A Memento

A Memento

The summer blue sky was our world.
Amongst the fluffy white clouds,
there stood a majestic rainbow,
tall and proud above our heads.
Dreaming by the riverbank
seemed like a habit,
as we watched the trees sway,
dancing to the chirping of birds.

I watched you sing,
a whimsical tra la la la,
a melody of our childhood.

But as time goes by,
a wall of past regrets and sorrows
form a thick barrier between us.
Can your weeping, trapped spirit
be released into the arms of freedom once more?

Years and decades shall pass,
but still, your words will always linger
and push me forth, erasing every
speck of sadness in our path.
Though you might never remember
everything that we've been through,
I shall keep the good moments we had,
locked away forever in my heart.

And I shall free them
when the right time comes.

But for now,
we'll just head forward
and bring our visions to life,
just with memories
as a memento for life.

This was good. Simple as. I loved it.

I think that you had the right flow throughtout the entire poem - that is a hard thing to comeby; I find it pretty hard to keep the flow consistent. And the emotions you enthused through this were aided by the structure and flow, making them seem more real, so top marks for you on that!

Melody of our childhood, was probably the best line for me throughout this, as it kinda applies for everyone. I know you probably didn't mean it in the literal sense, but I know that there are sounds that always remind me of stuff I used to do when I was a little kid.

One thing I will say that you could probably just look at yourself, is the line; a whimsical tra la la la. I think that you could'a cut out one of these "la"'s just so it fits nicer into the flow of it all. Other than that, good job!

Happy writing!

Hey there! I haven't reviewed stuff in a while so I thought I'd look at yours!

There are some really great images in this:

"the trees... dancing to the chirping of birds"

and:

"your words eras[e]... /every speck of sadness from my path"

but others are more banal:

"the fluffy white clouds" (Cliche! I might rework this as: "the white sails of clouds")

In fact, this banality pervaded the whole poem. I didn't feel nearly as much of an emotional connection to the speaker's thoughts than the last piece I reviewed. That's because much of this was passive, TELLING writing. A telltale sign of telling is the use of 'was' or 'were':

"The summer blue sky was our world."

This is a passive, stative verb. No good. Use an active, SHOWING verb instead:

"The summer blue sky encased our entire world." (Plus, we can squeeze some alliteration in there too! Learn to love alliteration!)

I noticed repetition in several places. While deliberately echoing something to create an effect (particularly with threes) can be useful, not using a thesaurus when you could makes the writing (and the writer) look sloppy. Take this, for instance:

"But as time goes by,
a wall of past regrets and sorrows
form a thick wall between us."

Find some synonyms! I would again go for alliteration here:

"But as time goes by,
a wall of past regrets and sorrows
form a thick barrier between us."

Lastly, don't passivise your verbs. Passive = telling, active = showing. Whenever you see a passive, turn it around and make it active. So this:

"Can your weeping, trapped spirit
be released into the arms of freedom once more?"

becomes this:

"Can life release your weeping, trapped spirit
into the arms of freedom once more?"

Once you start to get a feel for how glib the passive is and how immediate and emotionally more liberating the active is, you'll soon be showing and not telling! Hoorah!

Hope this helps! A good effort nonetheless.

Gahks

6/10