Oooh, I appear to be the first reviewer! *claps* Hi, I'm Mnesomeye - nice to meet you. ^_^
Anyway. *rolls up sleeves* Let's do this.
An empty bottle, an empty sea,
a whithering flower;
a white page memory,
This start's perfect. It's done in so few words, but the imagery is delightful and I like the fact that there is a subtle rhyme thrown in.
Deja vu - i feel.
Gorgeous; it makes us wonder what you mean, why you've used 'deja vu'. Sets us up for something spectacular. But then...
Maybe like a 32 mm reel,
spinning like a wheel.
...you begin rhyming again. And it sounds very, very forced; especially because you've used numbers rather than words. This ruins the wonderful beginning for me - and the rest of the poem for that matter. All I was looking out for after this was whether there were any more rhymes as forced as this one.
Which, unfortunately, there are a lot of.
Marble floor and four walls.
A broken roof;
This is nice...
the empty space echoes calls.
Noises in a vacuum stall.
...and then another rhyme. This is particularly jarring - you've used 'call' straight after 'echo' - so unless you put a comma in between those two words, it makes no sense and all we're once again drawn to the rhyme scheme.
I won't go through the rest of the rhymes because I've made my point, but something that I heard said that I think everyone should hear is this - unless you are writing a poem in a specific, fixed style (a sonnet, a cinquain, etc), don't touch rhymes with a barge pole unless you KNOW you can nail it. Otherwise, it draws all the attention from the rest of the poem.... which, actually, is rather beautiful in your case.
Smoke induced lullabies.
Confusion to one who dies.
I'm not all bad news - both these lines, separately, are really well written and quite original. But... who died? What happened?! Was this person asphyxiated, poisioned with his cigarettes... was there a murder whilst the celebrations were going on?
Try to elaborate this, because I felt like it was leading onto something big like a murder or a suicide, but then we go straight into dandelions. Try dedicating another stanza to it - I wanna know what happens! *pouts*
Robins fly with glee,
unlike the toil of a bee.
Don't mean to sound rude here, but this particular line doesn't fit in with the rest of this poem at all. Something tells me you were trying to match 'glee'. In my opinion, scrap these two and find another couplet if you want to stick with your A-B-A-A rhyme scheme.
Many a cotton pod floats,
in an ecstatic air.
This is quite interesting - I like it, even though I don't know what a cotton pod is. *laughs* However, try removing the comma and seeing if that would make a difference. In my head, that's how this sentence would read, but you're the poet and you know what effect you were trying to get here.
Every breath erodes,
the air;
Ditto last point, but now I'm telling you rather than suggesting
- without the comma this line would work as you wanted it to.as fires explode
in the city beneath.
*squeals* I love this line! *claps* It's a great way to end a poem, especially if it's (at least, I think it is) a murder you're talking about. It puts emphasis on the point that the celebrations are continuing, blissfully unaware of what's going on in this 'room with four walls'.
However - please seriously think about that rhyme scheme and whether there is any chance of you removing it. I have a feeling the poem will be drastically improved if you did
I'm certainly interested to see just HOW much more you improve it, though! ^_^
I'm off. And don't be offended - I only tear apart poems that are either brilliant or have serious potential. 'Kay? ^_^ Ja~!
Points: 890
Reviews: 45
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