Pearls
I like to think that you planned that evening in perfect
precision, like the wide stretch of pink over
teeth, pearls rounded to sweetness
by the caustic tightness of salt.
How the placement of your smile
rising and falling in my chest like ocean
waves, not dying, but – I think, rising,
makes a sudden click, as that of a door shutting.
maybe forever,
on the faint dusty stillness of that room,
where you took my hand and led
me to a world of feathers and leftover
sleep, squeezing its way into the crinkled
corners of my eyes, remnants akin
to the evidence of love on the inside
of your thigh. I like how we composed,
pressing and directing and cresting,
one night into an ageless sphere, so
precious it would last eternity
and one day
just to prove we created something wonderful.
I like to think you were humble,
and that’s what carried you away from my salty tides
rising like heavy breaths of new life,
and smashing to the fragments of glass like
a pearl falling from perfect precision and endless collision
to the shores of this crushing reality. Don’t
look, don’t fall
over that threshold never and always closing,
perfection in the making, as beneath
our sighs lies the quiet insistence of the ocean -
it will never last.
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140,859 Literary Works • 673,694 Reviews
Thanks so much for your review! I appreciate the advice, and will definitely take it into account when I go into another round of editing. I'm glad you enjoyed my imagery and tone!
Thanks again,
~Glim
I found the Lack of punctuation a bit distracting as the piece isn't about the scarce emotion or voice but rather the overall beauty of the imagery you paint. I think a Normal structure would make it stronger. That said I really can't find much aside an emphasis that you be sure to read your work aloud in editing as there are a few points where the flow stuttered for me.
That said this is an excellent piece. Truly beautiful imagery mixes with strong voice in a professionalism almost absent on other pieces I've seen on this site. The style, length, detail flow together so well that I offer my respect.
Well done!
Edited! (somewhat...)
Yes, I agree about the capitals - MS Word did it automatically, so I have to go back on here and fix it - and also about the brackets. Thanks for your review!
~Glim
Overall, I think this was a very beautiful poem - it had a charming lyrical touch to it and you made it quite fantastical, which I enjoyed.
Some lines I think were a little misplaced; also, when you used the brackets towards the end, you kept using capitals at the start of sentences, which threw me off balance and disrupted the flow a little I think. If you're going to use enjambment so much, I think you should make it feel like a continuous sentence, instead of breaking it up and then using capitals at the start of the next line - it kind of distracts the reader and becomes a bit of a nuisance.
Looking past my fastidious nature, it was a very attractive poem and you did a nice job working on it.
Thanks for both of your reviews! I take all advice to heart.
Appreciate your time,
~Glim
Hey.
Oh, what a beautiful poem. The style reminds me of Cummings (one of my favorite poets), the way your words are combinations of unexpected words. This whole poem was like a string of pearls, one beautiful sentence after another, not colliding unharmoniously but fitting together despite their patchwork-ness. Gah, I don't know what to say but I had to reply after reading that.
Hmm, something helpful, maybe? If you're like me you hate when nothing said is helpful, so I'll just do a little tiny, insignificant one:
That's the only line that I didn't care for, probably because a) it's short and b) it's not quite in the same ballpark as far as voice goes; the rest of the poem had a kind of old-fashioned formality that doesn't weigh it down but gives it a lyrical quality. Needless to say, "Look, don't stop" really doesn't fit, but perhaps you meant to do that.
Anyway, it's a lovely poem and I'm surprised you haven't gotten more reviews (maybe they all looked at it and said, "What's there to review? It's perfect"
Ciao
~Sleepthief
Hey,
I love this--beautiful!! I love the extended metaphor, and your writing style is really beautiful! The one thing that I was somewhat confused about was the way that you chose to space the poem. In general it reads almost like a very abstract short story, but I found it difficult to read when I had to skip to each line. I think this is because your lines are pretty long and the text looks very tight on the page. This might be fixable with a different font/spacing though. One other thing you might do is not to capitalize each line unless the previous line ended with a period.
In terms of the actual poem, I didn't have a whole lot to say because I think you've already got it right. The only stanza I felt was weaker than the others was your final stanza. The parentheses didn't really add to the poem, only made it slightly more confusing, and your final line wasn't as satisfying as the rest of the poem. The rest of it held me entranced, but I found the way you closed it to be a bit of a let-down. Could you come up with a different ending? Also, the second-to-last line doesn't read well, you may want to look over it.
Overall, you did a really nice job on this!
Sare