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OF JOY AND SORROW

Submitted by Eumolpus on Thu, 2017-11-09 12:27

What joy in the jubilant sunrise!
The tournament won by my team;
An MRI that shows the cancer is gone;
I share the joy of young romancers
Who have discovered pleasing a lover’s body,
And the contentment of the old partners
Who cherish the memories of skin;
Of the generations which grow so fast
With the stare of wonder in their eyes;
I feel the joy of travel on breezy seas
To islands inhabited by migrating birds-
And always my face carries its one smile,
The indistinguishable crescent smile
Memorialized in photographic flashes.

Yet for sorrow I have a thousand masks,
Each a different contortion of lips and cheek,
For every sorrow a new taste of tears
Dripping on the tongue within the heart.
I could write a bible of sorrows
In which the angels, each with a face of grief,
Stare vacant as if blinded, and wail
To the insistence of the dark defeat.

Sorrow lingers into the night,
The abstract loss of the most loved,
The pain awaiting another dawn.

Editing stage: 
Editing - rough draft

Comments

Geezer

Thu, 2017-11-09 15:08

Geezer's picture
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have preferred to have you go from sorrow to joy, [I want to have the hope of good triumphant, as opposed to the other way around]. However, I do not fault your list in any respect.
I have seen those angels with the blank stares of grief you mention, usually in paintings or sculptures depicting the suffering of religious figures. Nice job of keeping my interest through the whole thing. ~ Gee.
.

There is value to commenting and critique, tell us how you feel about our work.
This must be the place, 'cause there ain't no place like this place anywhere near this place.

chevyvent

Thu, 2017-11-09 22:33

chevyvent's picture

I like the way you structured it and tied everything together there at the end.

The short, untitled piece after that was a quick, fun read. Well-done!

This one has an interesting rhythm. I wouldn't say it was one of my favorites of yours, but it's not poorly-written either.

This poem felt...very self-depreciating. It made me sad and curious. I very, very much liked the last two lines though! Now, that's poetry! ;-)
Wow. Just wow. This was so heartfelt. I absolutely love this poem. I would hang this one on my wall. The loss, the waiting, the yearning. It was all crystal clear to me. I..."

Thank you so much. :)

Mario Vitale

Chiori

Fri, 2017-11-10 05:52

Chiori's picture

I love this one

always remember to make a critique of other poems
using the hoe is not madness for nothing

Eumolpus

Fri, 2017-11-10 11:55

Eumolpus's picture

for your comments! The poem was inspired by the famous Brazilian song, A Felicidade-
"Tristeza não tem fim, felicidade sim" Sadness has no ending, but joy ends.. .
I stated thinking that in all the photographs I have of happy times, I have the same smile...

But I am trying to lighten it up a bit, and wrote a few light/humor poems last few days.
But I think if I post one poem a week (50 poems a year!) that's quite enough, and reserve the time to comment on others and make the site exciting for all. I wish the same for all the neopoets!

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

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