sundara

I thought I saw you lurking in the shadows
and I know I met your eyes in the hallway yesterday.
That’s the second time this month that you have
crept up from the past and frightened me.
I try to tell myself that you have no power over me,
you’ve grown old and weak,
while I have gained an inner strength,
but I wonder-
I doubt.
Then I tell myself that it’s not you at all
It’s just a memory haunting me
Those blue eyes were human
That half grin lacked malice;
or did it-
Twenty years is a long time to hold my breath,
a long time to be afraid.
Even though you can’t hurt me now,
you’ve seen what fear looks like in my eyes
the way no other has.
That is where your power lies,
and why I still look over my shoulder.

Pete_C

This is very good; very good indeed. Is it a poem? Well, you can argue that point until the cows come home, and it won't matter either way. It is prosey, and could be a clean and concise piece of flash fiction, or a prose poem, and a narrative poem. Either way, you have captured that tiny essence of fear, the longevity of it, and made it very real.

I would suggest playing around with this in several formats until you are happy with it, then give it a final edit and submit it somewhere. I can't believe that this went uncommented on, and shows that gems can be missed when people are too hung up over style and format.

Don't give up on this.

CMM_Kaleido

Agree with Pete C, the poem adeptly translates the inescapable aspect of the fear and vulnerability into words.

Some pieces are bound to get missed. Review some other people's work--they may return the favor--and you will learn just as much (sometimes more) from reading other critiques as from ones of your poems.

Hope we see more of your work.

peterphreak

Dear Sundara,

Such haunting thoughts. Your words bore into my empathy though you have projected a "boring life" as i, too, would profess under duress. I would however disagree with your self-projection by your prose. I was about to critique your last lines until i re-saw how it connected with your opening line - sublime. Still though if we unconsciously flinch from left-field memories foul behind our shoulders, and if i believe as you say "they will not hurt", i wonder why we (I) are still so afraid. Maybe it's as you said, you know their powers and thus they knows ours, too. I still have faith they cannot hurt. I think a true poet is one who can shake the cocktails of Socrates and Jesus and distill them to a strange fruits made from personal moonshine. I think your work does shine. Thanks.

Baron

I think that you could invest this with a greater poetic quality if you played a little with the line breaks. Read this pice aloud to yourself and use the enjambment to aid pauses and to accentuate the piece.

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Mirror

Sundara -

Sorry I cannot be as effusive as the others about this piece. Whilst brimming with honesty, for me, it failed to convey fear as a sentiment - it merely described, even justified it, in places.

Moreover, I felt a fluctuation between the narrator's immersion and her slipping out of the experience.

More imagery and fresh thoughts would not go amiss.

The format, by the way, did not hinder my reading. Just what I noted above.

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Selected poetry by Ariana Rink and John Williamson:

http://www.lulu.com/content/2956099