Loss of Eden

Loss of Eden
By Angel of Death

the morning is gravid with dew drops.
sweet from the petals of the flowers
that bare their yellow eyes,
to the endless torrent of blue sky.
they whisper secrets, letting them
carry through the air like nectar,
-filled with a beautiful bitterness
only the kings and queens of
this eden-birthed world,
seem to know.

the grass-in all it's green glory
-is a palace and we are
antique monuments of it's
beauty. you are a wingless
angel, made solely for me
and I love you. You
are a heaven God
could never understand.

it's roads are the curves
of your body, from the
waves of your eyes, to
the contours of your
jaw-strong like the
tsunami roaring in
my soul or the
mountains just
on the eave of
your neck.

it's existence is marred
by the incessant beating
of our hearts, hot and fast
like summer, bright
and filled with ease
like the spring, and
short like the nights
in the cold, desolate
winter.

soon our paradise, lost
to an eternity of love
and bliss, becomes only
a memory, the flowers
with forget-me-not fresh
on their lips, as we walk
away, the gates like a
demon, glaring at us
with eyes birthed
from a world of
crystalline splendor.

and soon, our bodies
began to wither
away, like sculptures
eaten by time and poverty
and hatred and sin. no
longer can I see or
feel the beauty, and
to think that a simple
pomegranate, with it's
fruitless pleasure,
took paradise away
from me.

Notes: in German legend the flowers screamed 'forget-me-not' as Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden. Also, the title of this poem come's from John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Hi Angel of Death,

Angel of Death wrote:We walk down to the beach, the once gold
sand and the perilous blue sky-reminding
me of what used to be.

Why is the sky perilous? And why the odd placement of your hyphen? Fix both of those; in the first, the description does not make sense in step with the rest of the "nature" content, and in the latter, it's unnecessary.

Cut the last line. "___ what used to be / what had been / etc" is cliched. Replace it with something...not cliched. Use your imagination.

Hand in hand, cheek to cheek, skin to skin,
those days when it didn't matter if the world
(which dangled on a spider's web) was falling
into an abyss of nothingness-as long
as we were together.

A spider's web is known for its relative strength. What are you trying to say - that the world was very stable?

An abyss of nothingness is repetition that could be cleaned out much more than it is now. An abyss...what can it symbolize? Surely a human value, surely more than the "nothingness" you've tacked on to the end.

Now it's "why do I even love you" or
"where is this going" or "I need some
space". And sometimes I feel like
I'm deaf because you're speaking
in a sign language I don't want
to understand.

If you're going for the overused pop star Britney Spears look, then you might as well go ahead and put in quotes like "Let's just be friends!" and "Your eyes are like two blue pools!". The quotes you have up there are so trite, and so boring, that's its almost a physical pain to read them. Fix it.

The entire deaf thing is a cheesy play that does nothing for the poem nor for the stanza; it's just a light vehicle, a means to a subpar end. Fix that too. Actually, just go ahead and scratch out this entire stanza, because it's all bad.

I want to close my eyes, just so I can
see the fireworks bleeding blue and white
and yellow and red against my eyelids,
as I imagine how we used to kiss.

Slow and easy, like the waves as they
crash against the shore. But there is only
darkness and our emotions are fast and hard,
like tsunamis, destroying the lands that
we once knew.

Curiously, this part, the section that is the shallowest and has the least content, is the most salvageable because it uses imagery and flow to continue the thought process for the reader. Keep this and use it as a template when forming other lines and stanzas.

"Have you been thinking about us?" you
ask.

I want to tell you that the very thought of you
makes my mind freeze over, as if you're some demon
birthed from a world of crystalline splendor. I want
to say that I love you and I wish you would stay,
but the words are chained by the anger, the hurt
you seem to ignore so easily.

The ice demon part was decent, the absolute garbage that came after that was not. Delete the last three lines of that stanza and re-work them over again. Use the idea of the demon to subtly convey how you feel; tell his story, thereby telling your own.

You take my silence as a no.

"Amy, I think we should start seeing other people."

No. No. Delete this part and never use that phrase again, or stop writing poetry.

I turn away-thinking of yesterday and all the other
days we've shared, wondering if I could erase them
after you packed your bags, your smile and your
heart and walked out the door.

You've said this exact thing two or three times, almost thought by thought, so why are you doing it again now? You're not adding anything to the reader's experience. Cross out this stanza.

No, I won't be able to. And though it hurts, I say
the word that I hope will set me free from
the memories that haunt me.

"Fine."

The ending is so disappointing because you let your audience down. The reader expects something lasting, something that can be remembered, and instead is some garbled "touchy feely" prose followed by a word that works as more of a gimmick to answer the previous question than an actual concept. You need to re-do this entire ending; try using the idea of the demon you came up with earlier or the fireworks, and tie it in so that the metaphors are extended and not just one-shots.

Overall, beyond some gems that I pointed out earlier, this entire piece was one big preteen shallow whine, without much imagery or flow, that never deserved to see the light of day. Keep some parts that were good, but most of it should be thrown away and done again.

Hope that helped,
Galerius

Hey Gal,

Thanks for your critique. It was helpful and actually, I agree with you 100%

I really didn't put much thought into this poem at first, seeing as I just wrote it at 3:00 in the morning. The part about the ice demon was initially the first stanza but someone, it seems that I turned this poem into something else.

So, I'll start from scratch, using your review as a guideline.

Thanks,

~Angel

~Edited~

~Angel

Aaangel! June here!

(Why do you use Tildes [~] so? )

So, right, the poem:

the morning is gravid with dew drops.

sweet from the petals of the flowers

that bare their yellow eyes,

to the endless torrent of blue sky.

they whisper secrets, letting them

carry through the air like nectar,

-filled with a beautiful bitterness

only the kings and queens of

this eden-birthed world,

seem to know.

I don't think you should bring us to a full stop [by using a period] in the first line; rather, I think you should use a semicolon, because the second and first line are invariably related, dear.

Mm, in the third line, I'm not sure if bare should be bear? If you mean like, uncovering yellow eyes, then you should keep bare; if you mean wear/carry yellow eyes, you should use bear, dear.


I kind of feel like you're stressing the imagery too; See here:

the morning is gravid with dew drops.

sweet from the petals of the flowers

that bare their yellow eyes,

to the endless torrent of blue sky.

they whisper secrets, letting them

carry through the air like nectar,

-filled with a beautiful bitterness

only the kings and queens of

this eden-birthed world,

seem to know.

I underlined all of the words that are dragging this poem back, Angel. I think the imagery and the picture you are painting is terribly beautiful, but these are... big words! And part of the beauty you have here comes from the simplistic, common words you begin with. Words that aren't used in their common meaning here, such as torrent, are kind of holding this back, dear.

the grass-in all it's green glory

-is a palace and we are

antique monuments of it's

beauty. you are a wingless

angel, made solely for me

and I love you. You

are a heaven God

could never understand.

I would take out "in all it's green glory" (side note, it's should be its. it's is the contraction for it is, while its is possessive form), because that phrase is tugging it down. I see that phrase too much nowadays in poetry, and it's becoming overused. Using it here, is like pushing the words through a strainer and they just won't fit. You've got awesomesauce here, Angel; don't stress it.

Also: "I love you" here seems a bit unnatural. I can't figure out why, but it seems stressed.

it's roads are the curves

of your body, from the

waves of your eyes, to

the contours of your

jaw-strong like the

tsunami roaring in

my soul or the

mountains just

on the eave of

your neck.

Its; not it's.

It's is the contraction for it is. Its is possessive form.

This stanza was beautiful. However, I want to point out that you should make your dashes clearer; a dash is two hyphens-- Using one hyphen makes it look like you're hyphenating your words.

[ The sea-- a river grown out of its shell.
The Sea, a river grown-out-of-its-shell]

See the difference?

it's existence is marred

by the incessant beating

of our hearts, hot and fast

like summer, bright

and filled with ease

like the spring, and

short like the nights

in the cold, desolate

winter.

Little thing on the it's again. I do like the imagery in this stanza, but again with the big words, I feel like your pulling too hard.

soon our paradise, lost

to an eternity of love

and bliss, becomes only

a memory, the flowers

with forget-me-not fresh

on their lips, as we walk

away, the gates like a

demon, glaring at us

with eyes birthed

from a world of

crystalline splendor.

So, no offense, but this stanza was... not to my liking. It felt overused-- these images, flowers, walking away together-- they all raise the image of fairytales, and those are far too common! I think you should pull away from this. Structure this love around something else. Any other images you got? Try something new to symbolize love, dear, because this just felt... overdone.

and soon, our bodies

began to wither

away, like sculptures

eaten by time and poverty

and hatred and sin. no

longer can I see or

feel the beauty, and

to think that a simple

pomegranate, with it's

fruitless pleasure,

took paradise away

from me.

First, this was a beautiful closing...

But, pomegrants, a fruitless pleasure? O.o

I'm only joking; I really did like this closing. It was effective-- the images it brought to me were perhaps a bit overused and whatnot, but at the end, I feel it was worth it.

On the whole, I enjoyed this poem. I do have top stress that some of the images were overused, dear, and I felt that the big words were just another way to present them; thus limiting my enjoyment. I also felt that at the beginning, this poem was struggling, but towards the middle, the flow picked up and things carried evenly to the end.

With that said, Angel, I really, really enjoyed this. It was quite a beautiful enjoyable poem--

Gold star.

Keep it up, dear.

June