A Negative Response

I freeze frame
the warmth
of your smile
focus my lens
snapshot your
soulful eyes
swathed
in your very
own style
the angle
of your
nose
perfect
precision
no need
to airbrush
or image enhance
this variable vision
softly sillhouetting
shadows
that I cannot
grasp
I desperately cling
to your spectre
demanding
this moment
lasts
you run
away from me
I give
chase
you are
too fast
eventually
your progress
slowed
I gain pace
by the time
I'm upon you
the moment
has gone
all that is left
is the
sad symphony
of our empty
love song
never to be sung
with pity
Hope's head
is heavily
hung
dreams of
companionship
so gracelessly
undone
I hug my shrowd
of lonliness to me
as I watch the substance
of our story
skitter away
through alleyways
I hear the
solemn sound
of my desires
drip dropping
with dirty rain water
into the drains
I try to catch a glimpse
of you
as you turn away
you refuse to linger
on my wishes
fleetingly they take flight
heading for the forests of
far faraway.

Hello Maggie, I guess this is an unrequited love poem -- or a spurned love poem (it almost feels like the poem itself spurns the writer -- it moves in a narrow causeway, the restraint quickening it, the words giving way and escaping -- have you read Peter Redgrove's The Force? That poem springs to mind for some reason), maybe it's also a quest after idealised love, and Tennyson's 'Follow The Gleam' also pops into my head. It's about the literal 'glamour' of love -- 'glamour' in its original meaning of enchantment, the all consuming obsession. I also like the shifting from a static image, the photograph -- one that allows access to the viewer -- contrasting with the fleetingness and impossible to restrain/retain reality. I think you could afford to vary the pace without disrupting the structure, maybe allowing a kind of revery in the middle which would really highlight more of the emotional depths. But it's a piece I would love to hear you read.

Thanks babe,
It was about being spurned - I started with the idea of the picture of the perfect physical person we see in our mind, when we fall in love but somehow it became this story. I know what you mean about the pace - it does need tweeking I'm just not sure how and maybe I need to work on building the emotion in rather than it just being there.
Thanks again for your comments hun - they are much appreciated I don't know the poems you mentioned but I will look them up.
much love and laughter to you - where are you from? I liked the CD - love the cover - very cheeky.lol
xxxx

You're welcome, Maggie. Tough subject beautifully illuminated by, well, by pain. Oh how we suffer for our work! Redgrove's work is worth a look. Tennyson, too, if you can get past the The Charge of the Light Brigade! Thanks about the recording -- it's a taster for an ebook, recorded at the Greenroom, a sort of passing-out parade for poets who've been tutored by the wonderful Chloe Poems on the Foreword course. I'd no idea they were going to post the recording online, it came as a shock -- but there are 3 poems per poet in the book. It all feels very strange. No CD, though. Just online sampling. The cover was a revelation (pun intended).

I quite like the Charge of the light brigade - like the drama of the war poetry. The course sounds very exciting. Lot's of exciting stuff seems to happen in Manchester - I must make more of an effort to get to things, bit difficult with the girls but then maybe thats an excuse after all - it's a good rail network - probably a bit wary of getting lost - but I should be more adventurous.
Thank you for the kind words about the poem - it was inspired by the beautiful Peter Crompton actually - maybe I shouldn't put that on here, his woman might get mad and get the wrong idea. hey hey gossip and scandal.lol - maybe I should explain before I get him punched in his crystals.
When I met him I was like wow he's beautiful to look at, then he told me he was a photographer, then we had this mad conversation into the wee hours about silly crushes we'd had when younger, mostly on Pop stars - in fact I wanted to kill him and still do because he has took pics of and hung out with my sex God Jarvis Cocker - how very dare he, as the gorgeous Abi would say anyway I'm rambling - and also I nicked the idea somewhat from Peter's wonderful poem Melt Once More - but reversed it and told it from the other point of view - though I think mine is more negative as the character in that does say he's melting? hmm
God this chap Peter has a lot to answer for - maybe I should make him fix the middle of the poem. What do you think?

Jarvis Cocker a sex god?! Ladies and gentlemenm we are now in the twilight zone (doo doo doo doo)
Anyway, its a nice poem, I like how it flows and I like how you have breathed life into a subject matter that I normally think as cliched and over used so nice one!

Now you're only being nice because you're frightened of the giant cotton bud!lol.
xxx

I'm not! I never joke about poems, unless of course they are jokey poems!

ok I promise not to hurt you with my big bogey baiter then.
thank you for the kind words hun, bit of a gamble for me as my poems are mostly of a darker nature.

xxx

Dark poems are fun although I always have to look towards humour and light heartedness!

Yeah I think I scare people with mine especially as they tend to be laced with death. I have recently seen a theme developing probably why I turned to the love style.
I'd love to write funny poems - I've written a couple - which I'll probably post as I'd feel very out of my depth performing funny ones, think I do tragedy better. Good to have lots of different styles I suppose.
xx

I do poems about members of the royal family been prostitutes andpeople getting castrated by accident, and judging by the reactions of some people I think I poems scare folk too!

ha ha - it's funny we're talking about two very different subjects on two different threads but funny how they relate, like the Pistols God Save The Queen being Banned wonder if you'll get the same treatment if you become mega famous.hmm

Right my darling have a fab time tomorrow, I'll say goodnight, I'm off to bed with Harry where I intend to spend most of the weekend. oops probably not the best statement!lol
xxx

Was a good night tonight, really enjoyed it!
How was your night with Harry? Ooops sorry! Lol!

Greetings each

For me, as a Parkinson's sufferer, poetry is self help tool to get any feelings out of my mind. For me writing is an area of my life I can control. I have only been writing since 2005 and am amazed at the different emotional responces.

I now write about what I sence and straight from the heart and than poetry is lyric waiting to happen

Hi Philip
Welcome to Write Out Loud - hope you enjoy it here.

Whilst I understand where you are coming from I think that there is a difference from writing about and for oneself and writing for other people's consumption. I think the trick is to look at the personal and try to turn it, if not into the universal, at least into something that other people can understand and empathise with.

Cayn - that was supposed to be our secret! But as you've ousted me - yes people I have spent the whole weekend in bed with Harry Potter and I thoroughly enjoyed it. heehee

Hi Phil welcome to Write Out Loud I believe writing is a journey and poetry in particular, we all start writing about ourselves more often than not as therapy, whether that be from a unrequited crush which incidentally is what the My Poem thread started with, the death of our parents or pets, starting big school etc etc.
It's about our exp0eriences as we don't have any one else's experinces to write about at that time, but then we develop as writers and we wonder what it may be like to sit in the head of a serial killer and perhaps we tell a poem from that point of view and as we develop yet still further we become the ultimate poet - like the Metaphysical poets, we observe life, we people watch, we listen intently to strangers in a bar, we don't just imagine what it is like to be them - we become them we discover their thoughts and fears and capture it on paper and we read and recite it and share it with others and they do exactly the same and on it goes.

I think even the best of poets write as a way of releasing their own feelings and emotions, yes it maybe turned into something else - but you should always be at it's substance because a poetless poem are just empty words on a page.
It's your enthusiasm, your expression and your experience that brings it to life for others.

The Magi has spoken - go in peace.lol