themes and symbols and meaning in a poem, so for me, that metaphor has to mean something, and currently, I'm not even sure what affect it has on the characters of the poem.

It seems flat and unemotional. I'm being told about something that is happening, but what ever the emotions I am supposed to feel aren't getting through the words and I'm left listening to the conversation through a wall, rather than actually being there with the characters of the poem. I can't feel with them, and so I cannot feel anything, and then the poem leaves me empty. Again, this is my opinion, but a poem should leave a feeling or a thought with a person after they read it. Maybe you have no great intent but just wrote--I do that too, which is fine--but then shouldn't it be morphed into something greater? It would give it more power.

I understand the lack of capitalization for art but I cannot see how it affects the poem and is needed, though this may be more of my not understanding rather than bad writing on your part. It doesn't seem bad, I just kind find a good reason for it to have been done, and the same with the lack of commas. In certain places I don't mind it, it sounds interesting (the conversation fell/stiffly/starched) but then I am generally in favor of punctuating poetry, heh.


I do hope any of that made sense or helped in some way. I realize I seem horrendously negative. It isn't that it's bad--it is that I don't know what I should feel in the end, or what this is truly about. I want it to have something more than its words, but I'm not sure it does? If you have any questions about anything I said, feel free to PM me, because actually, I probably made no sense in several places.

G'luck!

The only thing that should be addressed is the grammar. Either throw some commas in here and there or something, but don't leave it as it is.

It's kind of like you're reading a poem and just falling through it unable to stop and the lines just continue sort of like I'm doing right now...

You see what I mean? Just take care of that. Everything else is fine.

I liked the message. It was good. But I don't think you consider this as a poem. Maybe you can make this longer and post it in the Romantic Fiction section. It would be a hit, I'm telling you!

I don't get this and yet I do. The frist stanza was the haredest to understand. For me it was endearing and a puzzle to figure out. I liked it alot.