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To look into her eyes and laugh

Usually life is long enough
To become what you love.
What if it is not?
What if you wake up every day
Hating your own face,
Lying all day in bed
Facing the wall
You hate yourself,
And you know your life is short,
Know, but don't care?

Usually life is long enough
To meet people you love.
What if it is not,
And you are lonely
Like the last dot
In the last novel at the end of the world,
And you know your life is short,
Know, but don't care?

Usually life is long enough
To give a chance to toughen up.
But what if your troubles come
when you are young,
One after another,
And there seems no way out,
No stop to the cold showers,
And you know, your life is crap,
and you don't want it?

Yes, I admit, it sucks, it's tough.
And yet your life is long enough
To look into her eyes and laugh.

Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Review Request (Direction): 
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Last few words: 
Tell me if you stopped reading in the middle. It was written today, I will probably edit it. It is a first draft but it was sitting in my head long enough to give a feeling of completeness. So I am posting in hope for suggestions. Thank you ahead for reading.
Editing stage: 

Comments

I am glad you got to the silver part.
Thank you for reading.

IRiz

author comment

Yes IRiz...for me the flow was affected in the middle....I will look forward to the edited version,,,having said that I loved the concluding stanza....
..................................................

raj (sublime_ocean)

Nope, it is in the same cadence.

IRiz

author comment

just flows
like the MISSISSIPPI
it has a smooth silence
like the Thames
what's more
each one emerges
from a different stem
like the Amazon

How I wish I could be a part
of your poetic
KINGDOM
LOL
in your case
QUEENDAME
Madame

Thank you. I appreciate it.

IRiz

author comment

I debated with myself whether or not to review this piece because I only want to say the nicest things to you and this piece was a brick wall for me
The language seems bereft musically I cant find anything that charms my ear
To be specific the words seem like nouns and verbs making points about a situational narrative that is glum with a faded energy of to little to late in the finale No I'm not convinced you smiled or that you there was redemption Having said that even more importantly poems must be about language that exalts even if a miasma of pessimism Words are forms for the ears like musical notes, right?
In my mind anyway good poetry must defy literalism It must mystify with ambiguity Inferring through metaphor and symbolism It can be bare bones paired down, yet voluptuous or intense Attitude, force, direction that entrances even at the expense of understanding details

Ex:

Because the butterfly’s yellow wing
flickering in black mud
was a word
stranded by its language.

I think the idea is to caress the reader, Take them, Demand they are in your world, make them lose control

To conclude I think part of the secret of poetry is that meaning is subservient to the art and power of language

Nigger-eye
Berries cast dark
Hooks—

If what I say doesnt touch you, so be it Its just an honest stab from no one really
Like you just trying to find my way These comments should be forgotten if they do not strike a chord because in the end your the writer and you have to feel it.

Best Z

Images have their place.
Think about this poem as a black and white photography. It is contrasted and focused.
For the rest you have to be open minded.
Some poetry is minimalistic like Glass or Arva Part music. That was it.
Don't worry I knew you might not like it.
Not everything we write should have polka dots.
Not everything is boiling and overpowering the reader. Some lines could simply flow and be plain.

IRiz

author comment

so nice of you

Nature and art love the most distant possibilities

I have always loved black and white photographs like Arbus and Bresson,the film noir of Capa and others, the black and white oil paintings of Franz Klein, Robert Motherwell and the subtlety of Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko

In spite of your assertion in no way do I think that everything has to have polka dots and they are not polka dots in my painting; they're circles in a complex geometry of pastel shades
HAHA...your teeth are showing ;)

I understand minimalism; its magic is that it hits the mark in it's precision and perfection of form i.e. powerfully satisfying when done well, which in my perhaps misguided view should always be aspired to, that is of course unless you have a big thing for gray linoleum and your favorite pastry is a graham cracker
Having said that I think all art written or otherwise has to burn in some way or it doesnt give off any heat

Best Z

those who like BLACK
ARE Saturnian kinds or LIBRAS
AND
those who like polka dots mainly
are Piscean or Virgos or Saggy or Geminis
as you already know

I see your point my friend it is well delivered.
I don't take it. I like your poems but I have my understanding how my poems should be.
The art of writing is not the same as art of reading. Many poets including me are not good readers because they can not accept a different view. It is not teeth I am showing here it is a common sense.

IRiz

author comment

While i don't think it is fair for you to characterize me as someone who thinks everything has to be polka dots, a scathing remark I don't blame you at all for taking what you like from a critique and disregarding what seems empty or useless
Ill take your pushback too as long as you do it in the service of art, but personally take offense and resent it when you accuse me surreptitiously of being, narrow minded.
My review of your piece was honest which as far as I understand is my responsibility as a member of this site, and in no way meant to hurt
If you wish to insult me when I go to the trouble to read your poems and share my opinion, if you prefer I can refrain in the future from commenting on your work

I did not mean to be personal. If you noticed I called myself narrow minded as well. I think people who create often find hard to be receptive. It is a muscle we don't exersise as often.
But I don't want you to trouble yourself reading my lines. I am sorry I used a tiny bit of your precious time. Please, don't spent another minute on it.

IRiz

author comment

Yes I evoke them all as I'm shifted from house to house, transit to transit and etc. to etc.

"We move in circles and those circles move"
Rilke

'tis clear

How wonderfully "Russian", Deep in the soul, a brooding like the greats- Akhmadulina comes to mind, a Russian Sylva Plath. You guys have a talent to get right to the heart of the matter with the dagger in hand, Always with supreme irony.
This is a poem stripped bare, unlike many of your works which play with the ornaments of words and images.

I would like to suggest the end a bit different:

...No stop to the cold showers,
And you know, your life is crap,
and you don't want it...

And yet is life long enough
To look into my eyes and laugh?

sometimes ending with a paradox or rhetorical can bounce back into the poem for ultimate effect. I kept it in first person, keeping it more intimate.

My suggestions, as you are calling this a draft

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

Dear Mark,
Thank you very much for your support and suggestions. I often feel that I will never get there.
I meant at the end to say that we always have time to like into life's eyes and laugh in her face.
I wonder if it was clear enough.

IRiz

author comment

you're there. You write wonderful lines and poems which engage us, and sometimes poems for which different comments emerge- not different than if the poet laureate herself or any "famous" or "beloved" poets posted poems here. By now don't you find great inventions and craft by your favorite poets and also find some poems that you think should be re-worked? You're there.

I did get the intent of your poem. Any way to introduce the idea of laughter, the revenge of laughter, the omnipresence of that deep, sarcastic, liberating laughter, more into the poem? I'm not sure how. Just a way to connect the title and last line with the body of the poem. But if nothing else, I'd keep it in the 1st person.

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

Yes liberating laughter.
Originally I wrote a stanza for it but ended with a few lines to make a stronger impact. Maybe I should just wait and see what precipitates.
Thanks again, Mark.
I am in Florida now, having a surprise vacation.
It sounds romantic but I feel like thrown out of my winter den bear.

IRiz

author comment

not knowing which part of the state you are in, recently I managed to find some very wonderful nature trails and preserves to visit. also the Dail Museum in St. Petes is worth a visit.
I was in the middle of the state. I only go to the south to go to funerals.
enjoy the sunshine!

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

I remember your poem about your Florida friend

IRiz

author comment
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