looking for critique
 

hey guys was just hoping I could get some feedback on something i wrote (i didn't get any last time i posted...)

How brutal were my days without you--
that summer whose heat burnt my soul.
Like a clock I counted seconds, noting
their passage as my own--what vitality
wasted by the lonely soul chained to nostalgia!
I waited like a sentinel for the gentle rapping of
your knuckles on my door--Fruitless the hours I passed
with the company only of my degrading
conscience. Now, in my repose you come to me
for comfort? What little I once could offer has
bled from my bones like marrow. I am a hollow man,
filled only with the vague essence of time we passed
together--a comfort to you indeed! Though bitter my
heart yearns for you, desperate to provide the comfort
you seek. My regret is my inability.
You look cold and the darkness has dug itself
like a dagger beneath your sullen eyes. It is a
pathetic display--you in my doorway. I want to
let you in like so many days before this one
I would have directly. In moments my pain
will return to accompany yours silently as I
watch you turn away from me through the peephole.
But for now all I can offer to abate your loneliness
is some coffee and a pair of sun glasses.

Try this instead, changes made in bold.

If you get caught up again, try saying it in iambs until it makes sense. Meter matters very little, cadence is everything.

i certainly like your changes, especially the use of the word 'forlorn' which eliminates a few syllables and is a closer representation of what i was trying to say. i also considered using the word 'naught' when i was initially writing but decided against it because i'm not so comfortable using archaic language--now that you've made the change though i like the way it looks and reads...maybe i'll use it after all...

truthfully not bad, but a suggestion try to add a line between each verse for others to get a better idea

unfortunately its not the style i usually write, as i more focus on catchy lines that people will repeat in their minds, which I focus more towards song writing.

Not in regards to the style, just regards to choice of words. As awesome as the phrase "hollow man" is, and as meaningful as it is, i hear it alot in this style of writing. I would say when i read that - i thought "Cliche." I will say that is the only point that i really thought that, which is pretty rare. So good job!

As a piece, however, i really actually enjoyed analyzing this. I think there was a very clear picture painted. Again i cant be much of a critic for this style but i can say thanks for sharing and if you post any more hit me up!

His loneliness-no person know!

Hello kimber,

You haven't posted in a while so I don't know if you are coming back, but I thought I'd go ahead and give some feedback on this poem.

Your simile about the person being like a crippled bird is very sweet...especially since I've tried to nurse several young birds back to health in my life. One small question: why would the person in the poem gather the scattered branches? Why wouldn't the person just lift up the warm, little body of the trembling bird and care for it and say to heck with the branches?

The second stanza sounds more melodramatic and cliche to me because the free, flying bird simile is or has been so commonly used in poems and songs.

Several of your poems, I notice, deal with the speaker feeling the urge to care for someone who does not care for the speaker in the same way. I used to wrestle with the feelings caused by this situation until I realized that people just feel what they feel, and we can't force someone to give what she doesn't have to offer.

The poem suggests a dependence of the speaker upon the person being cared for...and that dependence makes me uncomfortable with the poem. Still, it is only human to feel some bitterness over the situation in which one loves someone who doesn't appreciate it as much as one wishes.