It Seems

Firstly, you've posted three poems according to your portfolio, and have only reviewed twice. Please correct that, and get out to review! It's more a case of paying to back what you have received, if you understand.

I did like your use of keeping of short, but I feel there have been other consequences of this:

It seems at times I can no longer shine forth.

Replace the full stop with a semicolon, since this is an effect of the following line.

Let me understand why I must fail.

What? I thought we talking about losing confidence, and now we are suddenly onto someone making him fail at everything?

Why the torture of your stare.

Question mark? And what's the relevance to the preceding part of the poem, or rather how does "stare" contribute?

Must you slice my nerve with unkind words and
Stab my wounds with mocking lies.

Question, again, so question mark. What exactly do you mean by "unkind words"? What defines a word as unkind, eh? Is the narrator simply begin put down by them? That would be my interpretation. And a mocking lie? How do lie in a mocking way? Perhaps you joke, but I'm not sure. Also, lower-case the first letter of "Stab", since, as with prose, it's a new line but not a new sentence.

Allow me please to open my heart and not be afraid.

As with the rest of the poem, I have no idea who this is talking about, and thus can only read this as a very basic poem. By "basic", I'm not saying you need to cram it full with imagery and metaphors, but it reads more like a guidebook with the narrator simply naval-gazing and explaining how he's got no confidence.

Thoughts: Initially, I just saw this as very mediocre. It's a standard theme written about so many times that the reader just needs a new slant on the whole idea. I mean, it's mostly just one line=one sentence=one point=one thought. Try reading it. There's little rhythm.

I feel as though I am a just a reader, or, to put another way, put yourself in a café. You are drinking a coffee, reading the news, when a man comes and sits down behind you and starts talking to someone through his phone about his business deals. We don't care about the reader, and the message of the poem is unclear. A conversation can work in poetry but we must give both speakers a character. This is just a guy talking about how he has confidence, with no conflict, no reason for anything on either side. The only message I can draw from this is that someone has lost confidence. There's no mystery--it's all there for us, on a plate, but the reason I'm talking about not understanding us because there should be something that I'm missing, it feels like.

What's the point to the title, anyway? That adds more confusion--what "seems"?

It seems at times I can no longer shine forth.

Right, OK, so why? What example can you give us? Show us this--it's the same as in prose. We need to be connected to the writing.

I hope I've helped--feel free to PM me with any questions!
-Mark

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