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metamorphosis

On waves with valleys and peaks
my soul has its highs and its lows.
Now, I'm just an object, a pinball
being slammed from every side.

I feel I'm in a fast running stream
and hard objects, obstacles of life,
like debris swept along the torrent,
continually hit and knock me about.

This careening ball feels the pains,
but still hold faith in greater worth,
of gossamers holding neutron stars,
of power that shames even light.

The soul and body is being shaken,
and heart often cries of the cold,
still, the whispers from the deep,
the universe but foam upon its sea.

So I wait upon the rhythmic heart,
wait until troughs again know peaks
and some force hidden so long in me
crawls out, eyes ready for new light.

Editing stage: 

Comments

I was pulled in more & more as the poem progressed & the last stanza was almost an emotional celebration for me.

In the beginning I kept hearing "Today I am - a small blue thing - like a marble, or an eye" (Suzanne Vega) as it had a similar feel to (I am predominantly a song writer so forgive the music comparisons). If you don't know that song be assured it's a compliment. Lovely. Write, thank you .

Cheers
Anni

My dear friend always told me "Water the seeds of joy first"

Love the daring and jostling style of this piece. There is a healthy irreverence for semantics, diving straight into bold word crafting and spellings which force me to narrow and broaden my gaze one at and the same time to coerce meaning from these lines. You spin a yarn worthy of Joyce. I hear these lines recited over a bottle of rum, an oak table smothered in cigarette burns, held aloft by the rapt attention of pub goers looking for something to compliment their daily dose of insanity. A well deserved front page pick I must say I enjoyed every word of this. Your closing line is classic and is heavy with truth and wisdom, something we all need to digest from time to time, but are rarely if ever fed. Keep them coming!

Mario Vitale

Its fairly common to write poetry in prose style, but it seems to be more cumbersome and less musical in my opinion anyway. Kind of an overworked and over explained. Pairing down to the bones gets to the point and yields both sonic and cadenced evolution It lets the piece breath and adds an element of linguistic eloquence

On waves with valleys and peaks
my soul has its highs and its lows.
Now, I'm just an object, a pinball
being slammed from every side.

EX:

waves valleys peaks
souls highs and lows
Im an object. pinball
slammed from every slide

next step goes to the issue of sonics
language that is less predictable or prosaic ie its poetry so give it some floatry

undulations basins crowns
souls accents and falls
Im an object, pinball
slammed from every slide

perhaps something more specific than object
your words are all short vowels All the sonics remain truncated

EX: Im ash dust and rust brown nails, a pinball slammed

My review is only valuable if you perhaps see / feel where Im going with this
The examples are just their to help clarify the need for creative variance
EX:
undulations basins crowns
souls accents and falls
Im ash dust and rust brown nails,
pinballs
slammed from every slide

I see natural kind of life in it and I not just like it but also love the way those words are arranged, the poem is also emotional just a like a good music that never dies. Keep this up and make it deeper more next time.

I rather learn how to fish than beg for one.

Until you live and allow life passes through you, you will never understand life.

thank you Anni, I am glad it touched something in you.

T

The most powerful reaction
of mind on mind
is transference of sight

author comment

Hi Chevyvent, "which force me to narrow and broaden my gaze one at and the same time to coerce meaning from these lines." I like these lines because I often try to stimulate the reader to look for meaning in my poems

I live in the Nederlands, and vent is translated as guy. So I always think of the Chevy guy, when I see your pen name.

T

The most powerful reaction
of mind on mind
is transference of sight

author comment

Hi Zebra
I see what you are saying and its true I do not look for the beauty of the word, usually putting my meaning first. I still write a bit abstract, but earlier I was so abstract that readers rarely understood what I was on about, so I started to cultivate my style to being more clear.
thanks for your insights.

T

The most powerful reaction
of mind on mind
is transference of sight

author comment

thanks for your comments, Simon. I appreciate them.

T

The most powerful reaction
of mind on mind
is transference of sight

author comment

well that leads us all to few issues of intent but before I go there ...ask yourself what you would rather read the paired down or the original
Do you think the paired down is to abstract?

With regards to being understood remember a large percentage of the population is under educated including so called writers

There are conflicting idea's about poetry but in the end its got to be about taste and who you want to write for Some writers write narrative poetry or a hybrid of prose and poetry
what i look for on poems
What I look for poems are distinguished by their sonic and semantic flexibility and range. They take on important subjects—racism, domestic, political and natural disasters, mortality and time, the contingencies of love, the vulnerabilities of flesh ("the soft parts of us...the first thing we give away,")—in language that feels both improvised and exquisitely controlled, highly cadenced even when it looks like prose. Their tone is nothing if not companionable, good humored, fiercely clear sighted, full of passion and heart wrenching wisdom. From poem to poem, and even sometimes within the same poem, they shift from mode to mode, descriptively precise and essayistic, realistic and surreal, conversational and song-like. Simplicity of means, complexity of effect–that's how I'd characterize the marvelous achievement of poems in every piece.

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