Grace through Pain
The burning sting, the aching throb,
That defines the word, ‘pain’
The pain that we seek desperately to escape
Shapes us, reveals what we truly are.
Like the grinding blast of the sea on rocks,
Life shapes us with its sometimes brutal blows.
In a book I once read, a man stated:
“hardship is good for the soul.”
While bearing the tortures of my own body,
I reflected that this is true,
If only one can weather the agony without turning hard inside.
For ages, man has sought to find meaning behind suffering.
To transform the agony into something more,
Whether considered to be the wrath of the almighty,
Or seen as a random act of nature,
Pain, by sheer merit of its intensity,
Establishes its own significance.
With its brutal propensity to consume,
It leaves in its wake a gentle emptiness
And a resurrected appreciation of what
Calm and pleasant truly is.
In this window of gentleness, a fragile notion is formed;
Be happy with what you have, or be humbled by its wrath.
This fragile notion, of the balance between the painful,
The pleasant, establishes the fleeting appreciation
And understanding,
Something called grace.
....
Reviews are welcomed!
~Voxina
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
140,771 Literary Works • 673,688 Reviews
Hey there! Review time.
I was a bit turned off by the way your poem turned into a soap box in the end so you likely may want to reconsider how you present your message. Don't tell us your theme - show it to us.
I also think you should show the whole poem. As it is you're just telling us about emotions and situations all with a lot of vague nouns. Pain, sorrow, agony, calm, brutal, gentle. But these words are abstract; they are meaningless without the situations that create them. So what are the situations, the actions, the events? Right now you have a draft which represents your theme well but I think you should move away from this. Try to write something that shows more, with people and actions, what you're trying to write about. What is causing all this pain? Is the subject of the poem young or old? How do they, personally, feel about what that man said?
Focus your efforts into something that isn't so abstract and step away from the soap box. It'll do you well in the end. I hope this review helped. Shoot me a PM if you have questions.
Hi vox,
This is a decent attempt at a deep poem that never really pierces the surface. Its opening stanza pretty much covers everything the others one have to say, they just add to it with unneccesary statements. There's too much telling for my liking, and not enough showing. You've not really shown us how life does this with images, or a narrator, or any characters, and so it comes across a little cold. I think you could really make this hit home if you lose the telling and try some showing.
I did like some of the sounds you created in this poem, though. You seem to have an eye for what sounds good together, which is a valuable skill. Utilise it to make this something worth saving.
Hello there
This is a moving poem. I loved the flow, it's intensity, truth, emotion, imagery and the message. It is definitely well written and I loved every minute of it. The title is also great. There is really no negative comment I have to say about it.
Good job