Goodnight

Every time I gazed into your eyes,
I melted.
Jolts rushed through out my body.
The glimmer on your eyes was ecstatic.

I felt like I could reach out, settle into you.
Every moment, something tugged at the back of my mind.
It whispered to take you with me.
Where, unknown.

The nights where I dreamt of you, I stirred.
When I roused, I wished you were there to
hush me to sleep;
kiss me goodnight.

I remember the moment when you
bid me goodbye.


So I've edited the poem and I hope that you will like it better now that I have made a few changes. Enjoy and please reply!
-Shanan

First of all, please use proper grammar. Everyone who passed second grade is required to punctuate properly. It's common courtesy, especially when posting it on a site filled with people who will probably spend more time reviewing this poem than you did writing it.

That said, I like the idea here - a temporary goodbye, and being afraid to fall asleep in case he's not there anymore. However, the execution of this idea is shaky in some places.
Like here:

I woke
when I woke, I wished you were there

This probably bothered me the most in your poem. The phrase "I woke" is used twice and far too close together. It sounds clunky and childish. If I were you, I would delete the first "I woke," as it is unneeded.

And this:

It whispered to take you with me where: unknown the nights where I dreamt of you,

This makes no sense.Particularly because I can't tell where one sentence ends and the other begins, and I have a feeling that where is a typo for here (though I may be wrong on that one).

I don't feel as if I can give you any more criticism on your piece as long as your punctuation is so bad. Punctuation is important. Example:
"The panda eats, shoots, and leaves."
"The panda eats shoots and leaves."

See the difference? Same words but with different punctuation, and the meaning changes completely.

The one piece of advice that I feel safe giving you is to read poetry. Everything you can get your hands on, from Langston Hughes to Edgar Allen Poe to William Shakespeare to Elizabeth Barret Browning. Once you start exposing yourself to other styles of poetry, from different centuries and different poets, you'll be amazed by how much your own writing improves. Trust me on that.

Not bad by any stretch, but there's work to be done.
Comments in the spoiler.

Spoiler

shanan-cat wrote:every time I gazed into your eyes
I melted
tiny jolts rushed through out
my body
the glimmer on your eyes was
like ecstasy

I don't like this section. I feel the format of it is a little too formulaic for a poem that doesn't really need it. But more than that, I really would like you to do more with your descriptions. "I melted" is basic. "Tiny" doesn't add much to "jolts". "Glimmer on your eyes" is the second mention of [his] eyes, and I'd rather you condensed the two, as this is not the poem's focus. "Like ecstasy" is simply weaker than "ecstatic", you should consider rewording that phrase.

shannan-cat wrote:I felt like I could reach out,
settle into you
I wanted to wrap you around my body as
I slept

For all intents and purposes, these lines say the exact same thing.

shannan-cat wrote:every moment, something tugged at the back of
my mind
it whispered to take you with me
where: unknown

Except for Emily Dickenson's dashes, punctuation should rarely be the punch of a line. But that colon draws all attention from what you're trying to say. This is easy to say a different way, I'm unsure as to why you made such a strange choice.

shannan-cat wrote:the nights where I dreamt of you,
I woke

You just "woke"? Is that all? How did you "wake"?

shannan-cat wrote:when I woke, I wished you were there to
hush me to sleep;
kiss me goodnight.
Not goodbye.

The ending is probably you're strongest moment, especially the nice finality of the last two lines. Good work, now back to work.

EDIT: Oh, let me address punctuation. Your line breaks here are standing in here as periods and commas, (further making that colon- as the only punctuation- ridiculously awkward) but I would suggest you make use of the real article in this poem for clarity purposes.

This was pretty good. However, I dont like the spacing you have you have used, but it could just be my computer, i dont know. I think there are spaces where there shouldnt be and it breaks up the flow of the poem which makes it harder to read.
Eg
"tiny jolts rushed through out
my body"
I read it like "tiny jolts rushed through out <pause> my body"
Other than that it was pretty good, besides the punctuation which is already stated
Keep writing though!!

First, let me start by saying I liked this poem. That aside, I have a few suggestions.

Suggestion 1: Capitalization and punctuation.
This poem needs more of both. I would write the first two lines, for example, as
"Every time I gazed into your eyes
I melted."
Possibly you could even hyphenate after 'eyes' to put in a nice break.

Suggestion 2: The end of the poem
I like the rhythm you have throughout the poem, but it dies in the very end, specifically in the last four lines. Not quite sure how you improve that, but I would give it some thought if I were you. If you can keep the rhythm, even if only for two more lines, it'd sound far better, I think.

Suggestion 3: Spacing
In this poem, it might be beneficial into split the lines into quatrains. That's a matter of personal interpretation, though.

All in all, an excellent poem. Keep up the good work.

I wish you could find something better to talk about than love.
Love found.
Love lost.
Love taken.
Love given.
Love forbidden.
Love ignored.

I am tired of "love" as a topic. There are very few ways left to express it without being utterly clichéd.

FLyerS wrote:I wish you could find something better to talk about than love.
Love found.
Love lost.
Love taken.
Love given.
Love forbidden.
Love ignored.

I am tired of "love" as a topic. There are very few ways left to express it without being utterly clichéd.

And yet, love itself still manages to express itself in everyday situations, all the time, and it's always wonderful and surprising. So shouldn't poetry be able to capture that?

Yeah, too much love. Love this love that. Nice peom though. I liked the hush me to sleep thing. That was nice. Well, i have nothing else to say that anyone else has not said. Good luck!

Hey!

Nice poem! But...

I do agree with everybody else. You need a little more punctuation, and your spacing was just... weird. It made me pause in the middle of every sentence, and I'm not sure I liked that very much.

Moving on....

I woke
when I woke, I wished you were there to

This bothered me. To me, it's like saying, "I woke, I woke." Doesn't flow well, and it it disrupts the poem as a whole.

it whispered to take you with me
where: unknown

This part didn't make sense. I would replace the colon with a comma, if that's what you wanted to say.

I woke
when I woke, I wished you were there to
hush me to sleep;
kiss me goodnight.
Not goodbye.

Hmm. I don't quite know how I'm going to say this. Frankly, I liked your ending, but I didn't.

I liked this because I thought you tied off your poem very nicely. I don't like it because I don't think it flows very well. The "Not goodbye" line I think is a little too rushed. I know you put a period there, but I didn't think it really helped your case.

So, overall, nice idea, but could use a little work. And definitely a few periods.

Keep writing!

zOe

I'm not overly good at grammar and spelling because im dyslexic but this needs some work.
It also needs to flow better because at the moment it's just not working. It's good but punctuation needs a bit moe concentration and the spacing needs a lot of work, especially on line 2. Cutting the sentence like that doesn't work. I think this needs a bit more concentration and work into it.

smorgishborg wrote:

FLyerS wrote:I wish you could find something better to talk about than love.
Love found.
Love lost.
Love taken.
Love given.
Love forbidden.
Love ignored.

I am tired of "love" as a topic. There are very few ways left to express it without being utterly clichéd.

And yet, love itself still manages to express itself in everyday situations, all the time, and it's always wonderful and surprising. So shouldn't poetry be able to capture that?

Personally, I do not agree with FLyerS, but I do with smorgishborg. If you don't like the poem and the topic, then why did you write? Why are you in this folder if you don't want to read a poem about love? It's only your fault.

Thanks a lot guys. I will definitely take all your advice and alter the layout, punctuation and flow of the poem, but just to let you all know, I did NOT write this recently. This was done in grade seven, I've just never gotten around to posting it and I thought it would b nice to express my feelings from then and show you all what I could do then, even though I'm not proud of it today.

-Shanan-cat

I like it, I wrote one similar.

Kiss me again,

With your soft lips.

hold my hand,

With your fingertips.

look me in the eyes,

I love how they glow.

like stars in the sky,

Twinkling like so.

come with me,

Away for a walk.

to the tree,

Where we can talk.

i picked these flowers,

Your favorite ones.

today love is ours,

if love was weight I'd love you tons



by Rainbow Mountain 7-30-2009

it was really great I think That if you just fixed some very little things you're poems would be totally amazing.I also like the way of expresing what you mean.