Mines

The embers of sunlight are fading in my eyelids
and through this witching hour of half etherized sleep--
I see little orbs of black floating in the amber.
Those mines, hidden calamities waiting for me.

Those disasters, choreographed by fate- those cups of whipped
cream, with knives lurking underneath. When I will put my trust
In a loved-to-death one, those times when I will put my foot on a step
and fall through the entire staircase. I may be a fool, I will be a fool.

I feel like I should warn them, of what lies under the grass of white fields,
where poppies grow. To turn to some child, and take her by the hand,
And lead her to safety, minding her not to step on honey leaves, on happy things.
For they all desert you, dear. They all will hurt you.

I should smell the sour smoke of conflict now, I should see my familiar faces,
on the other side of the field- and the lying ones, who weren’t careful enough.
I should mind my footwork, I shouldn’t let out my heart to anyone, I don’t suppose
and yet, when I wake from my cautious dream, I still dance recklessly.

Because I am governed by a deeper power, stronger than violence, bleeding
hate filled words and doomed sentences- I choose to cross that field
From the example of many, through the voice of more,
An anthem for the doomed youth.

This is a deep and well-written poem. First of all, I'm going to just say my impression and the feelings I get from the poem because I don't know how I'll really be able to delve into it -- I have no idea if I got it or not. Then, you can do whatever you wish with my opinion! If you want to alter it to make it more clear to the point that you wanted to express, you can, but you probably shouldn't. ;D

I thought of it as mostly a poem describing the duality of life, based mostly on the attempts to cover things that are really quite dangerous. This is done even in comforting -- ignoring the problem and dismissing it with comfort. Another example that you give in your poem is the pitfall of trust {at least that's what I thought the point of the second to last stanza was} and how, as a human, you cannot even prevent yourself from falling into the trap.

The last line, especially, tells me you believe that comes from the idealism of youth and that it's only your nature -- you can't even help it. The tone, in my heart, was one of solemn acceptance and knowledge that perhaps as we grow we will become more aware of the world around us.

Hope my interpretation can help!

Anyways, here are my few comments;

Those disasters, choreographed by fate- those cups of whipped

cream, with knives lurking underneath. When I will put my trust

In a loved-to-death one, those times when I will put my foot on a step

and fall through the entire staircase. I may be a fool, I will be a fool.

The only problem I had with this stanza was the use of 'whipped cream' in imagery. I know the scene you are going for, but the phrase 'whipped cream', to me, just seems a little too concrete and simple compared to the rest of the poem!

To turn to some child, and take her by the hand,

And lead her to safety, minding her not to step on honey leaves, on happy things.

For they all desert you, dear. They all will hurt you.

I thought the last line here was beautifully written, but the second line's 'minding her not to step', did you mean reminding? Because I feel like 'minding' would be used if you said 'I was minding my own step', but I don't know that you can apply it to another person...

Overall, fantastic work. <3

Hi Eimear, it's Jon.

Let me just say, WOW. This was very good! I do have some suggestions though.

and through this witching hour of half etherized sleep--

I think you should italisize 'witching hour. The end where you put '--' just put a -, two isn't neccesary.

I see little orbs of black floating in the amber.

Maybe you could use a different word for 'little', speckling, tiny, shimmering?

In a loved-to-death one, those times when I will put my foot on a step

and fall through the entire staircase. I may be a fool, I will be a fool.

Love it. Love it love it love it!

I feel like I should warn them, of what [s]lies[/s] under the grass of white fields,

Lays?

where poppies grow. To turn to some child, and take her by the hand,

And lead her to safety, minding her not to step on honey leaves, on happy things.

For they all desert you, dear. They all will hurt you.

This was the best little part in the poem. It's amazing. I get that motherly feeling when I read it. I've read it three times over. Great job!

From the example of many, through the voice of more,

An anthem for the doomed youth.

Why do you decide to capitalize 'From' and 'An'? doesn't keep with what you were doing.


Anyway, nit-picks out of the way, I loved this poem, Eimear! I just loved it and there wasn't too much to say bad about it. Do fix up some things though. This was great, *Gold Star.*


My pleasure,


---Jon---

^^ I really like the imagery here and how you make the reader think. It's one of those poems that you have to read twice to get the whole picture. The imagery here is also used well! I can tell you picked these words carefully, and the extra time you spent picking each word was not a waste at all. I hope to review more of your poems. I especially like the unique idea you used here. No an often used subject.

-Shina