Reaction to Your Silent Reveal

[lickyllama]

Dismayed, horrified
and at a total loss for words.

My world is merely a mirror,
reflecting my tear burdened face.
Three seconds was all it took
for the mirror to shatter.

The glass shards pierced me
where my heart was
supposed to be

I bled ice water,
for nothing humane
remained inside me.

Solidify me in the
depths of the ocean
where you are surreal and
I both float and sink
in the dark:
where you kept me.

The pulse halting pain
was all in my head.
For at that moment,
I was shaken off my
grand pedistal
by the cruel hands of reality.

I was so deliciously insane
to give you red roses.

[LeoVictorBriones (poetremains)]

I like the basic premise of this poem. It is intense and interesting. I think though that it suffers from too many abstractions and clichéd images. By simply replacing the abstractions with more specific images and removing unnecessary stanzas you can easily remedy those issues. Here is how I would re-write the poem.

I also went through the poem and modified words to be more accurate for instance I replaced stabbed with pierced as sharps don’t really stab, a knife stabs, sharp rather pierce or puncture.

As you can see, I readjusted your stanzas. I think this is a good drill to go through for new poets as it forces you to maximize the surprising lines of the poems and see your poem through a different prism. I hope this analysis is helpful.

I bled ice water,
nothing like blood
remained inside me.

The glass shards pierced
where my heart was
supposed to be.

In the
deep of the ocean
where you are surreal,
I float and sink in the dark,
where you kept me.

Then,
I fell off my pedestal
where I was so delicately
balanced.

I was so deliciously insane
to give you red roses.

BTW, I love the title. This poem has a Nerudaesque feel to it.

Leo

[mfwilkie]

Not a bad draft for someone your age, ll.

Pretty deep, infact.

I agree with Leo's point that it suffers from abstractions and clichés.

Great title and some terrific word-combinations:

pulse-halting pain

deliciously insane

Then entire last line is a keeper.

But nowhere in the poem does it come back to the silence
mentioned in the title. It should somewhere in the poem.

I'm going to do what Leo did, restructure your draft from what I'm hearing the poem tell me.

Neither Leo or I expect you to use what we've written.

What we are doing is giving your muse something to listen to
for the future.

FYI: If you're serious about being a poet, here are two good sites where you can read and read and read to educate yourself in the craft for free. Reading poetry is important. At your age, you don't necessarily need to understand every poem you read, but the more you read, the better you'll understand the use of language
in conveying imagery and ideas.

www.poetryfoundation.org/foundation/about.html

www.poets.org/

Here's my take:

Reaction to Your Silent Reveal

Dismayed...horrified,
at a total loss for words.

And I did it to myself
thinking your silence
was speaking to me.

Nothing humane remains
circulating through my body
but the pulse-halting pain
of a self-imposed romance.

Having fallen off the pedestal
where I put myself, my imagination
is a bruised as my ego.

I was so deliciously insane
to give you red roses.

Try and keep your thoughts flowing in an orderly fashion the way they teach you write an essay or theme in school.

And remember the last line/idea in a poem has to support the whole poem.

Maggie

[determinedtofail]

Reading your poem, I gather shattered, halting, slow, and pulse verbs are the core emotional elements of the poem. I could be way off, but I would concentrate more on the images to make them as strong as your verbs in supporting this poem.

Anyways here is an example of what images I would change, given what you already have, to convey the notion of being stuck in this particular moment to the reader.

Three seconds was all it took
for the glass to shatter.

Three seconds to behold my face
in the fragements

The glass shards pierce my heart
as lost words do,
and I bleed ice
for nothing human reamins.

Let the ocean carry me
like an iceburge
Sureal, floating and sinking.
In the dark

In the dark where you kept me.
All in my head,
where pain is
a slow moment with a pulse.

For at that moment,
I fell off my grand pedestal
where I was so delicately
balanced on.

I was so deliciously insane
to give you red roses.

[Marion Poirier]

Hi Lama,
First of all welcome to the site.
You have three excellent versions of the poem
and here is mine. I don't like melodrama,
prefer simplicity and depth so I will revise
accordingly. Also, my MO is less is more;
I use adjectives sparingly prefering to show
rather than tell. I hope you find the different
perspectives interesting. My best, Marion


I am at a loss of words,
my world a mirror
reflecting tears -
the glass shattered.

Shards stabbed my heart.
I bled ice water;
nothing humane
remained inside me.

I both float and sink
in the ocean -
in the dark
where you kept me.

The pulse halting pain
in my head stopped,
rendering me

so deliciously insane
I gave you red roses