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.

For Jess.

I’ve heard the cries from mountaintops
too many times to chance recall,
but never could I lift these legs
to limp and find the source.

Therefore I list with utmost care
to draw what least I may
from echoing strains that batter me
to learn what they portend.

But thunder and lightning, wind and rain
was all I could discern
and never might I learn the truth
of what the mountain said.

Ah, truly dost I know indeed
for me alone the mountain wailed.
It burned my heart full innermost
and split my withered skin.

A sparsity to ruminate
and wit too deep to dredge
had left of me the lesser man
not knowing what it wist.

I’ll die in hearing of the sound
and die a barren, empty soul,
for I’ll not reach those cries that teach-
those sounds that make a dark man whole.

Style / type: 
Free verse
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?
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?
Is the internal logic consistent?
Last few words: 
This is as close to free verse as I'll get Jess. I wrote it in one draft from the gut because of all the chaos in my life of late (you will understand better than most even without details). I hope you like the imagery.
Editing stage: 

Comments

that jess should be the first to comment on this but I just feel excited to see that Wesley is
posting again. Well, does this mean he is having a new computer and will daily join.Hope so.I'll sure come back to this to give it a comment. Right after the honored man.
Where are you Jess?:)

❤❤❤❤❤❤

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words
........Robert Frost☺

Please follow me on Instagram
https://instagram.com/poetry.jo?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

I'm kind of shattered too. I wish you had given it another title and just mentioned me in the afterwords about writing freeform.

I'm shattered because, with that title, it seems to make it me who has done to you-
"had left of me the lesser man
not knowing what it wist.

I’ll die in hearing of the sound
and die a barren, empty soul,
for I’ll not reach those cries that teach-
those sounds that make a dark man whole."

With a different title my comment might be-
Dig it! Barren and dark but powerfully expressed, as close to classical form as freeform can get [grins]

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 can't choose a favorite line or stanza but if I have to, I think I fall in love with the opening and closing ones.Yes, I read this more than six times and I shall reread.

As for the title , i think it is meant for one reason or another to be direct to the dedicated man.

Anyway I'm happy to read Wesley again here in the neopoet and Jess though you don't like that some of the lines to be directed to you I still believe there is a lot of interchangeable respect between both of you and it all goes for the benefit of the Neopoet,doesn't it?

❤❤❤❤❤❤

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words
........Robert Frost☺

Please follow me on Instagram
https://instagram.com/poetry.jo?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

I'm (almost) sure I caused Wesley no harm but we are a great meeting of very different poetic minds, it is why we have fought, argued and brought him into the midst of Neopoet direction.

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

misunderstood again.
No, you have caused me no harm. The poem's content has nothing to do with you. It is very personal and more so as I struggle with my health.
The dedication was precisely that. It was blank verse, turned out okay and would never had been attempted had it not been for your inspiration. You have yet to be a negative influence on my life and the positive continues to grow.
As you probably would notice if you had all of my stuff in front of you, I seldom title my poetry. "For Jess" was a gift tag and a small thank you.
I enjoy the effect you have on me and know of few ways to explain it.

Anyway, I would like to think I'm back and this was the first thing I've written in who knows how long. Who better to give it to than he who has improved my poetry.

Hi Rula, I've missed you and will be writing something lengthy to you about all that's going on (wrong) with my life. It's not fair to whine at you, but I'd like you to know. Be safe with all that's happening in your part of the world.
wesley

W. H. Snow

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. Percy Bysshe Shelley

Learn how, teach others.
The NeoPoet Mentor Program
http://www.neopoet.com/mentor/about

author comment

To put the record straight

An Aussie Poet

Hairless and Hatless in a kookaburras nest
It’s a new sweet baby, shall we will call it “Jess”?
Its heart had been broken, and it had gone astray
But I hear that with tender care, he is back today.

We send people for a cat scan to see what’s wrong
Not this young bird with his laughing song
We sent him to a better place, in the outback there
A cattery, that looked after him, with tender care.

I would say that he is now full of lovely beans
But cats eat mice, and many other nasty things
Not sure who or what is there, that heals the soul
Maybe I shall take a trip there so I will know.

I think that to travel to the other side of the world
To check out a cattery for my own soul is absurd
My padded cell here, and the odd kind word to me,
Is all I need at this time of my life, don’t you see.

To leave young Jess to fledge and fly the nest,
Is what I have been told is for the best.
So I will sit in the corner of my cosy padded cell
And tell the rest of the world out there, to go to Hell

Anny Mouse

.
There are a million reasons to believe in yourself,
So find more reasons to believe in others..

how it amazes me
that all stalwart poets of western and classic poetry,
follow the only kind of verse I know

FREE and freely

If only the snow had not been so hard initially
and had accepted me
your epics you designed in mind
weighed you down
like does an anchor of a ship ,
had you taken my retort
epicurial
a word I especially coined Snowman for thee,
today all would have been garlanding you ,
instead of those
who in fear of you now so tread

You have the ingrains of a poet
that ever was
what of Shakespeare or a small bard
that I once was

Friend still the road is long and winding ,
a beauty of hills surrounding
the autumn leaves of Canadian soil ,
the distant drums of Nigeria
and the Aussies okay
one can bear still ....

write fifteen just lines poetry
if in the poetic world you want to make a kill

My snows melt my knees
I would have bowed much earlier friend to thee
that as I do so now
belatedly
but respectfully still.

loved

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