After Midnight

Sitting in this flourescent light of this dark and empty living room.

Beauty; the acoustics flowing through the speakers.

Plastic; the feel of the keyboard underneath my pale finger tips.

Seeing; a white screen and my own words staring back at me on the almost-empty page.

Thinking; you'll never leave my mind.

After midnight, but no waves of sleep wash over me.

Love; the feeling that is questioning my heart.

Reality; what I have to remember to keep myself centered.

Doubt; we'll prove to the ones that thought we would never make it.

Peace; existing in my tranquil world of black and white.

I've been listening to the same beautiful song ever since this started.

I; someone that I haven't even figured out yet.

You; the only person I've wrote about.

Us; the only thing I've ever believed in.

Tears; that I cried when I finally realized what love can be.

I wrote this last year and fixed a very small bit of it. It was written after midnight one night at a friend's house out-of-the-blue. It is from one of my FictionPress acounts called situationist requiem.

Comments & reviews · 6
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This was really good, but I would leave the explanation out at the end. By the time I reread it, I had already understood what you were writing about. I thought the fact that you were writing about writing about whomever it is this poem is...about...very intriguing and unique.

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Cade
Review
Cade wrote a review · Sun May 18, 2008 8:21 pm

Lyrical Anatomy--I notice you only have one review under your belt, and YWS likes for its members to do at least two before posting a new work. So get cracking, and welcome to YWS!

As for the poem:

I don't feel this is really going anywhere. You dwell on description and abstract feelings. Why should we, the readers, care? Why are we here? Why should we leave this poem feeling any different?

Example:

Doubt; we'll prove to the ones that thought we would never make it.
The sentence is both uninteresting and grammatically incorrect. Grammar is a matter for you to correct, but let's take a look at why it's uninteresting. Your readers don't have any stake in this journey that the speaker and subject have undertaken--and so far the reader hasn't given us much insight into who "you" is and why this person is important, only that he/she is important. You don't have to give the reader all of the information--that's just as boring as giving him none--but there should be something there that should make the reader say, "Well this is interesting. I want to know more. I want to read this poem because it makes me think, because it shows me a different perspective on something."

Also: the images are cliche, and this doesn't provide much for the reader. I congratulate you on anchoring the poem by providing some concrete images, like the white screen, rather than rambling on and on about emotional blah, so that is good, but the images themselves need work.

Example:
Seeing; a white screen and my own words staring back at me on the almost-empty page.
This is a situation familiar to so many writers, teenagers, and students that it's no longer meaningful. Things that are new are the most interesting, so you ought to give us something new or present something old in a new way.

Colleen

User avatar
Mad
Review
Mad wrote a review · Sun May 18, 2008 7:58 pm

It's an interesting style and I like it.

However, it comes across somewhat like an acrostic. A is for ... B is for ...

Maybe mix it up a bit and have that structure (it's what I like) but also have some of it in stanza form. It's also somewhat disconnected - The ideas don't seem to be progressing and you jump from one place to another.

Consider writing in a similar style but closely following one idea and not many different ones.

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Eimear
Review
Eimear wrote a review · Sun May 18, 2008 6:49 pm

It's definately different. I've never quite read anything like it...and you set the scene well in italics. I don't really want to rip it to shreds saying that it's not a proper 'poem' because, what really is a proper poem?

You've got some great concepts here:

Sitting in this flourescent light of this dark and empty living room


But it's slightly too much telling for me. You need to show more. I can understand that it's about love- love in our day, but I need a bit more. It was lacking a backbone.

Hope and Best wishes,

Eimear xx

Random avatar
El-lyncho
Review

I like the consistency of the order of each line, it gives this slightly broken up poem a feel to it.
However, it seemed to be the main thing that was consistent.. Good use of imagery, but it doesn't all seem to fit together - except towards the end.
Altogether a good poem, maybe link the lines together to make it flow more?
Keep it up!



Every time I’ve gotten feedback that was hard to take it was usually hard to take because there was truth in it and I didn’t like that (or didn’t want to receive it). That’s not to say all harsh feedback is good or that we should be harsh for harshness’ sake, but learning to absorb truth without letting it break your inner core/break you is a lifelong skill that keeps your mind elastic and open to learning.
— soundofmind