0.

0.

It was half past four; I found you sitting
chin-deep in the sunlight that was pooled in my yard,
the dusk having dried the sheen from your eyes but not yet from your throat.
I saw you breathe in the implication of stars
while the sinking surface of the day lapped at your earlobes.

"Hey,"
you said, and the sun poured into your mouth
like pale foam, glazing your lip's internal curve
with light. I wanted very badly to hold your jaw
and feel the stickiness of the border between afternoon and night
traced lacily and liquidly on its edge.
But you were speaking still and I left my hands submerged.

"Yeah," you said, "I'm tired too." - this
in a voice of modulated twilight,
the dark breath passing through your chest's light-moistened halls
like desert wind.

"Today at work
it was like the sky was falling,"
you said, with the line of the sky sliding slowly
down your cheek,
with your unshaven stubble dripping firmament
the long hairs tipped in gold.

I would have kissed you if I could have kissed you and seen you.
But I thought then that if any open part of you were sealed
you would sink.
The light would close over your face
you would soak- and burn- too brightly to be read.
I think now that-

I think now.

Then
you moved your legs, and the grass did not move under you.
We were suspended. Borne up by the density of the hour.

You've got serious talent. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

This was amazing. I am in love with this piece of work you have here! So far, the best I've found in this forum. Keep up the good work and keep writing!

Helpful, you're intriguing. Poetic(k)? Whatever it is you do, it's certainly lyrical. I'll be up front immediately, this disappointed me. A number of things went off in my head furiously pecking away whatever hard matter is left inside this hollow skull. Delightful thoughts, truly moving with something, not this.
And that bothers me. I feel like I should have loved this. Nonetheless, let's begin.
-one last note, I'm giving you the entirety of my creative and critical processes. I think you can handle it-

Helpful McHelpfulpants wrote:0.

It was half past four; I found you sitting
chin-deep in the sunlight that was pooled in my yard,
the dusk having dried the sheen from your eyes but not yet from your throat.
I saw you breathe in the implication of stars
while the sinking surface of the day lapped at your earlobes.

Visually this is compelling, but you use language as if it's a given, but seem consciously unaware of something deeper into each and every word. A word for you seems merely a means to an end. In the end, no pun intended, I taste and feel no emotion. And that's a grievous problem here for your lines.
"sitting/ chin-deep" seems cute and powerful, but what of it? Do you really explore the body context to justify this inner exploration in the second line? Also, the third line dies the moment I "but", as if you COULD NOT help but add that on. It wasn't the right choice, as it adds only the visual, but stumbles in the mouth and the sequence. These sort of lines hinder a poem and give the illusion of important embellishment.
You know what's a damn shame? I like this fourth line. And at the same time, I think I like how you ramble "poetick" in chat and elsewhere, but this line infuriates me. "I saw you breathe in the implication of stars" oh, did you? And you've now spun yourself from day/dusk, the time, the body, location, and now to space? Do you see why I'm annoyed? You present a sound base, but the manner you present the entirety is overshooting itself. You have to deliver amazingly somehow to not have a bag of loose-ends. The final line seeks to reinforce the day/light/night and body motif, yet I feel little out of it. "lapped" and that's it? Attempting to be sensuous? Attempting to be affectionate? This word killed the line.

"Hey,"
you said, and the sun poured into your mouth
like pale foam, glazing your lip's internal curve
with light. I wanted very badly to hold your jaw
and feel the stickiness of the border between afternoon and night
traced lacily and liquidly on its edge.
But you were speaking still and I left my hands submerged.

First thing first, don't bother with Prose rules in poetry unless you're forced to, as "Hey," gives a pause and then.....it's by itself. I read that aloud and say it and am waiting. Waiting for what? Well the next line, but you've hung me up with a single comma. A pity, I think dialogue is underutilized in poetry, it's just annoying to incorporate.
And the second line is fine enough, but it too falls short. "the sun poured into your mouth" is simply too blase for me. Let me explain my expectations for you. You can adapt language and manipulate it, and for that I want to see lines that don't simply present your machinations, lines that aren't simply great computations, but lines that admit not knowing. Lines that let me know who you are. Creepy? I actually learn quite a lot about someone in poetry. This can be bad, I can lose myself in lines and not listen to my gut feeling, and that can burn us my friend, severely.
Nonetheless, back to the body in this second line. There is one other person here that writes body poetry and they have writing and sense of physicality down in a manner that avoids this emptiness I see in your writing. It's an admission of not knowing. Never knowing. Having no answers. And observe your writing in this, you seem to an all-seeing, all sculpting speaker. And I'm perturbed. Is your speaker really this?
Beyond the second line we must go! First with "like pale foam, glazing your lip's internal curve/ with light. I wanted very badly to hold your jaw" and again words as words. Disappointing as a round of weak beer or ale, when we ought to have simply ordered cider. This foam, is it innuendo? OR simply convenient to use in this context? Juxtaposition of the normally "bright" sun? But the word alone is what you rest it on. I'm not convinced with this and left thinking too much in a way that annoys me. And the rest of the line, from glazing to light, light included simply due to the period, is again embellishment. You're fattening the body up, but in the process that's all your doing. Everything else is an odd end.
"I wanted very badly to hold your jaw/ and feel the stickiness of the border between afternoon and night/ traced lacily and liquidly on its edge." And here is a prime example. I wanted to very much be lost in your writing and even feel so moved I say this a female I love (ha, but where is she? is there even one, or is she disappearing in the sun before my eyes, just as I lose myself; tragedy/ or duality but of course, I am her destroyer watching her disappear without a choice)! I wanted very badly to smack you for this phrase. Read it. "very badly" and then "I wanted". Yes! You are trying here, but not for the reader. Not at all. And now, I'm very confused. Because the line after I adore. So much can be said of it. Here, and perhaps here alone, you perfectly summarize your entire poem, every theme (except for stars, I will not let you get away with that). And then the next line...is simply adjective fun. These lines are what disappoint me. In the line prior you had no boasting or pretension of what was or what is. You were a conduit of what is with no interceding thoughts, and daresay I, you were admitting imperfection. I actually connected with you. And I'm about to get a whole lot meaner.

"Yeah," you said, "I'm tired too." - this
in a voice of modulated twilight,
the dark breath passing through your chest's light-moistened halls
like desert wind.

No. No. Simply not at all. The first line is amateur. Pseudo Prose/Poetry that, bothers, itself with, marks and notices; it ends up, jamming, the flow. And another mention, by this point I have literally no relationship with either speaker or the character of you. It's not clear or obvious what it is to be. The problem with your focus on the body is that the body doesn't successfully become a character itself. Just a tool to be used.
"-this" oh? Well thank you pointing out what you will describe now and embellish. Come on. Poetry IS EMBELLISHMENT, whether we agree or not or like it or not, it is pinpointing and specifying something at a moment in time, isolated, and focused upon. And I get the feeling now that you and I are somewhat supposed to be night and day. I don't believe it. And the following three lines do little if anything. Bland overgeneralizing. This and then something I cooked up about the body to keep it going. Do you see now why I said your speaker bothers me? Why your writing here is alarming? Your tone and voice are bordering on nigh unbelievable.

"Today at work
it was like the sky was falling,"
you said, with the line of the sky sliding slowly
down your cheek,
with your unshaven stubble dripping firmament
the long hairs tipped in gold.

But why leave this until so much later??? This provides connection! You could have continued your earlier stanzas and created a relationship between the speaker and reader with this. And again, the resurfacing night/day theme. Parallel happenings. I'm not Navita and I honestly want to see more than simple logical sequences and flow (not a shove Navi, I'm being general for sake of presenting a difference, you obviously look for more). The placement of this stanza perturbs me.

I would have kissed you if I could have kissed you and seen you.
But I thought then that if any open part of you were sealed
you would sink.
The light would close over your face
you would soak- and burn- too brightly to be read.
I think now that-

Seen you is not necessary. Why? Not because it's just superfluous, it's because your poem is not organized or written in a way to properly establish why. And then lingering body metaphors and....same old, same old. A slight admission of lose here. But only a little. The final threes lines I wish you wrote more often. Honestly. However let's look at the next

I think now.

Then
you moved your legs, and the grass did not move under you.
We were suspended. Borne up by the density of the hour.

And that's devilishly correct. Surprised? It's as if you put everything together for those three words. Just those. Internal/external? I hope that's not the only reason. I'll leave the end as it is. Pretty language.

Helpful, you're not the typical writer. Obviously not. You're part of a group that knows what they have and in that consequence, will be permitted absolutely no laziness. I will explain. I read this the first time and thought "well that reads quite interestingly, but it leaves a strange taste" and I figured you were simply quite talented. Well you are obviously talented. But what of your words? I can't connect with you, save for a few lines. It's as though you choose to remain inhuman. A pity, you seem to be quite capable of shedding something interesting on humanity.
But I don't care for simply playing now. Admit that the now is imperfect and an illusion without layering and layering image after image. I love poetry which reads well and presents honest imagery, and then beneath is presented on top of content which is inherently aware of its own limited time, its own death. Because I too am imperfect. Capable of failing. I fear it. I fight like an animal to keep it away. I accept it too, when I have to understand the nature of the failure. But I have no answers, only the resolve to try again or never try. And you did not pretend to boast that or against it. That grips me, if only that.

Let me say one final note on what I look for in a writer. I don't critique for criticism. I critique for analysis that keeps in mind execution and ability. The final perspective I add, is the persona of which is presented here on the net. Ah, imperfect. A paradox more or less. It's simply my admission that words are not total. They are not the sum of the screen or the contents in it. They're something sinister and magical. Were it true, we could love another or others simply by words...

Again, I have a hard time connecting with "you", and perhaps as you start writing more you'll prove me completely wrong. I hope to review for you more, this was a pleasure to do. Hopefully you find this somewhat useful, yes?

My heart is yours sir.

A review will be here eventually.

Oooh, getting the claws out are we, MMM? You were right on a few counts: that this is lyrical, and that the reader-text connection is somewhat muted (perhaps as a result of that?). Helpful -- I’ve come to love this in your writing, as you know. A very David Foster Wallacey effect, hm? (A pity I prefer your imitations to his originals.) Less commas, here, however. There is that evasion of the real focus, even while the focus is there, clear as day. That directness without directness, ‘day lapped at your earlobes’ -- a hallmark of your writing. We have a metaphor presented to us. It is clear, because you make it clear. It is hazy, because we wonder what’s holding it up, what’s underneath it. A paradoxical audience-text relationship. Knowing you hate paradoxes, I wonder how you achieve it at all. And knowing how you write (poetickly, of course), I can’t fathom why you tell me that you do not plan, or act as architect, when this is thematically so tight.

Obviously, I doubt MMM will be happy if I just continue on with style here with little consideration of theme, because I’m sure the three of us will discuss this piece in chat at some point -- trust me, it’s that kind of a controversial piece. You know what kind of critique is coming up, Helpful...content (matter/theme) and then style (manner). But since I already analysed this thematically yesterday, I’ll take extracts from that for here, for coherency:

Theme = Matter = What = Content

I take this, then, as a poem about light. Lightness and light, because you talk, also, of density and sinking, as well as darkness and twilight. The 'you' is 'chin-deep' in sunlight. Their lips are in sunlight, a focal point for the narrator. Even more so, it is that transition that fascinates, that exact place -- the jaw -- where the light changes to darkness, but the narrator seems afraid. And it's that word, 'badly' that gives it away -- that feeling of guilt, of undoing the lightness(/goodness) by the mere act of touching, as if touching can bring darkness, shadows, sinking.

You talk of light/dark, lightness/density here, interspersed with love (or is it attraction) and morality, the most common theme for which light is a metaphor (but I so loved how you hauled in lightness too).

Continuing from there, there is, essentially, such a simple question here that it’s almost laughable -- it’s such a light question, which you, ironically enough, bring such gravity to in the course of the poem, with your serious-faced extended metaphor and characteristic prosaic writing: you ask, ‘should I kiss him’? And that is your central axis, your focal point for the poem. We turn around it, of course; you bring in light and dark and lightness and heaviness -- essentially two dualities for the same idea, which I take to be goodness, in this case, or rightness. Light is commonly used as a metaphor for that. No tricky associations there.

And it’s continued throughout: he is sitting ‘chin-deep in the sunlight,’ breathing ‘in the implication of the stars’ (also a source of light, but a foreshadowing of darkness, too), with the sun pouring into his mouth giving him a voice of modulated twilight, and the afternoon and night forming a border on his jaw, and long hairs tipped in gold (of sunlight, presumably). He’s in light. He’s also light (better said, in lightness): his face is just above the ‘sinking surface of the day,’ while she ‘leave[s] [her] hands submerged’ watching the ‘sky sliding slowly down [his] cheek’ -- there is the idea of things all falling down around him, dripping down, while he is buoyed up in light and lightness. She sees that as essentially a good thing, and whether or not that is because she thinks he is ‘good,’ we do not know.

But we do know that she is afraid of making him darker, making him sink. A kiss would mean closing one’s shadow over another, therefore she could not have ‘kissed [him] AND seen[/him]’ because we can only see if there is light, and no light = no sight. And sealing by kiss = density / sinking, so you tie in ‘lightness’ there as well. Mad logic, of course, but it works -- that’s what metaphors are all about, anyway. But I take that a step further. The kiss is the overlapping of light and dark -- no metaphor or duality, now; now we have paradox -- it’s a mixing of identities (perhaps the archetypal ‘good’ and ‘evil’, but probably not -- if you really meant dirtying something pure with love, you would have used red and white, as in Wearing Red!). You say, ‘if I could have kissed you [i.e. merged (identity) with you] and seen you [in which case, standing back, separation].’ The crux of all relationships, really -- closeness and distance, and the paradox of trying to do both. We must stand back to observe objectively, but simultaneously want to lean forward and submerge (‘sink’) subjectively. Lightness and weight, distance and closeness.

[Congratulations, you just threw on an added duality there. Adding complexity are we?]

It’s immensely fascinating to me just how much your style, in this case, works -- the narrator’s stance, throughout the majority of this poem, is to stand back, yes? And therefore you distance the reader likewise from the poem. (But I don’t think that distancing is overdone; there is still enough directness in the way the metaphors play out to collapse audience-text aesthetic distance.)

It’s funny, but do you remember and just now? The last lines, ‘you need to [kiss me] / and just now’ -- I love seeing our work collide like this, again (not only in record, as I mentioned, but also with another poem) despite the vast differences in style; it’s nice to see the themes mesh together. Your resolution essentially comes here, ‘I think now that- / I think now,’ which is where they kiss, obviously, much like the closing lines of my own poem. You collapse all aesthetic distance in that single hyphen. I find it also intriguing that while I had crushingly close diction throughout, and that ‘and just now’ (kiss) was like a sense of release, effusion, you have instead here a piece which is essentially quite distanced, and the entrapment comes with the kiss, rather than the other way round. I love the paradox that both our forms of mad logic make perfect sense.

And the result? Neither floating nor sinking. An in-between, so the darkness/heaviness did not completely take over the light/lightness -- they are ‘suspended,’ ‘borne up by the density of the hour.’ Obviously, we associate sinking, submerging, and suspension a lot with liquid, and oceans, so it would make sense that this ties in with your earlier mention in how the ‘sinking surface of the day lapped at [his] earlobes’. I also find it interesting that you end the poem focussing on the density/lightness idea rather than the darkness/light idea (but it’s implicit, in the word ‘hour’) which was so prominent throughout -- there’s that ambiguity, obviously, of whether the dark-light mixing has resulted in a similar kind of in-between state or not. But the ‘hour’ is ‘dense,’ so it almost seems like they have accepted the density, and are suspended in density, correct? Like being suspended in darkness, because that was inevitable?

Oh, the ambiguities here excite me. What are they suspended by, I want to know. What are they suspended in? Are they truly suspended? Does love submerge or suspend? Does attraction submerge/overwhelm or can there be an in-between? What the halfway meeting point of light and dark, anyway, thematically? And why this, why this paradox, my dear Helpful McHelpfulpants: the narrator seems almost self-placatingly on edge, wanting ‘very badly’ to kiss him, but at the same time, leaving her hands submerged. Not forcing them -- just leaving them. An almost peaceful suspension throughout the poem, even while being simultaneously (paradoxically) tense, taut with desire and internal conflict. Here’s the problem: she wants to kiss him, and is tense (suspended) because of it. Here’s the solution: she does kiss him, and they are still suspended at the very end. Why.

I could talk about this for hours, and cycle round and round the ambiguities. Makes for good general discussion -- sometime when you’re more awake, then.

Anyway, that’s me done on theme.

Style = manner = how = execution

Again, quoting my own thoughts to you from earlier, to act as springboard:

Favourite parts:

implication of stars 
while the sinking surface of the day lapped at your earlobes. 

 lip's internal curve
with light

wanted very badly to hold your jaw

modulated twilight

"Today at work
it was like the sky was falling,"
you said, with the line of the sky sliding slowly
down your cheek,

moved your legs and the grass did not move under you.
You were suspended; borne up by the density of the hour.

I realise, now, that it is your juxtaposition of essentially technical terminology with the more classical poetry that makes it so fascinating. You talk of modulated twilight, hour density, the implication of the stars, lip's internal curve. I love the metaphor of light -- perhaps you knew that, and so sent me this -- and I love it because of its essential simplicity, but capacity for multiplicity in interpretation. It intrigues me most when people take archetypal themes, or concepts, or motifs, and bring fresh dimensions to them.

Oh wow. I see to be talking about chaos and order here, too -- convention/archetype and innovation/ingenuity. But that’s in context of theme, so let us disregard it for the present. But, regardless, you are adding innovation by your use of technological vocabulary -- not, by any means, new; just a minor point of difference (anyway, I don’t think I have ever, ever heard -- or could conjure -- the ‘implication of the stars’ or ‘modulated twilight’ myself) -- stylistic innovation to thematic archetypes.

Specifics:

It was half past four; I found you sitting

You know my love of killer beginnings, right? And you also know that this falls into the category of non-flaunting beginnings, which I am also comfortable with -- that is, if they work. That ‘half past four’ means nothing in the context of the whole poem, except that sunset is presumably around that time. I want something more generalised, here, since I think that will tie in better with your overall audience-distancing than something yet more specific. “half past four’ sits on the fence.

chin-deep in the sunlight that was pooled in my yard,
the dusk having dried the sheen from your eyes but not yet from your throat.

Both lines are clogged -- the second more than the first. Snip off words and rearrange enjambment.

“Hey,"
you said, and the sun poured into your mouth

Ha. What happened to your characteristic wit, Helpful? A beginning like Hey? Really? Also, this is what happens: he says ‘hey’ to her and she stays silent, then he says, ‘Yeah, I’m tired too.’ That’s really strange conversation. She said nothing in between, so the dialogue-transitions are flawed.

Personally? Go with something like, ‘You talked and sun poured into your mouth’ (I’m not a hundred percent reassured by this iamb we’ve almost got going here but I know you’ll be leaping up and down about it).

like pale foam, glazing your lip's internal curve
with light.

Good. We find foam in the surface, when floating in water, when suspended, so it makes sense that now, in sunset, there would be a pale foam of light. But remove the ‘like’ and end the previous line with a semicolon, for clarity.

So far, the poem is pale itself. All our perceptions are as if behind a screen, or as if I’m watching a movie being filmed behind the glass of the camera lens. Not necessarily a bad thing -- the poem is suspended, like the characters. It’s all seriousness, too, so it’s gravity, and its theme -- to kiss or not to kiss -- could be taken lightly, so, in some twisted way, it’s all three -- suspended, lightweight, and weighed down by the simple slowness of the pacing. How on earth did you manage that?

"Yeah," you said, "I'm tired too."

Please. I want to see more Helpful McHelpfulpants here. I want to see your complexity at work, your brilliant capacity for snarky comebacks in chat in play here, not this mundaneness. You do it so well in ‘today at work / it was like the sky was falling’ that this above bit pales in comparison.

dark breath passing through your chest's light-moistened halls
like desert wind.

Erm. Too much metaphor (and words in general) clogging up the space. Tone it down. Also, you realise ‘desert wind’ in no way connects with any metaphor established?

with your unshaven stubble dripping firmament
the long hairs tipped in gold.

Kind of screams cliche at me. A bit too Prince-Charming-fairy-tale-like, these ‘long hairs tipped in gold.’ And look at how many long words you are juxtaposing in a long line: unshaven stubble dripping firmament is a mouthful.

Nothing specific further.

And you and I have had this conversation countless times before: intensity versus softness. (‘Cider’ vs ‘weak beer/ale’ as MMM called it -- God I love describing metaphors with metaphors...) You know how I go through these cycles of writing; you, conversely, have managed to keep it soft for about as long as I’ve read your work. We can have bright bangs and aesthetic distances so collapsed that we’re left spinning and breathless and whirling, (which you cannot deny you have come to love, with our mutual love of Siken) or, on the other hand, we can have this: softness, gentleness, where each word is measured and balanced, and it is the one-line twists that stir something in us. turn us about the axis. I feel a kind of rising on reading ‘I would have kissed you if I could have kissed you and seen you’ because it sings to me, in meaning and in phrasing; because I grasp how deep and interwoven it is -- it asks a question that is pertinent to humanity -- how close must we, can we, should we come together so as to know each other subjectively, and how far apart so as not to lose sight objectively? The problem of love. The problem of identity in love, and knowledge.


Ultimately, of course, content is moot. Themes don’t matter nearly as much as how you approach them, because themes are hardly going to change. If theme s are problems of society/humanity, then there is no new theme/problem to find unless there is a change in either (usually technological). So, rest assured that it really does not matter that you said nothing extraordinarily new at its very heart, and that you merely explored it from a different sphere.

Did I like the style? Well, yes, but I shouldn’t answer that, and you know perfectly well why. I have lost a fair bit of objectivity in getting to know you, in seeing and reading some of your influences, in reading more of your works -- fiction and non fiction -- and getting a feel for your voice, the way you naturally phrase, your signature. I’ve discussed this with Kylan before -- analyst-art distances collapse when analyst-artist distances collapse. It’s a double-edged sword; exactly the one you write of here, in this poem -- it applies universally. I feel like I understand it so well that I do not need to say whether or not I like it -- it’s understood. That’s problematic for you, of course, because, on the one hand, I won’t mess with your voice too much, but on the other, it could do with some scales and arpeggios and so forth.

An exceptionally long review because I missed your work, and because I enjoyed unravelling this, and reading it. Obviously, we’ll chat-edit together, but it would be lovely to get a more coherent response from you about your thoughts on this critique.


Navita

Coming from a novice (when it comes to poetry) this was more intricate, and deep, and meaningful, and poetic then anything I could even begin to come up with. With that being said, (again, I point out I'm a novice... and not particularly deep myself) I found it sort of confusing... but it was just awesome to read.

(I'm sure this wasn't helpful... sorry about that... there are other long and helpful reviews though, so yeah...)

--
Tabby

*opens mouth, then stops* nope, he said that. *thinks, and begins to critique again, but pauses* what he hell, she already covered that!!! Well, helpful, here is my advice; follow thier advice to the extent you see fit. *nods satisfactoradly* -_-I dont even think that is a word. Lol.

I think MMM and Navita have essentially covered everything that really needs to be covered; but then, both of their reviews are extremely long and, I daresay, a tad confusing (no offense intended). This is, on the surface, a beautiful poem, rich in imagery, but the problem is that nothing can be found beneath it. While reading this, I felt like I was reading metaphor for the sake of metaphor; that is, the poem is wrapped up in several layers of pretty images and fancy anatomical allusions, but at the center, what's left? There didn't seem to be any underlying meaning. Now, perhaps it has some emotional significance to you, but you need to think about showing that to your readers. Right now it's just a swirling mass of lights, colors, and body parts, with little genuine emotion to tie this dazzling chaos together.

This poem follows the pattern of two trends that seem to be circulating around YWS these days: (1) The scientific poem, which employs a pervading biological/astronomical/anatomical metaphor in an attempt to illustrate things such as emotion that often have nothing to do with science at all, and (2) the prose poem, which uses a narrative style composed of elaborately embellished sentences. I never liked the former, and the latter I liked the first four hundred times I saw it; after that it began to get old. Now, sometimes you can teach an old dog new tricks, and breathe life into a trend that is swiftly falling into overuse, but it takes a pretty darn good poem to do so. And good, contrary to what many writers (especially noobs!) seem to think, does not mean so elaborate and manic no one can understand it.

Too much of the writing on this site, and elsewhere, is simply trying too hard; and it ends up looking not ingenius, but pretentious. Don't let this happen to you. Don't get so caught up with making your poem look good that you forget what it's all about.

This is pretty good, but sort of confusing. You use words my poor brain fails to comprehend. Why are you so smart?

Anyways, I really liked this. I can't really review it since I don't understand half of the words. Anyways, though, good job and definitely keep going!!

~MilkNCookies

Wow. Wow. owowow. Serious talent. So many times I see on here I read people who have no clue what they are doing (
I consider myself a step above this, for I know what I am doing, but I still suck). I happen to know what you are doing and do not suck:P Bravo.

5/5 (A rare honor)

-WU

Helpful McHelpfulpants wrote:with your unshaven stubble dripping firmament Comma at the end of line?
the long hairs tipped in gold.

I would have kissed you if I could have kissed you and seen you. Reword perhaps? It reads awkwardly.

This was a very imaginative and surreal poem. The dialogue was interesting and almost suspenseful because it lacked your own words, which gave the poem a neat pace, as if it was faster than itself and somehow escaped my ability to keep track of time. My favorite lines were: "I saw you breath in the implication of stars" and "But I thought then that if any open part of you were sealed / you would sink."

Some parts felt like the imagery was forced, like "dark breath." Other lines like, "the day lapped at your earlobes." gave the poem a romantic, psychedelic feel. I'm not sure I understand the poem's title but I don't much care, this was an original love poem.

This was really pretty, the way it just kind of rolls of your tongue and flows, but at the same time I felt like you were over-trying when it came to the depth of it, and it could've actually been a little simpler. Still, I like poetry like this a lot, it just flows so well and makes your mind drift. Overall, I really, really like this.
Keep writing,
StoryWeaver

Navita and MMM gave you a good run-down, and you know very well what you're doing so I'll keep with simple and short.

#1. I love the fact you wrote this in chat.

#2. I already told you what my issue with this is. So let this serve as a reminder, and a little bit more elaborated then my simple ramblings in chat that are usually useless in helping with anything. But simply, it's the fact that despite how wonderful this is, it doesn't give me anything to take away, to carry with me and echo in my head for the next couple days. You have a way with words, without a doubt, and that's not something I say lightly. I mean, you gave me inspiration to write a poem dude that's awesome. But! I think this falls short because you offer something lovely to read, but it sits just out of the reader's grasp, not in the sense of comprehension, rather feeling. We can get a taste of it, but it's gone as soon as it rolls right out of our clambering grasp. Some of the fault lies in the ambiguousness of the characters, the rest lies in the detached feeling of the writing, like you separated yourself from the persona you were writing from rather then sticking yourself in their skin. Yes, I do realize this one was rather, quickly? done. Though I don't know how much effort went into it. You're a wonderful writer, and I don't want to pick nits, but I want to be blown away like I know you can do, but fail to do here.

We'll chitchat later. I hope to be woo'ed further.

Kamas