Poems were meant to be ladders.
I want to climb on word rungs-
up past the darkened canopy.
Poems were not meant to be smooth and hollow.
To guild air makes expensive cotton candy.
It will still rot your teeth
and teeth were meant to be solid.
This isn't my cup of tea and I cannot
drink that because my mouth is already too full of platitudes.
Poems were not meant to be platitudes.
That would make them too flat.
You cannot climb a ladder with no depth and all I want to do
is see the stars.
Poems were meant to lead you to the undertow of truth-
to the rare leaf of light that adorns the belly of the canopy.
Poems were meant to convince you that stars are possible.
This is not easily digestible.
That is because poems were not made to be eaten.
They were meant to be held to the lips
and breathed in.
They were made to clear the soul's lungs.
They were meant to move
through you, infuse you not confuse you but that
doesn't mean they were made to be understood.
After all, it's not really stars we're after.
It's light.
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137,793 Literary Works • 672,067 Reviews
Hey, @tgirly! Not sure if you'll ever see this or not, but here's a review! c:
I really like your use of similes and metaphors that you've used to describe poems by comparing them to ladders and air. It's a neat take that I personally have seen before, so A+ for uniqueness c:
I'm assuming this was a free form poem because there's really no real structure here that I can detect. If you ever revise this, it might be a good idea to add some structure to this c:
"Soiled" is the only grammatical error I could find, so great job!
Have a nice [*insert time of day here*]!!!
Was just thinking of this poem. and you.
alliyah
Woooooooooowwwwwwww. I liked the penning. It's simply nice . And the most touching lines are...
" This is not my cup of tea and I cannot drink that. "
So many things in one sentence.
Great job tgirly . Please keep this aura of writing in you always. hope to see and read many many nicely carved pieces by you. Blessings!
What you are saying is true in different way but first let me tell you of what I think of the poem
I just read.
One of the things is that you have a good way of writing things like when you say something
you add something else to go along with what you had just said.
Also I like the way you write because it is different from other people because you have a
different way of writing these things.
One of the things that I like is that when you said
"Poems were meant to be ladders.
I want to climb on word rungs-
up past the darkened canopy.
Poems were not meant to be smooth and hollow.
To guild air makes expensive cotton candy.
It will still rot your teeth
and teeth were meant to be solid".
what you are saying hear is that poems are needed to be read differently then books or
stories.
And one last thing before I go is that you need to keep on writing because you have a nature
talent for writing,and now that I see that you have 5 stars from writing I must be right.
Also if you keep writing you will be able to write things better then what you are writing now
not saying that your writing is bad it is that if you keep writing you will be able to write
better and better the more you write.
Hi there, how are you?
).I like how the first and third verses said what Poems were meant to be. But what do you mean by the line "poems were meant to convince you that stars are possible". Because that indeed is a very interesting line. I have to keep reading the line over and over again.I like how you put in several symbols.Such as food, teeth, and light.
Okay I'm going to review starting now:
Um just a quick little thing you spelt soiled wrong (That is okay.Jut fix it when you can
Overall I give this a 10/10! When I am older, and if I am an English teacher, and we have a poetry unit, I will definitely show this poem to my students.
Have a good day!
Wow! Brilliant work here tgirly. Your poem displays the framework that you set up perfectly. But I wonder if you truly believe the part about poems not being meant to be digested/stay with you but to "move through you"? Don't some poems give part of their spirit to you rather than merely "cleaning the soul's lungs"? I guess it depends on what you think the purpose of truth is. (Again like your last poem, I would love to see a direct reference to Plato's allegory of the cave!... maybe some day). I'll give you just a bit of critique rather than a full out review. The use of the word "that" and "this" sounds really casual and unsophisticated compared to the rest of the piece; if this is intentional - great; if not - try to find ways to work around those words. Also the third three lines are confusing as far as flow & line breaks (although I can more easily see why this might be intentional based on you saying it may not be meant "to be understood".)
Again beautiful piece!
With Love,
~alliyah
Thanks for the comments. I guess what I meant with the breathing vs. eating wasn't that the poem doesn't stay with you, but more of that poems weren't meant to be I guess taken on face value; like they weren't meant to be swallowed but they were meant to be considered, to be breathed in and the 'oxygen' of the poem- the truth- was meant to be taken and kept and the parts that weren't useful to the reader or that the reader doesn't agree with, those parts were still meant to be taken in and considered, but the whole poem doesn't stay with you, those parts are breathed out. It's like only a few of the lines really stay with you, and it's more of an immediate thing than eating I guess if that makes sense. I might expand that part to make it clearer; I'm not sure yet.
I think you're right about the 'that's in the last stanza; I'll see what I can do about those.
The "move through you" part is what got me freaked out - the breath and being life sustaining is more intriguing.