Dry your eyes

To every onslaught of emotion,
colder and harder the light in the eyes
becomes--or appears.
As indefinable, as impervious to
understanding as nostalgia
but never looking behind them.
Their crocodile tears were once silver, but
they've become lead, and finally they crackle and
fade, as dead as a contradiction.
Poisoned by pity, compassion, guilt, love,
the wells dry away,
the poinsettia blood wells through their mind,
a single tongue of flame slowly, painfully
cauterizes the wound
while one cognizant, vapid decision doggedly
clings to its bereaved existence, after the dying flesh
has been cut off and burned.

Hi there, Vanda. I'm MID and I'll be reviewing your poem for the morning.

I'm going to start off by saying, I don't know much about poetry. I'm not going to lie about knowing a lot, but I do enjoy it, so I figured why not give reviewing it a shot?

Wow, I really like it. It has an eerie, dark quality to it that I don't see much of. I love how you described things.

Their crocodile tears were once silver

the poinsettia blood wells through their mind

I really, do enjoy how you described tears and how thoughts can invade and well. The only thing I didn't like was the use of "wells" twice in this section:

the wells dry away,
the poinsettia blood wells through their mind,

Maybe it's just me, but I found it disrupts the flow just slightly.

Overall, it's a really good poem and I loved it.

Poisoned by pity, compassion, guilt, love,

I would say: ... compassion, guilt, and love."
It just seems to flow better.

I don't really get why you call them crocodile tears. Can you explain that? In the poem or PM me. Maybe it's some saying I've never heard of.

In this poem, you start off so strong, and then your meaning seems to fade. I was so moved by

As indefinable, as impervious to

this line. I found it beautiful, and then you moved on to lines like

Poisoned by pity, compassion, guilt, love,
the wells dry away,

I mean, this is a little cliche. All these things can be categorized by love, and all of them have been mentioned and claimed before.

Show me something new in your poem that expresses you.

Classy

Wow, this was quite gripping in terms of the mystery and dark feel of it. I don't usually take to this type of poetry but I really enjoyed yours and I think your well-structured layout delivered a good reading rhythm and conveyed some very vivid imagery. One thing I would suggest though, would be to revise this bit:

the poinsettia blood wells through their mind,
a single tongue of flame slowly,
painfully cauterizes the woundwhile one cognizant,
vapid decision doggedlyclings to its bereaved existence,
after the dying fleshhas been cut off and burned.

I think you've got a bit carried away with originality of vocabulary and the gore-emo kind of theme to the poem here. I lose my captivation at this point...

Otherwise, well written and keep it up.
Ben.

Hullo, Vanda,

Nice work here. I think you have a steady concept to work with, and I do like your wording style. I have a few nitpicks, though!

Vanda wrote:To every onslaught of emotion,
colder and harder the light in the eyes
becomes--or appears.

I like this part, but colder and harder are kind of in the same family when it pertains to emotion. The both are kind of "flat" words, and I think that this would be invariably more appealing if you used a "prettier" word that draws a picture, even if it be something like lifeless -- though I don't recommend using that particular word because it's kind of overused.

Anywaaaaay! The part after the dash seems readily tacked on, and it doesn't fit, dear! I'd eliminate it, because it's prettier without.

As indefinable, as impervious to

I'd remove the first "As" here.

while one cognizant, vapid decision doggedly
clings to its bereaved existence, after the dying flesh
has been cut off and burned.

This closing made me smile. At first, I wasn't sure how this poem would end, but you ended it marvelously, and I have to say well done. Some of your language could be improved by using synonyms throughout the poem, but I like this final one just as it is.

Needless to say, I'd love to see what else you can write! Keep posting!

June