.

What once was, now is not.
A heart left bleeding, bleeding,
to rot.




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ok, let's try this again. (i'm just brainstorming here)

how about...

what once was is now not,
a heart left bleeding,
bleeding,
to rot.

annndd ope there goes my A.D.D. gotta go write another poem, check it out!

Hey, i think this is interesting because it's so elliptic and mysterious, but I might suggest on reworking the shape of it, or maybe writing a second stanza, maybe give us more details, or other fleeting images.
The idea of a heart left bleeding is a tad unoriginal, maybe you could twist it to something more evocative?
These are all suggestions, please don't feel obliged to follow any of them.
I think this would be an interesting poem to work with in the graphical shape, think of it as a caligram maybe and try to set it out on the page in a way that brings it out more.
Maybe:
bleeding, a bleeding heart left to rot is more effective, I'm not sure.
I suggest you play around with it a bit more, it's missing something for the moment, something to make it really special.
The fact that you chose to use so few words forces you to make those words stronger and more evocative.
It's much harder than writing a seven stanza recitatif, and for being brave enough to write it this way, i heartily congratulate you!

Hello! I'm Colt!

This was a nice, short, sweet poem.

There are two ways you could go to improving it. The first way is changing a few words and keeping the length the same. Or you could add to the length with much more powerful words.

The second part of the first line slows the fluency down.

Instead of "now is not," I'd change it to "is now not." Helps flow. With the bleeding, change it or at least enter the second bleeding down a line.

For the rot part--I have a question. Why in the world didn't you put a simile there? Connect rot to something. (FYI, a simile is a comparison of two unlike words using like or as).

Beware of cliches with the bleeding.

Otherwise it was great! Congratulations! Sorry if I sound like a heavy reviewer, but good luck with your writing.

-Colt

That poem was really good. It shows that you have talent by you being able to illustrate your emotions clearly and swiftly with so few words. It shows that poems don't have to be long, and drag to prove a point. The one thing I would add is telling what your heart is bleeding for so that the person who is reading the poem can truly connect with you.

What once was, now is not.
A heart left bleeding[s], bleeding,[/s]
to rot.

I can't say I hate this. It makes me think of the Imagists movement with Ezra Pound or something. However, I think it lacks a something that Imagism had. You have a great image, and it's implied that this is about lost love, but I'm not certain your image is original. A bleeding hard which is rotting. Not just any bleeding heart - one left behind. I honestly think you could improve the image simply by changing the second "bleeding" to something else, something more graphic/vivid. Imagism was all about giving the reader an image, something to see, that then inspired an emotion in them. For example, here is Pound's In a Station of the Metro:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Only one sentence, like yours, and yet the image and emotion is so vivid. Even still, there are many emotions that can be gained from this. Look at the vivid words used: apparition, faces, petals, wet, black. It could have been said another way and been much worse:

The faces in the crowd
are like petals on a tree.

It's the exact same thing, except I've stripped it of its detail and vividness.

Try to apply the same thing to this, if you insist it must be so short. Hunt for something vivid, remarkable, and never done before. Don't spend two seconds writing a poem because it's two lines. Spend two hours if you must - the shorter, the more time. I consider poetry to be the hardest form of writing because there are so few words in the process. The less words you have, the better you need to choose each words.

Therefore, here are my thoughts: rethink your poem a little. What emotion are you trying to convey to the reader? Don't just show them an emotion, let them experience it too. Make you writing vivid, choose your words and sentence structure wisely. Be unique in your images, and specific.

Also, you may want to consider coming up with a title which is more substantial than a mark of punctuation. Titles are incredibly important to poetry, as they can give second meanings or give all meaning to a poem.

If you find this Imagism thing isn't for you, you may simply want to try for writing a poem with more length and content.

Best of luck!

thank you all very much for your help, and i think i'll try to switch things around, just to see what happens. and also, thankyou suzanne for that example, it really did help.