Mine

I coerced a Hibiscus from the garden
to be my flower.
My greed prompted my hands
to plunge into the soil,
the dirt embedding
under the shells of my fingers.
I clawed to break loose the clumps,
to liberate the roots
from the somber ground.
My mania initiating
the storm to fume over;
I was a star about to die.
My frenzy to manipulate her ascended.
I wheezed and gasped.
Then in my hands was the flower,
and my sin was succeeded.

I admire the way you take such a simple idea of digging up a Hibiscus (or 'an Hibiscus' -- whichever you dialect chooses) and make it into a carefully detailed, extremely descriptive poem.

Hibiscus wrote:I
My greed prompted my hands
to plunge into the soil,
the dirt embedding
under the shells of my fingers.

The poem is almost perfect, so I'll just pick at the minute wordings a bit. I might omit the first use of the word "my" here. If the greed prompted your hands, wouldn't it be assumed that it was your greed? Also, I might change "fingers" to "nails." I love how you describe your fingernails as shells, but the word "fingers" threw me off. If you said, "...under the shells of my nails," the phrase "of my" could, in effect, mean "that are." I hope you understand this; I tend to think things that only my mind is capable of thinking of. Does that even make sense?

All I can do, forthwith, is applaud you on your poetic masterpiece!

Hi,

I thought that this was really great. It flows nicely and your imagery is very effective. I especially enjoyed "shells of my fingers"-it's a great image. The opening lines really drew me in.

I love "I was a star about to die."

"Wheezed and gasped" is a little dull, I may reconsider it and try to surprise the reader more, but this is just nit-picking. On the whole I don't really think it does much harm to the piece as a whole.

A very enjoyable read.

Hope this helps,

Jas

Hello, I liked this . It was very easy for me to pick up on the imagery, which in my opinion is very good. Not to often do I read a poem that has good imagery in it. Other than telling you how much I liked this, I read the comments above, and I agree with them fully, I don't want to rewrite everything they wrote lol, that would be redundant

Hi Hibiscus,

When the only good thought of a reader of a particular poem is "This will soon be over", you know you have a problem.

And your issue is that this is too weak. Disgustingly weak. The words alienate any sense of emotion from themselves, distance their tone from the heat that sparks life and the world.

These lines are dead, and so is the piece in general.

Hibiscus wrote:I coerced a Hibiscus from the garden
to be my flower.
My greed prompted my hands
to plunge into the soil,
the dirt embedding
under the shells of my fingers.

Last two lines in the above stanza maybe have some potential, but they're suffocated by the absolute pretentiousness the first lines display. "My greed prompted my hands"? Are you a psychologist? The way this is reading, you're attempting to analyze your own feelings and movements without making the reader care, which is a top priority for any poem. Save it for the dissertations.

I clawed to break loose the clumps,
to liberate the roots
from the somber ground.
My mania initiating
the storm to fume over;
I was a star about to die.
My frenzy to manipulate her ascended.
I wheezed and gasped.
Then in my hands was the flower,
and my sin was succeeded.

Look at all that pathetic passiveness choking the piece. "to liberate the roots", "somber ground" "mania initiating", frenzy to manipulate her ascended", "my sin was succeeded". This is utterly stone-cold and boring. How exactly is the reader supposed to imagine something like "My frenzy to manipulate her ascended", anyway? Can you possibly get a picture in your mind if you read that line aloud?

Listen carefully. Stop trying to play the wise narrator who has an eternal moral code to divulge. Learn how to build meaning from an image (yes, poetry does require some meaning, but the mating of description and theme is the only marriage that will produce a fertile child); a good way to do this is to start with an image in the first place, much like the picture of you desperately digging in the dirt. Without telling us about your "greed", show the reader how frantic you are, the motions of your hand, clumps of earth slapping your face like scorned lovers, etc. The meaning of your poem should come to us naturally, and right now nothing's shining through.

Hope that helped,
Galerius