Words and Images

In a cold, damp corner of my mind
Where receding memories reside,
An ephemeral image
Of your shyly curved brows
That float upon your diaphanous eyes,
And the vestiges of a smile
That bestows pits of joy in your rosy cheeks
In the immediate vicinity of
The corners of your lips,
Imparts a rush of warmth and colour
To all wryly passing thoughts,
Before the image recedes into sub-consciousness,
Gently fading all the warmth and colour it brought.

 

I do not know how to frame my thoughts
Or to adorn my words,
But when I remember
That lingering trace of a smile
Clutching at the corners of your lips
Like the aroma of the earth
That lingers after the rain,
I feel compelled to capture
That image of perfection

That flickers like the last breath of light

In the dying hours of the day
In words from my unworthy pen,
For words and flickering images
Are all I have left of you now.

Reviews

[Devons]

A somewhat forlorn, liltingly wistful piece of lyricism; an almost mournful tribute to the idealistic memory of passing beauty. The image and idea of this transient beauty is immortalised however by something far more lasting in the form of words. This poem captures the sadness of memory and the unrequited love memory truly is. How much more beautiful is the memory, really, than the object of a moment... Memories idealise the past, and form their own misty structures within it. Yet they also create beauty in the form of words that cannot be recaptured in life, but through thought - rather like this.

[Dinesh Sairam]

Hmm.. a shot at free (modern?) verse, I suppose. Once again, a simpler vocabulary is all I ask of you. The imagery and the story it conveys are melodramatic, and rightfully so. Somehow I feel like blank verse would do more good.. or maybe just uneven meter.

I shouldn't comment on it since I myself am not familiar with it, but try reading about the intentional 'space' in poetry (Reading ee cummings would help a lot). I'm just starting with it. This poem would do great to experiment with that.

Keep writing.

[Dane Osborne]

A very well written piece but I think you could toy around with it a little bit more. Try messing around with alliteration and playing with the structure of the meter more on this one. It is a good poem in and of itself but it comes off to me like it is something that can grow.