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Worries
Posted: 17 May 2007
Word Count: 46
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I
absorb you,
even without a
touch.
We embrace
like tides, often I think
our shores
too wide.
So many questions I
asked. How
would I sleep with you?
Eat with you? I realised I
didn’t need to decode you.
And I needn’t have worried.
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Comments by other Members
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 James Graham at 21:15 on 19 May 2007
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Hi Stephen. I haven't messed about with someone's work for quite a long time, but on reading this poem I couldn't help seeing it in a shorter version. I'm not sure that you need the sun rising and setting at the start. All you're saying is time was passing while these thoughts were going on, something we can assume. Trying to 'read you' and 'decode you' must have taken a lot of days. 'I think I/ absorbed you/ too much' may be necessary, I'm not sure, but even these lines could be dropped in the interests of ending up with a tight, concise poem with real impact.
I couldn’t read you.
I wished you were more
see through.
Too late I
realised I didn't need
to decode you.
I asked myself: how
would I sleep with you?
How would I
eat with you?
I needn't have worried. |
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Such a 'clipped' poem would be absolutely right for the kind of moment it expresses. It's a moment when the poem's speaker has finished with worrying and decoding and trying to read the other person - things that go on and on, round and round. He's not going to go on and on any more, everything is quite clear and simple now, and the best way to express that is in a poem that isn't even the least bit long-winded, but is as 'short-winded' as possible.
Maybe you feel a short version would take something away from the poem, or maybe a short version would leave the reader too much to do. Tell me what you think.
James.
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 Jordan789 at 17:53 on 21 May 2007
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Hey Stephen, like always I really dig the message of the poem and the tone of exasperated regret. The image of the sun going round and round is originally stated and accompanies the longevity of the speaker's feelings by showing us just how long he wondered, worried and pondered.
My only problem though is with the structure and the rhymes. It feels Pop, it does. The rhymes are too simple and feel cheaply built like a shack of plywood. Albeit that is simply the structure, for it does house some very good poetry.
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hailfabio at 15:45 on 22 May 2007
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Thanks for commenting, as always, useful feedback and shows that poetry is an individual thing, we all see a poem differently.
There are two ways to look at this, negatively - regret, lost opportunities, or positively - worrying about nothing.
And so here I used simple language and simple rhymes. I think James - you know my strength is short poetry, perhaps because I'm to impatient to build poems over time.
I think I'll tinker with this and see what comes out.
Cheers
Stephen
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James Graham at 23:20 on 24 May 2007
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This works very well. Your first version was nearly there but not quite. A couple of things that help to turn this into a really good poem. First -
We embrace
like tides, often I think
our shores
too wide. |
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- a very telling image. The other thing is the way you make the form add to the poem's meaning and effect. It broadens out from the one letter 'I' to the confident statement of the last line. You have 'uncertain' line-breaks such as 'I/ absorb you', 'without a/ touch', 'How/ would I' which add to the uncertainty of the poem's first thoughts; but the last two lines, which are unbroken therefore not hesitant, are the most certain - they feel like a release from previous agonising. The effectiveness of your ending is proved by doing this to the last line:
And I
needn't have
worried. |
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- which is wrong, because it spoils the positive effect of the single line. So this poem has turned out very well, both what the poem says and the shape you've found for it.
James.
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