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Sliver of Sadness

Like a black horse turns blue
In sunlight’s
Uncertain shuffle
Melancholy comes
And goes

The thought of love
And its losing
The woes of paucity
Corruption and crumbling

No matter how intense the azure
Orange or pink thoughts
Fill the sky
By day’s end
And the ocean’s blue
Turns clear or green
With the eyes’ minor adjustment

But what would we be
Without a color to mirror
Our doleful souls?

Every heart knows sorrow
And every eye starts blue

The world changes
Bluebirds fly away
And bluebells last but a season
Sad songs speak to us less
At one time than another

But like the indigo mountains
That are always in the distance
We are surrounded by heartache
Our blood looks blue
Through human skin

And though the red of anger
The orange of contentment
The yellow of celebration
The green of envy
Fill our sightline

The rainbow will always contain
A sliver of sadness
Of sapphire

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Comments

Hi Greg
I enjoyed your poem and found it a good idea to use color as a focal point to show the ephemeral nature, and connection of joy and sadness. There is only one line that makes me stop every time I read the poem:
"And every eye starts blue" (is blue meant, here, to be the color of joy and innocents?)

T

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

it happens to be a weird fact. All babies, regardless of race, are born with blue, basically without pigment, eyes. Colour sets in within hours, days or months.

It is very weird but in no way racist, just a fact of nature and equate the value of 'blue' with anthing you like.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

Oh, yes, there are nice similes in the first three stanzas.

T

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

and great content, but (oh, Stan is going to crucify me whilst chuckling smugly if he reads this) this is a poem that I think needs rhyme or a much stronger meter to carry it.
Like I said, great imagery and thoughts, so what does it need to be special? Prosodic value.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

I have never made a claim to be an imagery expert although there are some who have labeled me as such. hence you should not take anything I say about imagery to be an expert opinion, just an opinion.I'm not going to say this poem would be better written in rhyme as it will be a very good poem in either free verse or western classic. BUT it could use a bit of alliteration if it remains in free verse. Also you have chopped up some lines which would be better left as a single line instead of being cut into two lines.The first stanza is a good example of this. Why not turn this into a 2 line stanza by combining the first two and second two lines? It makes the intent clearer and easier to read. The fifth stanza shows how much better 2 lines can be if they are not chopped up.
Orange and yellow are the colors of contentment and celebration? i did not know that lol. You used a bit of alliteration in last 2 lines and you could use a bit more elsewhere. You might consider using some limited rhyme in areas which you want to enhance. But this is all the opinion of a guy whose last formal education in poetry was high school literature over 45 years ago lmao........stan

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