Chasing Sunsets

Last night you ran,
chasing the sunset with
your camera lens,
but it hid behind houses,
teasing you with glimpses
of color in the dull evening sky.

You followed it west,
wishing the suburban skyline
would just disappear so you
could capture every shade.

As the seconds slipped away,
yellow faded into red,
which sunk back into
a primordial cloud.

Defeated, you drove us back east,
knowing the sun would rise and set
again, but it would never seem quite
as beautiful as the one
you failed to photograph.

I never knew how fast
the sun moved
until I saw you try to catch it.

Mmmm. Completly satisfying. It's rare that such a short peice of writing can have such a physical effect on me. Wonderful!

Some little tips, though, because I'm trying to be helpful.

When I read the first two lines, I didn't know what was coming next. I read it so that the rythym made the first two lines go together, and the third was the start of something seperate. But when I read the third line I realized how it was really supposed to sound, and had to start over seperating the first line from the second. Wow, that is really hard to explain, so I hope you understood. I'm not sure how to fix it, but I have a quess of what might work. How about...

Last night you ran;

chasing the sunset

with your camera lens,

That semi-colon helps, I think. But I cannot really tell since I think my mind is just automatically reading it how it's supposed to sound now. I guess you'll have to be the judge of that.

The sunset now gone,

you sighed and drove away.

You switched tenses there. Kind of. I mean, 'gone' is past tense but you have 'now' right before it so that's a little confusing. It works if you think about it because the sunset is STILL GONE, but the sighing was something that only happened in the past. Still I'm not sure you wanted it that way, though perhaps you did...? If I were you, I'd change it. And that's my opinion.

I never knew how fast

the sun moved

until I saw you try to catch it.

Mmmm. Absolute perfection. Seriously. Never stop writing. You're wonderful.

hey there.

Well it was simplistic poem. And the mood of the poem to a limit was dreamy, yet limiting itself to the particular incidence on which you wrote.

Not much to complain about.

As the seconds slipped away,
yellow faded into red,
which melted back into
a primordial cloud.

here the filtering and changing light of the sun being reffered to as a primordial cloud didn't seem right.

You could have written something like

As the seconds slipped away,
yellow faded into red,
which melted back into
the dark of the night.

But this is a subjective point i raised because that's how i would have liked it to be.

Oh Wow!!

That's absolutely a brilliant theme to come up with.

I love photographing sunsets and this poem complete echoes my feelings.

Firstly, great title and first line."Chasing sunsets" is very beautiful and intriguing.

As the seconds slipped away,

yellow faded into red,

which melted back into

a primordial cloud.

Fantastic description. So few words but it paints a complete picture.

I think this is a very modern poem.

Wow niteowl great poem!

I'm sorry but everyone's already picked up on the stuff I was going to critique on BUT I did enjoy this piece very much

*goes to give a gold star*

happy-go-lucky

niteowl wrote:Last night you ran,
chasing the sunset
with your camera lens,
wishing the trees and houses
could disappear.

First problem: Why the line breaks like that? Line breaks should always have some kind of meaning or purpose to them and these seem to have been done at random intervals. If it was done just to sound "poetic", then please mesh together some of those lines; if there is a reason for it, though, then make it clearer, because I can't see it at all.

As for the content, I like the idea of persuing the sun but I don't agree with how straight-forward you present it in the first stanza. Instead of telling the reader what happened plainly, I want to feel the brilliance of the sun's rays beating down upon the plains or how the chaser's eyes gleamed with triumph as he raised the glass of the camera to capture the face of heaven. Something like that.

As the seconds slipped away,
yellow faded into red,
which melted back into
a primordial cloud.

The sunset now gone,
you sighed and drove away.

Second stanza was decent, not too much imagery but not a malnourished amount either. The small stanza there is really lacking, and I'm unnerved by the way you keep switching from colorful images and visualization to bland descriptions like "you sighed and drove away".

I never knew how fast
the sun moved
until I saw you try to catch it.

Good conclusion. It brings the poem to a full close and presents some theme larger than what one might expect at first glance.

In general: I have nothing more to say than the above edits. You have a nice and potentially profound idea, but need to tweak the format of your developmental theme moer than anything else.

mhmm, I liked this. I liked this a lot. Usually,
I thought it flowed very well. It was a little short, but I think that added to its beauty.
I would have more to say on the matter, but I don't critique many poems.

-MQ

Thank you everyone for your praise and critiques. I thought about your suggestions and expanded it a little. I'm not really certain about it, though. Please let me know what you think.

Great poem. It was satisfing, it left an impression. I don't see poetry like this very often and its nice to see something different than love and death poems. (I'm gulity of writing these all the time)
Your grammar was great, flawless to my eyes. So keep up the good work and the great writng.

Loved it and dont even have to picture it I can see it hahaha I know the feeling though when you have an amazing picture like that even a second makes a difference. Your poem was dreamy at best but thats why I liked it. The point of view was interesting I liked it.