Published January 4, 2012
Can you hear me?
A whisper in the wind.
Listen carefully,
and you might catch
the sound of my voice
through the rustling tree branches,
softer than swirling snow.
Can you see me?
Invisible as I am.
Look closely,
and you might glimpse
a shadow of me
escaping in the night
beneath the starry sky.
Can you catch me?
Of fading sunset colors.
Seek wisely;
I am not easy to find.
I'm the melody in the air;
insubstantial, spinning, fading,
singing gently in the silence.
I will take all constructive comments on this. Especially with the last stanza.
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139,496 Literary Works • 672,584 Reviews
Hello Mello!
You have the nice base of a poem here, working well with imagery and a good sense of tone. I do think that it needs a bit of improvement. I'm not sure how well the repetition is working for you. This, though, is because I think you'd be able to condense the poem's imagery to make it more powerful, a compact punch as it were, and then use the empty space to expand the metaphor you're running with. The stanza is far too telling, in this way. You give all the fun things away by explaining who your narrator is in a way. I'd really rather see you keep some of the mystery, or if you love the imagery you have (It's a lovely breezy feeling on the whole) I'd suggest weaving this information into the other stanzas of your poem. Kind of giving us a sustained look at the beauty of the thing.
Your line breaks are acceptable, although I think that in places they're doing bad things for the rhythm of the poem. Try reading this out loud and changing the more awkward parts in accordance with how your voice hitches in parts. Having a natural rhythm in your poem is important because when we read we attach a natural cadence (or style of speech) to the poem, and if it's jarring we notice it immediately and stop. This will halt the flow you have going.
In summary: Condense the imagery and then expand the metaphor. It's a sweet poem you have and if you didn't want to do anything to it too much, I'd understand. Consider playing with the last stanza by reducing some of the seriousness in it, it takes away some of the playful tone the rest of your poem has going in the way of a back and forth exchange, a teasing tone. I'd rearrange the last lines by removing the last one entirely."fading" is a nice image to end on.
If you do change this, please tell me! I'd love to know.
-Penguin
Kind of a weird line - what are you trying to say here? You may want to elongate it into two lines to explain a bit.
This was a really beautiful poem. I think it flowed really well and you had great imagery. Other than what I pointed out above I don't see anything wrong except for the last line.
Your last line for this poem doesn't close it very well. It doesn't seem as if it's going to end, only as if it will go into another stanza. Why don't you see if you can think of something else to say here. I'm not saying you need to delete the line that's there now, just find another line to put after it.
If you'd like to brainstorm, you can PM me!
Keep writing,
Justagirl