thunderstorm

how many stellar faces
did we place our wishes on tonight?

the sky has closed its curtains,
and clouds hang, waiting to relieve their burdens.
there was an explosion tonight,
and after the commotion died down,
a thousand fragments began to twinkle


and the skies did cry, softly at first, and later grew heavy,
until we couldn't see more than red-and-blue flashes
carrying you further away


the moon forgot to rise tonight,
but shadows still chased us, haunted our sleeps and
weighted our troubled hearts--
the stars still twinkled, though, and in spite of the storm
we wondered which one you smiled behind tonight.

June--

This was a really good, solid effort. I appreciate the personal dimension and you definately have a couple great lines here. Like the opening stanza -- good stuff.

One of the problems I do see here, though, is something I often rant about when critiquing poetry. And that is the word usage. Poetry is all about the words, and how you use them -- meaning and structure are the meat upon these bones. Whenever you write a poem, go outside the verbal box. Explore words. Twist them into submission and compliance. Move into abstract realms. For instance, I could describe a woman as having a narrow body, or I could say that such a woman was "strict-hipped" -- the word strict implying straightness and a lack of deviation or curvature. So instead of saying that a star "twinkles" (which is woefully overused), say that the star is "kind-eyed". Personify. With poetry, go outside the bounds. Things are presented on such a different plane with a poem. It's a whole different level of sensation. So avoid words like "twinkle" or "fragments" or "commotion" or "flash" or "chase". Replace these with more productive, robust descriptions. Those words tell -- show us what you mean.

and clouds hang, waiting to relieve their burdens.

Good.

and the skies did cry, softly at first, and later grew heavy,

Reword this to, "and the skies cried, softly at first, growing heavy later". It's a more active version of that sentence.

So, all I see for you to work on is your word choice. Jazz things up. Make it more exciting and eye-opening. I loved how you placed the emphasis on the weather and the setting, instead of the accident. Good poetic technique there.

-Kylan

Hi Juniper,

The problem that afflicts most of your poetry that I've read makes this one suffer as well. And that problem is you go on and on and on about what people or things do without showing us that they do it at all. It's like a real estate agent printing out a picture of a house for a buyer and saying "Well, there's your house. Enjoy!" The buyer doesn't get to go inside, doesn't get to examine what it's made out of, where it came from, what it feels like to live in, etc. Your poetry is much the same way in that while you do describe some very basic concepts and images, you just tack them onto a storyline and leave at that without bothering to look further into them.

Juniper wrote:how many stellar faces
did we place our wishes on tonight?

First problem. In the first two lines, you have an aura of indifference. "Placing" something on something else is neutral, emotionless - the world "place" itself, when used as a verb, generally has that connotation. Later on in the poem, however, the words are infused (more or less) with feeling and emotion, leaving these first two lines bare, on their own, and utterly distasteful to the reader. There has to be some other way you could describe this. Did you cry your wishes onto them, smelling the salt soak into their burning surfaces? Did you sing the wishes, murmur the wishes?

the sky has closed its curtains,
and clouds hang, waiting to relieve their burdens.

Again with the lack of emotion. A sky closes, a cloud hangs and waits. Reading this reminds me of standing in line to get a driver's license. Nobody in the room cares about anyone else; they're just there to do a job, get paid, and get out. Unfortunately, I'm not receiving any other vibes from this poem so far. That needs to be changed, and the easiest way to do that is through greater detail, imagery, and perhaps some wordplay if you think you're up to it.

there was an explosion tonight,
and after the commotion died down,
a thousand fragments began to twinkle

See, this stanza I actually liked because it provided a vivid pattern of one object exploding and breaking off into chunks of glittering light in the sky. Even though you don't use any feeling or emotion here other, the imagery itself makes it work well.

and the skies did cry, softly at first, and later grew heavy,
until we couldn't see more than red-and-blue flashes
carrying you further away

Sadly, again you regress into an indifferent tone here. "Later grew heavy" - that has to be one of the clunkiest and least palatable lines in this entire poem. They were crying and then they just...grew? Later? I'm imaging nothing emotionally satisfying.

the moon forgot to rise tonight,
but shadows still chased us, haunted our sleeps and
weighted our troubled hearts--
the stars still twinkled, though, and in spite of the storm
we wondered which one you smiled behind tonight.

I have really nothing to add to this end; it is maligned with the same problems as all the above stanzas. For example, "troubled" means nothing in this context and you haven't molded that word at all to fit the human perspective. I would feel "troubled" if I stepped on roadkill and realized that it would be difficult to wash the gunk from my shoes. Is this the type of feeling you want from your audience?

In general, work on actually conveying a sense that someone is reading this rather than a robot, because unfortunately that's what it sounds like. Good luck.

Hope that helped,
Galerius