Apocalyptic Smile

This translucent smile
Claims nothing, but ignorance.
Your eyes interlaced.
Seeing through an eternity.

Emotions are so much as air.
Inhaled without notice.
Pouring acid smoke into your lungs.
Slowly rotting away your insides.

Buried feelings arise from the grave.
Seeking vengeance on the Judas
Interiorized in the soul.

The meaningful expressions
Deluded by every pellucid feeling in that one smile.

The apocalyptic emotion
That drowns more than just the body.

The deceitful ways of our inhuman kind.

That translucent smile
That claims nothing.
Your eyes interlaced.
Seeing through an eternity.

I like this very much. It's very powerful, and the simplicity of your words only adds to the effect. I especially liked the first and last stanzas-- very strong, gets the point across well.
Fantastic job on this. It made me want to cry.

Truthfully, I have nothing remotely critical to say. Terribly sorry.

I look forward to checking out your other poem.

Peace, love, chocolate.

Muffin

Hello;

Nice poem

I read it through gathering the little thougths and then re-read it gleaning some of the deeper meaning.

Hope you success in your future writing


~ayman~

Hm. Well. You have some decent imagery. Unfortunately, most of it is far too overblown, and drowned with description. Yes, that's right--imagery does not necessarily require oodles and oodles of descriptive phrases. Especially in poetry--depending on the style you're trying to emulate--it's far too easy to indulge in too much of a good thing.

Think of poetry as making a sundae. A sundae's not a sundae without hot fudge (or caramel, strawberry sauce, whichever you prefer), but put too much and it just drowns in the sweetness! And, if you choose an ice cream that's already got all the flavor made right into it, you don't need any toppings at all. That's the goal--but a little fudge isn't bad. Here, though? Everything is so carefully laid out, so perfectly worded--and it leaves you with a lovely veneer, but almost nothing underneath. What's the substance of the poem? I had to read this a few times to come up with some sort of meaning, and even then it was an unsatisfactorily cheap and shallow one.

Yes--you seem to have a good way with words, even if you are a bit period-happy. But what are you trying to say? What do you want the reader to come away with? And, most importantly--is it something the reader's going to want to come away with?

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch. =)

lol...i was very period-happy in that i must admit! about the other stuff...i dont like telling people what my writing means, but what im trying to say is:

I was talking about just putting on that fake smile so it seems like your happy, when deep down inside your hurting like no one else can even begin to comprehend. (3rd Stanza) When I put that I meant that hiding your feeling like that's basically going to backfire on you. You can't hold it all in forever. You're being a traitor to your feelings by pretending to be alright...As for the beginning and ending stanzas it's talking about if you hide your feelings nobody is going to understand how you feel and they'll always look at you as just another happy-go-lucky person. Unless you tell them or show them how you truly feel....hope that kinda puts some clarity on the situation, im bad w/ explaining things

I really enjoyed this.Your imagery was good, and you expressed yourself very well.I'd get rid of the comma after "nothing", and change "so" to "as".I'd get rid of the fullstop after "air". Now that I think about it, I'd change some of your fullstops to commas as it would help with the flow.
I loved the third stanza. It was really fresh and powerful.

Those were rhetorical questions, dear. ^~ They're things to think about while writing poetry. And a general rule of thumb is that if the message of the poem, or what you want the reader to come away with, includes the words "I," "me," or "my" more than once... you should probably rethink it. Or simply recast it as something more universal. Human beings are self-centric by nature; we're more inclined to like something that includes us than something that excludes us. Poetry isn't just about the poet; you have to consider the reader to, and you don't seem to have done so at all here.

Wow. I feel dumb...Um...I knew that was rhetoric...I swear I did.....LoL thanks for the advice

The library computer says I only have ten...no, nine minutes left on the internet, so I have to make this short.

1. This is awfully wordy. I'm drowning in it. Drowning. While it's a good idea to have original phrases and vivid imagery, you've sort of overindulged, as Fand pointed out.

2. If you have to explain your poetry, that might be a sign that you're making it too hard to understand. Obviously you shouldn't blurt out the meaning, because that takes all the fun out of it, but if you make it too cryptic, that's not fun either.

3. Yes, this is very...period-and-fragment-happy. I find it uncomfortable to read. It comes off kind of stilted...it's like your poem disintegrated or something. This makes me sad.

Keep at it!
-Colleen

i dont like blurting out the meaning either, but i don't think i had much choice...*sigh* thanks

I really liked the first stanza (et, ergo, the last one as well) but I feel like in some places your vocabulary was a little much. Words like "pellucid" and "interiorized" just felt a little out of place to me, same with "apocalyptic". The second to last stanza - line? - seems a little alone, too. I think it could use a little more fleshing out... or at least give it a friend.

However, I did like your Judas reference and the idea of a "translucent smile" - something that you could see through, maybe not all the way, and maybe not at first glance, but a smile that lacks substance. Nice.

It's too... one-sided. I mean, when I write a story, I cannot portray any character as totally evil because then the character loses interest. There has to be something good about the character, otherwise it just falls flat.

I realize this is poetry, but I think the same concept can apply here. Right now, you're describing someone who is evil--and there is no redeeming factor. Usually in the poetry I've read, either the poet writes some redeeming factor, or at least something that provides some doubt as to the evilness of the character. So you have to be either a lot more subtle, if you want to describe the evilness of it, or show another side of the character, if you want to portray them as a real person. At the moment, it seems like you're ranting at a cardboard cutout.

For instance, Robert Browning's "Soliiloquy of the Spanish Cloister" where the narrator obviously dislikes the Spanish cloister, but it's written in such a way that it gives the benefit of the doubt and reveals that the narrator is the prejudiced one.

Or you can look at William Butler Yeats's "Leda and the Swan" which villianizes the swan by being subtle. And subtlety is very good. Especially if you're trying to villianize something.

Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" describes a truly horrifying picture of somebody by being ranty about it and, as the poem continues on, she eventually self-destructs and the poem gets crazier. Which makes it even worse because you know how much he has destroyed her. Cool stuff.

Anyway, read poetry and learn to love it.

Snoink wrote:It's too... one-sided. I mean, when I write a story, I cannot portray any character as totally evil because then the character loses interest. There has to be something good about the character, otherwise it just falls flat.

I realize this is poetry, but I think the same concept can apply here. Right now, you're describing someone who is evil--and there is no redeeming factor. Usually in the poetry I've read, either the poet writes some redeeming factor, or at least something that provides some doubt as to the evilness of the character. So you have to be either a lot more subtle, if you want to describe the evilness of it, or show another side of the character, if you want to portray them as a real person. At the moment, it seems like you're ranting at a cardboard cutout.

Agreed! One characteristic of sophisticated poetry is the presence of ambiguity. Ambiguity makes it mean something; otherwise you're just describing somebody.

I think that there was some amazing an intense imagery ("pouring acid smoke into your lungs" in particular), I think that this poem would have been better if you took out some of it. (The buried emotions come to mind; they're just too ... overused? Something.)

This sounded strange because it sounded like someone to describe something they'd never really felt or understood. Try writing things you're really familiar with, or if you are really familiar with the subject, use more familiar imagery to describe it.

Right now, you're describing someone who is evil

No, I'm not...I guess it could come off that way if you read it out of context. If that were the case then we'd all be evil. We've all done as I've described in my poem. I don't think you guys understand it at all....