Lightning in the Dark - Writers Forum

rashadow · 12-03-2004, 05:34 PM

She was confused

Not confused about love
Nor confused about truths
But confused about lust
And what it tells her to do

She was bruised by
Hearts that are joined like two
But were split by sharp
Knives that part through blues

Sharp eyes that reveal
What the heart holds true
Beholder was he
Emboldened by cues

Signals sent by she
So unknowingly cute
But the line pulled taut
She was captured by youth

Young love he and she
It was all she knew
And that youth was marred
By caress turned bruise

From hands so soft
She was left in ruin

But my thoughts wander off
She has paid those dues

Oh how deep those roots
How cheap the excuse
We had reached for hope
Through the cheapest of booze
*******************************************
In the arms of every man
She saw horrors
A dirty past
Instead of running from
She ran toward
She’s broken glass

I tried to mend the pieces
But only cut up my hand
I tried to be the answer
The question lay still and dead

Battered beauty’s what I called her
Unspoken we understand
Understood that life was short
And that nothing is as it’s planned

She said that she was married
She showed me the diamond span
I said it didn’t matter
I showed her my golden band

Smooth words had her open
Confidence had her trapped

A little humour had her laughing
She never questioned my facts

I never questioned her motives
I didn’t care about that
I only cared about the pleasures
The shape of that rounded back
**********************************
She revealed it one night
Sudden like lightning

The words spilled from her mouth
Overflowing fountain

The caress of a man she had known
All her years

Father to her sister
Husband to her fears

Her husband couldn’t relate
He was cold

A sob story
Her own

Never written
Never told

She felt that she
Just couldn’t cope

She said the blood
Ran down her thighs

And puddled in her soul

She said she thought
That was how men
Expressed their love

I just sat and thought

I just sat and thought

Selfish I
To think of self
When this woman I
Just had to seduce
Bled her horrid life
Into my unworthy hands
What about my life
Why do I have to care

I just sat and thought

Blood
Like
Tears
Fell to
Earth

And that is where it stayed
She said poppa was tired
Had work the next day

She said I was the first
I was her first
I was

So I sing out this verse
And lay out my sin
Let the people in turn
Deem punishment
For I can’t turn away
And how do I say
To the woman I love
I’ve made a mistake
And I can’t take it back
Wouldn’t in fact
Leave neither one
Can’t sacrifice oath
Nor the age of our growth

I’m in love with them both

rashadow · 12-06-2004, 02:24 PM

Revised Rewritten

judysaidso · 12-06-2004, 03:06 PM

It needs to be strung together better. The metre of it seems somewhat syncopated too, so you should probably puncuate. And why is it so long?

rashadow · 12-06-2004, 04:15 PM

Three parts
The meeting
The relationship
The resolution
No punctuation needed
Just an understanding of how it flows
That would solve the syncopation problem, except during the last stanza
Rhythm broken purposefully
During the third stanza
You can see it beginning to happen during the second

I don't usually write long poems. I wrote this off the top of my head and then rewrote it off the top of my head. Whatever came out came out. Not my best work but I liked it.

Thanks for commenting.

huni · 12-06-2004, 06:39 PM

rashadow - Last night our town was in the centre of a HUGE storm. Emergency services everywhere - but it didn't shake my core like this did.

"She said the blood
Ran down her thighs

And puddled in her soul"

Very powerful stuff and well said.
Me, I'd probably write it in another style and tighten it up, would I change the heart of it? Never.
huni.

rashadow · 12-09-2004, 10:04 AM

Thank you Huni. I will tighten it up sooner or later. I always appreciate your words.

rashadow · 03-28-2005, 12:03 PM

-=bump=-

Death_and_her_Cat · 03-28-2005, 02:31 PM

What I don't get about this piece is where the exact poetry comes in ... its sentences broke into lines of a roughly similar length which to me upon a first read have no poetic significance ... I would love to be proved wrong on this if someone would like to take away my blindfold and englighten me.

rashadow · 03-28-2005, 03:18 PM

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=poetry

Death_and_her_Cat · 03-28-2005, 03:41 PM

I've read the definition but I still don't get it ... I am not being snotty or rude or stupid ... It's just that I don't see the exact poetry of this piece ... its going to take more than a definition for me to quite see how massacred sentences automatically qualify.

rashadow · 03-28-2005, 04:57 PM

The definition thing was a joke.

But seriously, I don't know how to answer your question. Poetry is poetry no matter if it's broken sentences or broken words. Almost any form of condensed language could be considered poetry. The slang I talk, the shorcuts you might take in your everday language, using metaphors in your speech. These are all things that elevate language to poetry, good bad and ugly.

This poem in particular is a broken story. The verses are as they are because one very long sentence after another is not very pleasing to the eye. It was a stream of conciousness poem, so what came out is what came out.

Although I was just playing with the dictionary.com thing lets take another look at it.

Quote:

Prose that resembles a poem in some respect, as in form or sound.

Now the poem above definitely has rhythm and metre and is therefore poetry in every sense of the word even literally and emotionally. However you feel it is broken prose. But by this very definition and according to what you have said of the poem, it is indeed poetry.