The Shadow

The Shadow
by River Shields

5:30 My shadow stretches long and far stretching its muscles in the morning sun
9:00 My shadow stands tall and straight standing my own hight.
12:00 My shadow lies in a pool below my feet taking its midday nap
7:00 My shadow tries to run far away trying to escape the coming dark a time when it ca not be seen and may not even exist
10:00 My shadow dies in the dark lonely and cold
5:30 My shadow is born again

I love the concept. It reminds me of a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. http://www.bartleby.com/188/119.html

Yours is a bit different from his, though, a bit less well, childish.

I really like the concept. Maybe you could do a series of poems on similar concepts, like rain, the sun, etc.

The only real edits to be made are in regard to typos and general spelling, which you can find on your own.

I'd love to read a few more of these sorts of poems on related ideas.

This is really cool.

Nice. As vox said, I love the concept. But, maybe you could make it a bit longer, and get rid of the punctuation and spelling errors. Then it'd be perfect! Keep writing!

I love it when writers try something different...this has certainly got me thinking, actually. Poetry is meant to be timeless, but it is also meant to be concreted down with the charming little details of life to make it accessible, while still abstract. The very fact that you use actual times of the day in the poem itself, instead of making it seem clinical and factual, actually add to the balance of realism and abstraction in the poem - whereby the abstraction is by the way you talk about the shadow.

I have some suggestions still (and note that these are purely personal preferences - you may like to just try them out and see if you like them or not): keep the title as 'my shadow' but take out the words 'My Shadow' from every line. I find having the same two words vertically down the whole way actually really annoys me - and also, it's not needed. In fact, knowing how little people pay attention to titles, it might even add to the mystery of the piece (and then they'd look up to the title and realise that it was all about a shadow - gives them an 'I-feel-good-about-myself' feeling which is always a good thing).

Also, since this poem is cute and short, but not quite cute enough (I think), I'd say it'd benefit from removal of capitals too. The digits at the start of each line seem domineering enough without a scary looking capital alsot terrorising the rest of the words. Also, it helps detract from the fact that you're doing something so radically different - sort of keeps the poem like a poem, as if the digits totally belong in the line.

Hope that helped! PM me if you've got questions .