Paradox

I long for you
But it cannot be
For you are gone from the mind
Of all but me.
I would love you,
But time decreed
That you never began.

I'll admit that I don't really understand this poem but that does not stop me from really enjoying it. I really like the multiple paradox's all strung together to make a very complex one that is hard to decipher at a glance. Good job!

Hello Ozette!

I'm going to give you a nice little review here. It's lovely to see some short poetry on the YWS, as I'm a fan of all forms but we don't see the concise too often. Because this is really short I don't need to go line by line or anything, instead I'm going to lay down two questions and then answer them as I go.

1: Why no punctuation? I know that poetry doesn't have to conform to the norms of most fiction, but you'll find that even a small amount of grammatically correct punctuation will aid your reader in deciphering your poem. For instance, in your second line, you could easily add a comma and it would encourage a stronger connection between the lines. Giving your reader little clues helps them know when to pause and breath, rather than at every line. Added to this, you don't need to capitalise the first letter of every line if you don't want to (by all means do so if you want!).

2. Where is our imagery? You have the bare bones here, in this poem. We have the narrator, and the Other, and some bit of a story. She wants the Other but can't have him because he's gone/doesn't exist. But we're not emotionally connected to your narrator yet. We're a little sad, because the situation of loss will always be sad, but we've not no movement to be truly heartbroken for your characters. What I'd like to see is some involvement in the surrounding situation, some colour and sight and sound, and smell! The five senses are always helpful in bringing a poem into the Now for your reader. The poem needs to be in the Now for your reader to remember it.

This is a good poem, in terms of being straight to the point and giving your reader everything they need as simply and honestly as you can. However, I think it could be a lot better if you injected some poetic elements, like imagery or description just to pull it into the reader's heart. It'll make your poem longer, but it'll be for the better, I'm sure!

If you have any questions please feel free to hit me up in PM.
Good luck!

I don't think it's too much of a problem about the punctuation; as poets we get a little creative license with that. (Although to go without any capitalization or punctuation is best left to e.e. cummings, at least until we become just as famous as he is.) And besides, you really have all the punctuation you need - some people mistakenly put a comma after every single line. However, this poem is bland. It has no imagery, no figurative language, nothing at all that makes a poem. Just breaking something into separate lines does not make it a poem. So what you need to do is go back and rewrite this with more descriptive language.

However, I would like to say that I like the last lines: "but time decreed/that you never began." That, I think, shows the time paradox. (Which let's not talk about, because time paradoxes get me thinking in circles and I can never decide about them. It's all to confusing.)

So give this a rewrite and let me know when you're done so I can see it!

~Blue

Okay, me being a personal fan of this subject, I did like this poem, but I'll admit I expected something a little longer. As I believe one comment already stated, you have the "bare bones" here with this, but if you expanded on it, gave it a little more "meat" it could become even better. As for the punctuation, I don't think it was needed personally. Some poems do fine without having punctuation. This is one of them. I noticed you missed a spot or two where a comma was needed, so either punctuate it fully or just leave it out. Anyways, I like what you've started here, so you should really consider coming back to this and expanding, because you've got a good start! Keep writing!!