I draw within the frame I am given, best I know how,
The lines I remember as yours.
They may not resemble the ones you have now,
for how age changes these I can never be sure.
Your image I can now clearly see
though it might happen to fade, people say
and your eyes seem less vivid than I recall them to be
for all its colors are hidden behind this faint shade of gray.
I may not have gotten the hair quite right
seeing it could've been cut or darkened perhaps,
your smile looks to me a little less bright
yet of my memories of you remain only scraps.
I wonder again
if I can capture you whole
and try to remember exactly when
these lines started showing a different soul
I think it's clear now, love, that this is not you
so I sharpen my pencil
and start anew
6 comments:
Josephine, I do hope you'll forgive me this but it is a trademark of mine that sometimes I can't resist totally rewriting a poem. Please take it as a compliment because I never do it unless a piece really speaks to me.
I liked the idea of this and what I think you were going for. I liked the sketching metaphor and I don't know why but I kept seeing you with sketch pad by the ocean.
What I think it wants is some compression and to show you what I mean I've rewritten it below. I am not thrusting this upon you or I don't mean to do that. I hope my little effort will spark some ideas in your head. If you don't like what I came up with, no worries. I won't be offended in the slightest. :)
Sketching
I draw within the frame
given, those lines I remember.
Yet how time changes the curve
of a chin, the sag of the cheek
no one can guess so these
lines may not resemble yours now.
I wonder again if I can capture
you whole, the features time
cannot touch and perhaps
pencil sketches cannot confine
since the soul is more fluid
than air this sad breeze
has taken that visage
I knew somewhere and now
I think it's clear now, love,
that this is not you
so I sharpen my pencil
and start anew.
I like what you did to it, very nice choice of words. I'm gonna stick to the old version though, I like the rhythm it has. But just in case I wanna mess around with, I'll keep your version :)
Don't worry about offending me, it takes quite a lot :p
I'm glad you actually took the time and were really interested enough to rewrite it. Thanks!
I don't know what to say, but I am not really used to reading literal poetry. Perhaps it is because when I read a poem I like things to be left as a mystery and something that needs to figured out.
I do think that pb's comment is useful, perhaps more visual imagery and cutting down on words could help reduce the sometimes text heavy poem. Hopefully you'll see my comment as trying to be helpful and not overly critical. Thanks for this.
Thanks Tiger!
Don't worry about being overly critical, I can take it :)
I don't often like to change things about my poems unless I really agree 100% with some suggestions. P.B. helped me out before on other stuff, and some things I used, others not so much :p
But I do like making second versions and working on different aspects from one poem.
I quite like rhyme, though. I agree that it's not necessary and often more beautiful without it, but when I was younger I always used it and I often find myself using it these days too.
Thanks for your comment! :)
I very much like feedback, in any shape or form :)
Josephine:
I’m not going to add anything else except to say I like this. The first line says it all; what a great metaphor for life.
Welcome and nice work.
-Steve
Thanks Steve!
I'm glad to be here :)
You guys are really amazing, I love your works and thanks for all the feedback!
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