Achilles and Patroclus

My soul is devastation
A burden so heavy it cracks concrete
With earth-shattering simplicity
I fail to astound, even to register
The world walks on, unimpressed

I see you blaze your trail from above
A speck in the hot summer sky
Your dreams streaming behind you
Wrapped around your ankles as you ascend
The wasted world in your pocket

Hiding from obscurity,
it finds me
in a glass of wine,
in an unmarked grave,
in another square inch of time, space
wasted
by my words, my existence

This is your epic,
I only live to decorate, to juxtapose
To stand next to you and proclaim your height
With my dwarfed figure

I have these words;
the bile of my soul.
In yours: a triumph;
a life without regret.

Your words scream silence
against the sound
Of their praises to you
Proclaiming their wonderment while
They consume your voice

While I suffer, I prevail
Somewhere at the start
Of your victory march you forgot yourself
Arrogantly you covered your footsteps;
Your broad paces cannot be retracted

So go ahead and laugh
And ill laugh along
sounds are separate
But flow together
Each punctuated
By the other’s rise and fall

Hi,

This was a very interesting piece. I loved the internal rhyme of "dreams streaming" and "wrapped around your ankles." The fourth stanza in particular was great - perfectly concise and you use language expertly. I also loved "Your words scream silence against the sounds" and the last two lines of stanza six. The last stanza was very powerful and ended the poem well.

"Mundanuity" should be "mundanity", but either way I think that this word is too long for the line so I'd try something else. I found "rainy day" a bit dull and I'd try to play up the Greekness of thsisa bit more through the images which you choose. I was a bit let down by stanza five, I'd try for something more visual, less abstract. I'd also take a look at "can't be bothered to" as it was a bit too colloquial for the tone you have going here.

A very interesting read. Eavan Boland has a lot of interesting poems which use classical mythology, so they're worth a look if this is an area you're interested in.

Hope this helps. Feel free to p.m me if you have any questions.

Jas

I'm going to assume this was written in a Greek period - you should have made more references to the actual time era, because that would have added a lot more depth and complexity to the work without making it over-complicated. In general, it was well-written, well-constructed, if a little lacking in punctuation standards at times. All in all, quite good, yet I think if you revised it, it would be fantastic. Keep writing.

OK, so I don't really know the story between the two, but I can comment on your imagery and poem. Not much to be said, you painted a wonderful picture.

The only thing that really bothered me, though, is your punctuation, or lack thereof. Sometimes it was hard to know when to stop, and when to start. Sometimes two lines were one sentence, sometimes not. It took away from the ease of reading that you would have otherwise had, had you punctuated, because your flow is nice. That's all really. Good work!