Poetry Melancholy

Stoic Hero

Stoic Hero

The Leading Man
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Melancholy

As the sun fades beyond the great, green, ocean of trees, I sit and watch the caramel clouds dwindle on the edge of twilight. Pensive, and alone, I’m showered by thoughts of you and drifting into distant memories.

I was to be your last, first kiss, but Death kissed you much more often than I did, and, eventually, you succumbed to his lechery. My heart is like a fractured bone without a splint. I’ve no solace, no reinforcements when the soldiers of grief threaten to conquer my soul.

Father in Heaven! Liberate me from these wretched irons of misery and torment. Crucify my solicitude, so that I may never inadvertently dwell on this again. Rather, sap me of my strength; ruin me; wither me away into oblivion, so that I may join my beloved across the chasm!

I receive no reply, save for the soft thump of my broken heart. Time agonizingly marches on. The sun has disappeared into the pitch black, and the caramel clouds are far too dark to behold now. Pensive, and alone, I’m showered by thoughts of you and drowning in melancholy.
 
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Why does it need to be spaced out? Are you David Bowie?

This is a dark poem that I feel is a little tainted by its word selection. Either you have a very good vocabulary or are skilled with a thesaurus. But to me, it sounds like you're conjuring an obnoxious mode of poetry spoken by pseudo-intellectuals while swilling a glass of wine around just to look smart. Because while the word selection is ornate, I think it makes it difficult for a reader to feel or understand what you or the narrator is going through. The word choices don't seem to add any stylistic points of interest, so to me, it seems like an emotional barrier you've established in order to try to sound more stoic than you naturally are.
 
Question! What sort of poem is this?

It is quite a nice read, but I read it more as a story than a 'poem' - which, by assumption, I believe to be filled with separated lines and stanzas.
 
It's a Free Verse poem, though I obviously use some form, as no poem (no good poem) can be completely free. For example, I repeat "Pensive, and alone, I’m showered by thoughts of you" to reiterate that I haven't received a reply and nothing has changed, besides the slip into deeper melancholy. I tend to write in free verse because it gives me more freedom to use my vocabulary, rather than resorting to form and factor, which I find limiting. However, I do believe poems are..."better" when they are structured. This is just how I prefer to write. It's entirely possible I inadvertently wrote in some form or structure without even realizing it. Really, free verse is a fine line between prose and poetry. Obviously I don't use some of these words in my daily life, and I chose them because I felt they sounded both eloquent and depressing.

What, in particular, did you find difficult to understand about it, nomad? I wrote what came to my mind over the course of the poem. I wanted a very dark, brooding poem, because I was feeling rather jaded at the time. Lechery and solicitude are the only two words that the average reader might not know. I suppose I could have used "lust" and "care" respectively, but I don't feel they sound as striking when read aloud. Regardless, context clues can very well provide you with a basic grasp of what I'm saying, and I can't imagine any reader would miss the point of the poem entirely.
 
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I wouldn't describe this poem as free verse. It's prose poetry.

I didn't have any trouble understanding anything. I said a reader might have trouble understanding the emotions or whatever's going on here because the word choice is distancing. You are very clearly going for "striking" vocabulary. But to be struck by vocabulary when reading a poem is like being struck by a bus when crossing a street. The purpose of engaging a reader's emotional sensibilities runs perpendicular to keeping them at arm's length with pseudo-obsolescent diction. I see you edited the poem a bit, and it may just be my imagination, but the beginning bits are somewhat clearer to read now.
 
I didn't change anything besides the spacing.

I also didn't so much write this for other people as I did for myself, but I wanted to share it with people on here. I carefully considered which words I would use for each instance, and chose what I felt was both striking and applicable to the particular point in the poem. For example, "reinforcements" "soldiers," and "conquer" all share a common theme. You don't really have to like how I wrote the poem, but I'd prefer you critique something that you found wrong, or tell me what you like, rather than critique something that you think may bother someone else. Since you understood the poem, I see no reason for you to think my words were improperly used, and I think that the message is quite clear to the majority of people who would take the time to read it and understand it.
 
It doesn't sound like you want me to critique anything. You're confusing "hard to understand the emotional mind of the speaker" with "hard to understand your huge words." You're being too oblique. You're trying to make your poem sound like it was written in the romantic era.
  • pensive
  • succumbed
  • lechery
  • splint
  • solace
  • conquer
  • liberate
  • wretched
  • irons
  • crucify
  • solicitude
  • dwell
  • sap
  • wither
  • oblivion
  • chasm
  • behold
  • pensive
All of these words sound unnatural and forced in the form. And when you say "the something of something," it has the same effect. You're operating in a common mode of poetry that a lot of people go through (so did I) before they actually take workshops and polish their writing. I know you put a lot of thought into your word choice, but there's not much that connects the words meaningfully except the fact that they come together to form a poem that sounds like it's being spoken by a Twilight cosplayer.
 
You're right. I apologize.

But please don't say you want criticism and follow it up by saying you'll ignore it. It's a waste of my time. If you can't handle it, just say that you don't want critical comments. I can operate in an objective, observational mode, too. I'm better trained to do that, actually.
 
I didn't ask for criticism. You gave it.

Whether I can "handle" critical analysis of my poems is neither here nor there, and doesn't particularly matter at this point, since I haven't entered into any kind of contest and I was simply sharing a poem I wrote. You're being rude and rather condescending, and I'd appreciate it if you'd stop.
 
Stoic Hero said:
I'd prefer you critique something that you found wrong
Click to expand...
Until you said this, I was merely reacting to the poem. Then you asked me to critique something that I found wrong, so I did. Then you told me you're ignoring it. I'm simply saying you wasted my time.
 
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