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Beauty Is

Her profile’s not a perfect silhouette,
she bares no shapely leg or heaving breast;
the voice not of a nightingale coquette
enslaving countless men it has impressed.
She cannot hover like a bird in flight
nor even glide with poise across the floor;
she will not set a lusting world alight
where men are beating pathways to her door.

But she’s a lovely lady none the less,
the winning smile within her eyes one part;
a bubbly nature flowing to excess
shares love and joy that overfills her heart.

Felicitous affection thus belies
the notion--beauty's pleasing to the eyes.

Last few words: 
I don't think I shared this before, if I did, I apologise.
Editing stage: 

Comments

I like this - reaffirms beauty is more than skin deep and very much in the eye of the beholder.
Enjoyed. Jx

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Don't forget to offer critique on poems you read.

Your approbation is always worth having. I'll maybe share one of the other poems this lovely lass inspired.

Keith Logan
the happy chappy
https://www.neopoet.com/community-guidelines

author comment

very charming
and graceful
and sensitively shines a light on the attractiveness of the higher qualities of womanhood

I liked it very much...it worked for me.

Al

It was inspired by a lovely lady of my acquaintance. She married a tall handsome man and we all thought she could do better because he was a tad rough in appearance. But she did well, he was devoted to her.

Keith Logan
the happy chappy
https://www.neopoet.com/community-guidelines

author comment

I like the poem, its theme, but I'm afraid you lost its cadence, though not the melody.

~~~

It appears to follow the rules of a sonnet perfectly to my ears. Please explain.

Keith Logan
the happy chappy
https://www.neopoet.com/community-guidelines

author comment

enlighten me........
how do you lose the cadence of a poem? All poems have a cadence, speech has a cadence.
It has a rhythm, tempo and metre - even if it does change.
Just interested, not challenging you.
Grins.
Jx

------------
Remember we are a workshop site.
Don't forget to offer critique on poems you read.

For me, perfect cadence is Iambic Pentameter

A friend's poem:

You probably won't get this if not on fb.

https://www.facebook.com/Emptiness/videos/10154603948410825/

is the nearest thing in verse to everyday speech. That is why it is used in so many longer poems and is what Shakespeare's plays were written in. However I fail to see how anyone can discount other forms of versification simply because they are not that one. You might as well say milk is a perfect food so no other form of food exists.

A Toast

Ah, playful is the gay coquette
who flits between the trees,
which stand around like marionettes
all swaying by degrees.

She romps along, red curls unbound
and flapping in the breeze,
her wrap lies low enfolded round
a figure made to squeeze

Let’s raise a glass to this dear lass
who never meant to tease,
or shake our heads at those instead
that try too hard to please.

I see I might as well not have posted this as the main poem you inscribed is not in iambic pentameter either. This poem was written in alternating eight syllables, six syllables per line to impart a jaunty run. The poet chooses a rhythm to enhance the word flow.

Keith Logan
the happy chappy
https://www.neopoet.com/community-guidelines

author comment

Carson Boyd ~

Down the dark depths
of perilous life,
Beyond any foe
with a gun or a knife.

Where visions of evil
do plot and do plan,
To sever the heart
from the soul of a man.

Where power crackles
like a thunderous whip,
And beings are thrashed
for an innocent slip.

Where discipline reigns and strengthens its hold,
And thousands and thousands,
just do as they're told.

It is there I did send
my attention to play,
To gamble within
what I thought of one day.

Now it's not that I'm brave,
Or even trying to boast.
But I was eager to challenge
our dubious host.

Then quick as a flash
my consciousness ripped.
I stumbled and lurched
and shortly I slipped.

'Fell end-over-end
Through hideous screaming.
'Till finally I lay
broken and bleeding.

In anguish I lay
on the rock covered mound
While remains of my life
soaked into the ground.

His trick had worked
His plot had succeeded
My doubt and my fear
Gave him just what he needed.

But then I found myself
Healthy and whole.
My little indulgence
Had taken no toll.

My knees could still bend,
My arms worked just fine.
I had each little part
That I like to call mine.

When I live without fear
I can truly be free
And I'm not nearly as bad
As I thought I might be.

But to live with fear
Is the ultimate fallacy,
For the truth of life is,
You contain your reality.

~~~

In Carson's read, a couple of the beginning but's/ and's were omitted.

I don't agree with you, but I understand.
Jx

------------
Remember we are a workshop site.
Don't forget to offer critique on poems you read.

It had a simple and nicely stated message. I am reminded of these memorable lines which I'm sure you know:
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face

I think it reads ok, because it does. My own feeling is that we are way beyond considerations of perfect pentameters in the modern age. Whose counting? The voice, breath, tongue, teeth and mouth and lips make the sounds, and they either fit or they don't as we read them with stressed syllables as the words demand, as the poem is performed in our minds. This is true for rhymed and free verse poems.
All the tight musical forms ended with Mahler, Debussy, Stravinsky, Shostakovitch- why is poetry different?

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

for your kind encouragement but cannot agree with your assertion that older ways of working ended with the introduction of newer ones. These, to my mind, only offered alternatives rather than replaced what went before. Even Shakespeare offered options to his basic sonnet form.

Keith Logan
the happy chappy
https://www.neopoet.com/community-guidelines

author comment

I'm just pulling your chains, to see if they can be yanked.

Appreciate your response Keith; enjoyed the poem and its pattern.

Cheers, friends, keep on keeping on and don't forget to play nice and appreciate all reads and comments. It's what creates creativity and inspires humanity.

~Anna Ruiz

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