How did I ever sleep alone

(First poem written in over 3 years. Took less than 10 minutes. No rewriting yet. Please help.)

Breath in my ear
On the back of my neck
Slow, steady, rhythmic
The breath of slumber
Warm and gentle

The warmth of a body
Chest against my back
Thigh along my thigh
The body of a lover
Relaxed in sleep

Arm around my waist
Weight of bones
and muscles relaxed
Holding me gently
Without tension

My voice to him
"I love you"
Thick with sleep
He murmurs
"I love you too"

Reflexive response
Or true sentiment?
Then his arm around me
Tightens, and I know
And I wonder

How did I ever sleep alone?

First of all i'd like to say welcome to YWS! I hope you've liked it so far! but back to the poem:

The title is a little bland, you want to make an intresting title so it grabs the audience, this title didn't do that for me.

"Breath in my ear
On the back of my neck
Slow, steady, rhythmic
The breath of slumber
Warm and gentle"

This whole stanza was confusing and really choppy, i'd say the best thing to do it toss it and rewrite it something like this maybe:

You breath in my ear
a slow, steady, rhythmic breath,
the breath of slumber.
warm and gentle.

You also need to add more feeling into it, 'Warm and gentle' are sort of cliche words and don't really make me feel anything, try putting more excotic words in.

"The warmth of a body
Chest against my back
Thigh along my thigh
The body of a lover
Relaxed in sleep"

You have alot of lines here that aren't really connected in the stanza, which makes it hard to unterstand what your trying to say. And again add more feeling into it!!!!

"Arm around my waist
Weight of bones
and muscles relaxed
Holding me gently
Without tension"

This confuses me alot, like in stanza 2 these lines aren't really conected, which makes it hard to unterstand. And again add more feeling!!!!!

"My voice to him
"I love you"
Thick with sleep
He murmurs
"I love you too""

This stanza I like, I like the words 'Thick with sleep he murmers' thats good imagry. Nice Work.

"Reflexive response
Or true sentiment?
Then his arm around me
Tightens, and I know
And I wonder

How did I ever sleep alone? "

This ending didn't finish off well, it didn't have the feeling I think you wanted it to have. And take out the ' ' not neccisary. And this might be just a personal prefrance but I think you should have the beginning of the lines uncapitilized for more of a dreamy feel.
And I think it would have helped if you had taken more time to write it. And remember to add more feeling and imagry!

hekategirl wrote:First of all i'd like to say welcome to YWS! I hope you've liked it so far! but back to the poem:

The title is a little bland, you want to make an intresting title so it grabs the audience, this title didn't do that for me.

"Breath in my ear
On the back of my neck
Slow, steady, rhythmic
The breath of slumber
Warm and gentle"

This whole stanza was confusing and really choppy, i'd say the best thing to do it toss it and rewrite it something like this maybe:

You breath in my ear
a slow, steady, rhythmic breath,
the breath of slumber.
warm and gentle.

You also need to add more feeling into it, 'Warm and gentle' are sort of cliche words and don't really make me feel anything, try putting more excotic words in.

I disagree, Hekate--I, on the other hand, like the title.

Also; Carmina's first sentence starts with 'breath,' not 'breathe.' the noun, not the verb. Maybe read like that, it will seem less confusing--it makes perfect sense to me. However, I do think that 'warm and gentle' is a little unexpressive, they're cliche-ish.

For the second stanza, maybe some sort of punctuation after the first line would help things--maybe a semicolon or colon.

mmm....
"relaxed in sleep" (second stanza) sounds like a mouhful to me--it doesnt quite flow with the rest of the stanza...then again, I can't think of a way to improve on it, so yeah...

Same thing with "without tenstion," in the third stanza--almost like an afterthought, it seems.

Nothing else to comment on

PS--bout time to posted somethin, jeez! Make an intro thread for ourself....or face my wrath and I'll make one for you .

Hi Carmina! Just so you have a little heads up, Incadensence and myself are the crulest people when it comes to critiqueing, so don't feel bad. Both of us just say what we feel bluntly, myself without the poet-y round-abouts.

I don't like this. It seems too whimsical, like you're not really sure what's happening, and don't really care. I feel half arsed attempt at romance, not the warmth and desire that makes a body tremble and say "How did I do without this?". Just my thoughts. I'd scrap it.

Soyala, not everything in love and life is about wracking emotion and gritty, cutting edge intensity. There is this little thing called "tone." The tone of this poem is not

"Oh my GAWD I want him so BADLY and I can't LIVE without him!!!!!!!"

It's more of a calm, relaxed tone, much more mellow, using less intenste, but still present, emotions.

Well... now that everyone else has beat this up... I liked this... The tone of the poem was very calm, very serene, and it seemed to fit the scene that you were describing. The first two stanzas were a little choppy, and I agree that if you put a little more colorful language into this it could be a lot better. But over all, I liked it. I think you did a good job of conveying the feeling of being in that place between being asleep and being awake.

Wow. This is absolutely beautiful.

Gosh, I'm speechless. I absolutely love it. But since that usually doesn't satisfy most writers, give me a few minutes to get my feelings out in words lol!

I disagree with everyone saying it's choppy. It's almost like you get a camera view of each feeling, and it's such a slow, gentle pace that you can just feel the comfort.

You show such strong emotions using simple phrases.. GOSH I love this lol. It's like.. You can hear and feel the narrator's comfort as they both start drifting off to sleep, then a simple doubt enters her mind, only to be replaced by his love.

Okay, I'm not doing a good job of expressing what I want to here. But just know that this is one of those pieces I fully embrace. It's so, so beautiful. Great job.

I have to aggre with what most of wat Crysi said.
On the contrary, I disagree with the statment by Soyala. She never commented on my things for me to know if she was cruel although she did make her point here by immediately saying she didn't like it I liked it. Maybe it's because I am a sap for a nice love-peace-dark theme thingy...

I didn't crit this? I was sure I had! I printed it off and put it in my binder for god's sake! Obviously I lloved it. I just came back to see what I wrote about it, and found out that I didn't. nice though.

Yes, it was choppy, but I kind of liked the choppiness of it. And I don't think you need more colourful langauge. The simplicity of this is perfect. Anything less simple and you might turn this into something a little more erotic than it should be.

Good work.

I also agree with Crysi. It's like you're falling asleep as you think this or something, so it's really calm and peaceful.

This is about the comfort of sleeping with someone; the language [b]should[/b] be languid (as it is), the rhythms [b]should[/b] be slow (as they are) and the feeling [b]should[/b] be conveyed as soft and earthy (as it is). Forget "more feeling words" and "choppy". Your writing reflects the feeling of sleeping with some one quite well. Don't force it. Don't critique it like a teacher with cliche corrections. Sometimes less is more.

Read this one at open mike, but change the title. It's beautiful.

I think this needs a stronger beginning, as it's a bit airy. I understand the feeling, and you get it by the end but you linger in description so long that by the time you reach the end it's a bit overwhelming.

I can't believe I never commented on this... I remember reading it a long time ago and really liking it, so I'm not sure why I didn't post a comment.

But anyway.

I love this piece... it's so smooth and warm and flowing and just delicious overall. I miss seeing you around, Carmina! Your work was always a pleasure to read.