Fire and Ice

Hey State!

This is a very interesting poem. Right off the bat, the first thing I noticed was that at times the punctuation was split up from the actual sentence.

the sand put the sea water under debris .

Be sure you put the punctuation right next to the last word of the sentence, without a space.

I think you should try to use some juxtaposition between the ideas of fire and ice. These two concepts are a tad bit over used, especially in poetry, but with some work you can make it your own. This poem is very open ended. What has the narrator lost?

If you left it so open to interpretation on purpose, no problem. A lot of writers will do that so that the reader can emphasize with the poem better. Be careful though, sometimes this is a cheap trick inexperienced poets like myself use.

The last two lines feel kind of schizophrenic. The poem could end two lines before that, and the last two really threw me off. Try to make their relation to the poem a bit more clear.

Well State, you have a lot going on with this poem. There's plenty to work with. Keep up at it, and it'll turn out great! Good luck, and keep writing!

Hi StateofGrace, welcome to YWS. Here are a few of my thoughts on your poem:

The fire engulfed the icy mountains,
the sand put the sea water under debris .

You have some imagery here, but I am left to wonder what exactly you are trying to accomplish with it. Fire and ice are very common ideas to work with in poetry, so when you attempt to do the same, you must be careful to be very original or your poem will just seem like another knock-off version that you might find in a cheap shopping mall. I don't necessarily think that is what we have here, but I do think you could come up with some more original ideas than fire and icy mountains. I like the second line here, it is intriguing. Probably the best line of the whole poem. It's different and makes my mind search for the image.

I knew it was all my fault , I've lost it all
and there you were watching what we built fall.

Oh goodness we have such vague words here. What is the narrator's fault? What was lost? What was it exactly that they built that allowed them to watch it fall? You don't do a good job answering those questions later in your poem either. And that is truly necessary for us to understand what you are saying here. We get the image of debris, but debris of what? The icy mountains? It's an image that's just not translating and you are losing the reader in a fog of unnecessary ambiguity.

Your hate controlled me ,just like the fire ..
and you melted away ..

Love and hate

When we encounter these words in our poetry they should be powerful. They should make us think of life in a different way. Mostly, they just don't belong in our poetry. But life has love and hate and sometimes those words are the best ones that can be used. In this instance you use it in that way that it shouldn't be. It's not powerful; it's not an image really. It's this abstract black cloud of who-knows-what. What does it mean if one is controlled by hate?

The melting image is also a bit weak. If you strengthen it up some more, it might be all the more powerful. But that requires cutting the abstract and reinforcing the imagery in your poem. Make us see the hatred!

I was left here counting the sand , praying that somewhere in the depth of the sea .. you're still alive

I'm a bit confused by the formatting here, but the lines are nice. Counting the sand is a good image, but I am left to wonder how we got here. Is she counting sand from a love who has melted? Was the love ice when they were in the ocean? Confusing. You need something more clear. The love was melted, so now the other lover is left in the sea. Make us understand that if those are your intentions in the poem.

I felt your heartbeat and I was happy , I lost control ..
So the fire engulfed the icy mounatins ..and you were gone .

It's lovely and all that the narrator was happy, but wasn't there just talk of hate before? Love and hate and hate and love, and what reasons are we given for it at all? It's so unexplained that the narrator feels like a schizophrenic who doesn't know what is up and what is down. That could be a good theme, but we are not shown that anywhere else in the poem.

Again, the fire and icy mountains is weak. And the end here is a bit disappointing. It feels like it's trying to do too much, but you haven't built the foundation for us to care enough about that lover being gone. The loss doesn't feel sad enough for me to care. If only we knew a little more about the circumstances of the lovers, we could empathize enough to be saddened by the loss.