Leak

[cosmos_rose]

Leak

How does one explain the feeling of no hope?

Imagine yourself alone on a beach.
You sit with your head resting on your knees
And your arms wrapped around your legs.
In front of you is the ocean.
And the vibrant colors of the evening sky.
You take a deep breath so you can smell the salty air
And then you focus on the way the sand feels on your feet
It's warm and silky, it falls through your hands like water
But it still feels rough like sandpaper
You move your feet away from you and let the cold water touch your toes
It feels good
Now you try to focus on the sounds around you
You hear waves splashing on the shore
And the seagulls gawking occasionally
You can hear the faint sound of leaves rustling against each other
You look back and see the palm trees
You also see the exotic multi-million dollar houses behind them
Again, you look back at the ocean
The red and orange light cast their shadows on the water
The ocean looks like a starry night with all its sparkles

A young person comes to sit beside you
The person smiles and looks out at the ocean with you
They comment on how beautiful the sunset is
You very quietly agree in a small yes
A silence sits between you two for what feels like a long time
The silence remains until the person stands up
They comment about having an errand, then leave

You're alone again, for what feels like always
You think about your strange friend
You discover that you found this person attractive
Your heart thumps and you feel excited
You're tempted to chase after this person

But before you can even begin to stand up
You're stopped
A sinking feeling drains the energy from your body
You've immediately forgotten about this person
You're consumed by a heavy, dark feeling
Your heart feels dense
Your body feels light

The reason why you are at the beach sinks in
Negative thoughts cloud your mind
Your insides feel empty
It's like your body can only focus on your heart and on your head

You look at the ocean
And it looks empty.
It becomes meaningless
Everything becomes meaningless
And you almost want it that way
Because you know that if you give things meaning again

They'll only hurt you.

[0-DCB]

XObsidianRoseX

Leak

How does one explain the feeling of no hope?

The subtitle is unneeded. It's a rhetorical question that serves no purpose. The poem itself should be able to convey the main message to the reader.

Quote:

Imagine yourself alone on a beach.
You sit with your head resting on your knees
And your arms wrapped around your legs.
In front of you is the ocean.
And the vibrant colors of the evening sky.

So far this is reading more like a meditation exercise than a poem. There are glimpses of imagery, though. However, it doesn't go anywhere. What is the person in the poem experiencing? For all I know, they're simply tired and resting at the beach. Are they peaceful? Are they bored? Does the ocean seem vast and empty, or are waves constantly crashing onto the shore -- almost as though the ocean is begging the person to play with it? Basically, you've got imagery; now, give it substance.

In terms of grammar, there shouldn't be a period at the end of the fourth line. If you want to convey a sense of sighing or heavy breathing, I would suggest either a comma or an ellipsis.

Quote:

You take a deep breathe so you can smell the salty air
And then you focus on the way the sand feels on your feet
It's warm and silky; it falls through your hands like water
But it still feels rough like sandpaper

I think you mean "breath." wink
I like how you're opening the reader up to their olfactory sense. The second line is slightly unnecessary, and it creates a jarring break in the poem. Instead of saying to focus on the feet, simply focus on the feet. You could say something like, "Then you focus on how warm and silky the sand feels at your feet, yet it feels rough like sandpaper in your hands as it leaks between your fingers." Hopefully, you get the idea.

Quote:

You move your feet away from you and let the cold water touch your toes
It feels good

What does this mean? What does "good" feel like? What is "good" in the context of this poem? As the reader, I'm lazy. I don't want to have to create images for myself. I want to read this poem and be able to know exactly what the main character is experiencing.

Quote:

Now you try to focus on the sounds around you
You hear waves splashing on the shore
And the seagulls gawking occasionally
You can hear the faint sound of leaves rustling against each other

This section contains the same error as the "focus on your feet" one. Unfortunately, while the other section had some decent imagery, this one falls flat. What do the waves and seagulls and leaves sound like? Are they loud? Are they soft? By simply telling me to basically think of the sounds myself, the poem is creating a break in which I must now stop and think of the sounds in the context of the poem before I can move on.

Quote:

You look back and see the palm trees
You also see the exotic multi-million dollar houses behind them
Again, you look back at the ocean

This does nothing. Nothing was gained in this section. It could be cut, and the poem would probably be better without it. The reason for this is because it has no substance. It comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere. Why am I supposed to care about the houses or the trees?

Quote:

The red and orange light cast their shadows on the water
The ocean looks like a starry night with all its sparkles

Grammar aside, these lines are good. Even if you didn't mean it, the image of "a starry night" is a nice double image. I imagine water sparkles every so often in the sunset. At the same time, I imagine the Vincent van Gogh painting and see an ocean that is active and moving about.

Quote:

A young person comes to sit beside you
The person smiles and looks out at the ocean with you
They comment on how beautiful the sunset is
You very quietly agree in a small yes
A silence sits between you two for what feels like a long time
The silence remains until the person stands up
They comment about having an errand, then leave

You're alone again, for what feels like always
You think about your strange friend
You discover that you found this person attractive
Your heart thumps and you feel excited
You're tempted to chase after this person

Again, this does nothing for the poem. It comes and goes so quickly, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from it. How do they see the sunset? How beautiful is it in their eyes? Does the main character actually agree, or are they just saying "yes." Furthermore, does the main character like that this person is with them, or are they annoyed by their presence? The poem says all this stuff is happening, but it provides no method of showing. It tells me what's happening, but it doesn't show me. It doesn't open up my senses.

Quote:

But before you can even begin to stand up
You're stopped
A sinking feeling drains the energy from your body
You've immediately forgotten about this person

What‽ Why‽ Personally, I think you should expand more upon the image of "a sinking feeling." Show me what that is. The word "sinking" is a nice connection to the water theme going on in the poem, and it also ties nicely into the previous sand image falling through the person's hands. However, why has the main character forgotten about the young person? This comes completely from nowhere, and no explanation is given.

Quote:

You're consumed by a heavy, dark feeling
Your heart feels dense
Your body feels light

Again, what do these things feels like? What is a "heavy, dark feeling"? Show me. Don't tell me to imagine these things.

Quote:

The reason why you are at the beach sinks in
Negative thoughts cloud your mind
Your insides feel empty
It's like your body can only focus on your heart and on your head

Same thing as above.

Quote:

You look at the ocean
And it looks empty.
It becomes meaningless
Everything becomes meaningless
And you almost want it that way
Because you know that if you give things meaning again

And same thing.

Quote:

They'll only hurt you.

Just like the subtitle, this is unneeded and only takes away from the poem.

Quote:

Overall

{I just want to say that when I say, "What does -x- feel like," or something similar, I'm not saying to only use similes. Metaphors tend to be stronger anyway. You don't have to use either simile or metaphor. Pay attention to the actual words used. By using words with harsh sounds, you can create a feeling of harshness. Therefore, it's important that the words convey senses with their meaning and their sounds. Check out the poetry guides at the top of the forum for more help.}

Overall, I think you've got glimpses of good imagery. I like how you attempted to convey multiple senses, including sight, smell, sound, and touch. However, for the most part, the poem suffered from talking about the images instead of showing them. Another problem it has it that it reads as being very lazy. It forces the reader to conjure up all these feelings without any reason as to why. Personally, I would remove the second person entirely, making it third person instead. This way the poem gives the reader a chance to connect with the character without being forced into all the situations. By using the second person, it's almost as though you're telling the reader, "You may not normally think like this, but I'm going to make you think like this." It also makes the entire poem sound more like a meditation exercises with line breaks.

It reads like a journal entry -- not a poem. Honestly, this is probably the main problem. The majority of this poem is more prose with line breaks than poetry.

Grammatically, this poem is all over the place. Some parts have good grammar; other parts have no grammar. Still other parts have incorrect grammar. As a general rule of thumb, you can put your stanzas into paragraph form, put in the correct grammar, and put the line breaks back in. Another thing is that it isn't necessary to capitalize the beginning of every line.

I think you're off to a decent start. The poem itself needs a lot of fixing up, but it has a decent foundation. Good luck!

[cosmos_rose]

0-DCB

I appreciate your opinion on my poem, and I'll take a lot of what you said and fix it up a bit.

However, I do disagree on a few things.

The subtitle, I feel, begins the mood. It raises the question.

Also, at the beginning, your feelings aren't important for the poem. Not at first, at least. You can make those up yourself. All I'm giving is the environment and the senses of being alive.
The first part of the poem is supposed to give you imagery, and allow you to know your environment and to kind of get you to drift off. It's not the kind of poem where you need to think and ponder a lot as you read it.

So that's where I disagree, I can't cut out a lot of the parts that 'accomplish nothing' (what do you think I am trying to accomplish), as all the parts at first are for imagery only and to make one day dream. It creates just the feeling I need you to feel for the next part.

The person is the most important part of the story. The abruptness and oddness is just want I intended. Without the person, all I would have is the imagery and then it all slowly fading into something meaningless. It's way too smooth of a transition and it erases a lot of the meaning from it.


I think you focused far too much on the structure, and failed to capture what the poem was really about.
It's not about the beach, there is no 'water theme'.
The poem is about hopelessness.
It's about failure.

A lot of the poem focus's on imagery because imagery has a powerful effect on the mood.
I can always just write a poem explaining it simply with metaphors and similes.
But I chose imagery because I wanted my reader to actually feel it, I was trying to get them to be there.
I was hoping for my reader to catch just a glimpse of what it's like to feel hopeless (or to know and remember).

It's all a symbol and the end is to describe the feeling in the only way possible.
You can't really describe the emotion itself, but can describe what your body feels while you feel it.
In fact, during hopelessness, that's all you can feel. Is your heavy heart, light body, chocking throat.... It's hard to think, and all you think is 'negative thoughts' about pretty much everything.
It's hard to imagine if you haven't felt this kind of hopelessness before though.
But not every poem is meant for every reader.


Thank you though, for your opinion.

[0-DCB]

To be perfectly honest, I know what you were going for. And, yes, there is an overall focus on water. As I stated before, the poem does have good images and even taps into the reader's other senses {smell, touch, etc.}. However, it tells and doesn't show.

"You are sad." Prove it. {Note: I'm not saying that's an actual line from your poem.}
A line like that does absolutely nothing for a poem because it's not something to which the reader can relate. Sadness or hopelessness are intangible and highly subjective feelings. Sadness for one person might be more physical and more emotional for another. You need to show specifically what that sadness looks like. By telling the reader they're doing all this stuff and not showing exactly what's happening, you're defeating your own purpose. It's not the kind of poem where you need to think and ponder a lot as you read it? Well, you're making the reader think and ponder a lot by making them come up with their own feelings and there own ideas as to what the things look like.

For the record, I never stated to only use metaphors and similes. I also never stated that imagery was bad. I'm saying that, once again, you have to show, not tell. Yes, metaphors and similes can help. However, the words you choose are also important. Use action verbs and only use adverbs when absolutely necessary. "She walked beautifully," could be "She glided." The word choices in this poem make it stilted.

Yes, I focused on structure because structure is important. If you want to convey a sense of hopelessness, you can't ignore structure. Put the poem into paragraph form. Does it still read like a poem? In my opinion, it doesn't. It reads like a meditation exercise, which is meant to make the listener imagine the things on their own.

Everything I've said is only meant to help this poem reach its fullest potential.

EDIT; I wanted to mention that "show, don't tell" doesn't mean that every instance has to be a metaphor or simile.

Here's a poem by T.S. Eliot titled, "The Hollow Men." You'll see that each line serves a purpose. His diction serves a purpose. The words are simple, but they show the reader what's happening.

Your poem could potentially be just as strong. You don't have to complicate things. In fact, you could keep the whole structure. The important thing is to change the diction. Read famous poems to get a feel for how to create a sense of story without sacrificing imagery.