Living in a Storm

by Flower~Child

Published December 6, 2011

In Poetry

As I watch you drown in another drink
I stop to bottle and collect my tears,
You solemnly watch, but you never think
About how each day you fulfill my fears.
Intoxication brings a father's wrath
A shovel connects, breaking the dispute,
An attempt to escape leaves a worn path,
And a math problem that he can't compute.
A car crunches almost taking your life.
So again I put away my black veil,
Your stupidity causes me great strife,
The idea of life is becoming stale.
I love you, but the words will never form,
Loving you is like living in a storm.

Comments & reviews · 5
User avatar
PenguinAttack
Review
PenguinAttack wrote a review Review · Dec 6, 2011

Hey there, Flower!

This is a really sweet sonnet and I'm wondering if you've used iambic pentameter with this or not. This being a question because you can't really alter your lines effectively if you have. (I'd try and work out for myself if you have, but iambic has confused me since I was born). That said, I think you do need to work on your language in this piece. You start off incredibly well, with strong lines and fairly good rhyming which doesn't get in the way, but you lose that strength surprisingly quickly and your piece begins to ramble. A lot of this has to do with the narrative, at the moment your couplet is the weakest of your lines because they feel like empty concepts. They've been said before and I feel like you can do better than a weak "storm" image. I'd like more guts in this. If you're running from a Shakespearean belt, you know he has all kinds of thick innuendo and suggestion. He's frank but with such charm that you don't care he's being too forward.

In the end I think you should look at loosening your language just a little - we're writing sonnets, but they're modern ones! Have fun within the form and write toward expressing. You have expression here but it's dampened because (I feel) you think you have to be serious in the sonnet. Don't be, casual it up a bit and feel the writing explode with awesome.

If you have any questions, hit me up.
- Penguin.

User avatar
ongoeslife
Review
ongoeslife wrote a review Review · Dec 6, 2011

Wow. Deep, man. deep. I noticed a few spelling errors here and there; inkwell stole them, though D= I would suggest putting a comma here:

A car crunches, almost taking your life


I have to say, though, that I really liked it. I'm stuck on one thing, though- this one line:
So again I put away my black veil.
Care to explain that? (Not necessarily in the poem; I'm still a stupid little 14 year old and just don't get it :P) It sounds to me that the speaker was prepared to accept the fact that the other person's life had come to an end, but like the time before, death escaped him? :?

Anyways, I really liked reading your poem. I often feel that way, too. Just gotta press through until we reach them, eh?

~The Scratt

User avatar
inkwell
Review
inkwell wrote a review Review · Dec 6, 2011

Flower~Child wrote:As I watch you drown in another drink
I stop to bottle and collect my tears, (could be either bottle or collect, both is a bit much)
You solemnly watch, but you never think
About how each day you fulfill my fears.
Intoxication brings a father's wrath
A shovel connects, breaking the dispute,
An attempt to escape leaves a worn path,
And a math problem that he can't compute.
A car crunches almost talking your life.
So again I put away my black veil,
Your stupidity causes me great strife,
The idea of life is becoming stale.
I love you, but the words will never form,
Loving you is like living in a storm.


Some corrections and suggested pauses. End rhymes are correct to sonnet form.

A shovel connects breaking the dispute,
An attempt to escape leaves a worn path,


This is the most problematic part for me. I've already suggested a comma to pace things out for the reader. The issue for me though is "worn path." The imagery here is just awkward. Then you transition to the following line rather oddly. Overall you give us autobigraphical insights that are interesting and genuine but hard to follow, or incohesive.

These are my favoirte lines:

I love you, but the words will never form,
Loving you is like living in a storm.


You may be more effective revising it to: "Loving you is like loving a storm."

Needless to say these two lines were nice. :)

User avatar
demib
Comment
demib commented Comment · Dec 6, 2011

that was actaully a pretty painful poem. but it was painful in a good way. there are lots of people like that living in a storm because they love someone. taht is good but its kinda painful to read. keep writin!



HONK
— The Golden Goose