Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.

Absence

As I open my eyes the morning scurries about
gaining purchase in all of my senses
from the blatant light spilling through the window,
and the chill clinging to the edges of the night before

And I’ve already been thinking a lot
about holes, the empirical shape of loss,
and how they relate to grief

In the realm of my sorrow these shapes
aren’t ruled by the laws of physics.
Sometimes the holes visit me as colors,
often red and angry at the thievery

The worst color is grey, the most forlorn of colors
because I can’t see hope beyond the slate-colored chasm

Sometimes the holes come to me in my dreams
as desperate, chimeric shapes smashing into my nights!

Grief never stops filling your absence with voids.
It’s inevitable, I’ve learned. But when time and I allow a forgiveness of the pain
the holes become smaller, but they do not go away - far from that!
Their colors transform too, becoming less brilliant
across the wounded hues of crimson, ash and blue

Review Request (Intensity): 
I appreciate moderate constructive criticism
Review Request (Direction): 
What did you think of my title?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Last few words: 
Another rumination on loss. Circles are another reason for my disdain for geometry, LOL!
Editing stage: 
Content level: 
Not Explicit Content

Comments

If written in paragraph style,
Would it be that: a prose poem?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Raywhitakerblog.wordpress.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thanks for stopping by Ray! I consider this a free-verse poem, but trending prose, LOL! An interesting thought on your part though, and a form I'm considering working with more to develop a style of my own using it. Interestingly though, many of my poems begin as very rough drafts in paragraphs - just trying to capture some thoughts and/or experiences. I then significantly pare them down to turn it into something with more rhythm, flow, logic & clarity, and hopefully something worth reading within the free-verse form.

On a somewhat related tangent, I love looking for possibly unintentional prose poetry everywhere in well written novels and other literature. One of the best and most amazing recent examples I've found is in the novel All The Light We Cannot See. For me, it was like reading a hundreds of pages long poem - just wow!

Cheers

Michael Anthony

author comment
(c) Neopoet.com. No copyright is claimed by Neopoet to original member content.