You were strong through the years,
Teaching me proper manners,
And at people’s birthdays,
You’d be the first to help hang the banners.
There was not a heart in this world
Where your love could not be found,
And your voice held so much kindness
That hate hid at the very sound.
And then the cancer came,
But still you kept your head high,
And you told me very confidently,
“I’ll be fine, now don’t you go and cry.”
Your words held true for so long,
But even Superman will find his end,
As the angels have only
So much love they can lend.
Who am I? Who are you?
These are the question you now ask,
And getting you to remember anything
Is an impossible task.
Your voice is gone,
Never to be heard another time,
You sit there quietly,
Silent as a mime.
The food stopped going down,
Not even by tube can you be fed,
And even though everyone knows what is coming,
It is left unsaid.
But still you hold on,
You still have something to live for,
Every day you keep fighting,
And it is your bravery that I adore.
Dear Great Grandma,
You will be terribly missed,
And not even you can deny the truth anymore,
That you are next on Death’s list.
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Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hello,
It was a very sweet poem but at the same time, obviously very sad. I like how you mention 'death.' Often people avoid saying that sort of stuff and so it became very powerful when you said it (especially since it was on the last line). I don't really have much to say as the previous reviews have covered the advice I was going to pass on. Well done on the poem, it was a really good read.
-Blossom
Okay, I understand the formatting of your poem. I would have to agree with Abigail about the "forced rhyming". There are places you should insert words as well as places words should be removed. Read your poem out loud and consider the "drops" of the rhymes, or the syllables in words. Do not force rhymes. Tell a story if you must without the rhymes. Do not cut words out of sentences to fit in the rhyme. Otherwise, the poem was very touching. I like that you mention death. Death seems more like an entity in your poem than a state in which "one" fails to exist.
Aww, this is so said! I hope it isn't true!
Okay, now, on to the review!
The first thing I notice here is the forced rhyming. Okay, your great grandma taught you proper manners. What does that have to do with hanging banners at people's birthday parties? I can just see you writing that second line and then brainstorming all the words that could possibly rhyme with it. Scanners? Doesn't fit. Canners? Um, no? See, this is what rhyme does to us! This may sound a bit ironic, but only the most experienced poets can use rhyme. You see, first, you must master meter. It would be so much easier for you to drop the rhymes and just use a proper meter! Something like 5-7-5-7 would do. Really, anything works.
What did hate hide at the very sound of? I can see where you're going, but it doesn't necessarily make sense to everyone.
I put the word "held" in there because it improves the flow of the stanza, and that's usually how the expression goes. Also, the reader might like to know, just for the sake of curiosity, what type of cancer it was.
Whoa, we just totally switched tenses. We went from the past tense in the first line of the first stanza I quoted here to the present tense in the second line in the second stanza. ^^ You might consider switching it to,
I hope that made even the slightest shred of sense. o_O
I found this stanza to be a bit redundant. I mean, if she was silent as a mime, then, yeah, she was obviously sitting quietly.
I struck out the second "still" because it was getting quite a bit repetitious.
Aww, I love this last stanza! It's so terribly bittersweet. Is that an oxymoron? Hmm, I'm not sure. But anyway! I like how you capitalized "Death;" that makes it all the more lifelike and daunting. I am full of oxymorons today! Lifelike death?
Anyway, this was really a fantastic poem, and with a bit of editing, it can be ... even more fantastic!
- Abigail