To Live For

Breathe in and sing out;
anchor my soul on my tongue,
dearest, this is what I cried for.

Keeping my rhythm together,
like the thundering, resounding,
pounding hum of a gun sharp in the air
with its smoking aces pointed up;

but the truth's grated down on
my tongue like razorburn.
It hurts to talk, but I'd sing,
sweetness, and I'd whistle for you,

as long as you'd wait up to hear my song.

I'd carry the notes like doves among clouds,
weaving and careening and spelling out their
irresistible attraction in sing-song notes;
oh, how I'd love to feel your wings beneath my neck,

and my neck above your wings.
And we'd soar and climb and dive and shout,
"This is what we live for!" until the farmer
shoots us down, down, down,

in a lovely, bluebird spiral, locked together
falling in love one final time;
that's what I live for

This is a really nice poem. I especially like the imagery you used and the flow of the poem is great as well. To be honest, I was a bit thrown off by the line breaks in the middle of the stanzas, but that's more of a personal opinion than anything else. Other than that, the one thing I'd like to point out is this:

I'd carry the notes like doves among clouds,
weaving and careening and spelling out their
unresistable attraction in sing-song notes;

It just seems to me that the repetition of 'me' is slightly jarring. Otherwise, it's great! Your word choice was good and the last stanza was a great way to end it.

I really liked this poem, fantastic imagery. I also love how you didn't capitalize the beginning of every line (kind of like e.e. cummings) because it gives the poem a uniqueness. The last stanza was excellent!

Okay Lum, I'm here as pleasantly arranged.

I like the poem and I love some of your expressions - particularly the smoking aces - and you clearly have talent with poetry. Your structure suits your narrative and your line breaks are well thought out. Rhythm and flow are both well done, it's an easy poem to read initially with a strong meaning.

That said, I think your tense is off. It's a mixture of past tense - "I would have" (I think that's past tense, or at least it isn't in the now) and present tense "Anchor my soul to my tongue." Your beautiful imagery guides your poem a lot, and rightly so, as it works wonderfully. However, this mixture tense makes the poem a little less concrete than it could be. I find this particularly here:

"I'd carry the notes like doves among clouds,
weaving and careening and spelling out their
unresistable attraction in sing-song notes;
oh, how I'd love to feel your wings beneath my neck,"

Your first line would serve better as "Carry the notes" because while I know your narrator is saying s/he would carry them, I feel as though s/he is taking on too much. Understandble given the nature of the poem - explaining what there is to live for - but I want more connection to the start of your poem - "Anchor my soul" I want more things that are demanding, rich and slightly desperate. This is a personal preference but I think it will help the poem's overall tone.

It's a very good poem to begin with, but I think altering some of your tone, taking more of the personal pronoun out and meddling with the tense will add to how emotional and effective the poem is.

Thank you for asking for the review, I loved reading it.
*Hearts* Le Penguin.

Wow!! That was sooo good! The imagery was amazing and the metaphors and such were really different and unique! The first stanza was definately my favorite
This was a really, really awesome poem!!
You have got a buttload of talent my friend! Keep doing what you do!

The imagery was very nice. I like the way it sounds.

It hurts to talk, but I'd sing,
sweetness, and I'd whistle for you,

as long as you'd wait up to hear my song.

^This is my favourite part; there's so much affection and emotion and a tinge of desperation in those few lines - the separation of the third line, so it stands alone and breaks the rhythm, emphasises the feelings alot =]

I like the mirroring of three lines in both the first and last stanza - it ties it up nicely =]

Breathe in and sing out;
anchor my soul on my tongue,
dearest, this is what I cried for.

^The middle line here is so emotive and generally great -the idea of letting everything out through the song <3
And I like the calmness of this stanza 'cause it contrasts well with the more violent imagery of the second stanza.

in a lovely, bluebird spiral, locked together
falling in love one final time;
that's what I live for

^The play on words here is really clever [intentionally or otherwise] because of the idea that they are literally (?) falling, and also falling in love. Again the sense of desperation which I really like =]

I really love this poem! It has a lovely emotion to it, and reads almost like someone answering the question 'what do you live for?'. It's a very powerful piece - please PM me if you want me to review more of your poems - I'd be more than happy to!

Wow, this is deep, I have to be honest with you. I really like it, and you paint a clear picture of what you're interpreting with your words. I've read lots of poems in my life, in literature books, etc., and you could have a listing with those people in the charts of those school books. Well done. *applauds* Keep writing.

Vasticity wrote:Wow, this is deep, I have to be honest with you. I really like it, and you paint a clear picture of what you're interpreting with your words. I've read lots of poems in my life, in literature books, etc., and you could have a listing with those people in the charts of those school books. Well done. *applauds* Keep writing.

I absolutely agree, this is a very nice poem filled with implicit meanings that blow one's mind off. However I noticed one mistake:

unresistable attraction in sing-song notes;
the word that should be used is irresistable, unresistable is not a word.

Other than that, amazing! Good job, never stop writing!