Help | About | Suggestions | Alms | Chat [0] | Users [0] | Log In | Join
 Search:
Poem: Submit | Random | Best | Worst | Recent | Comments   

A Message from my Dreams (Sonnet) by Joshua_Tree
I heard a plaintive message from my dreams, That they were lonely missing me, it seems. "Where have you been our friend, our one time friend." I felt a touch from one I knew as love, Who had at last been sent from God above To speak a new beginning from the end. I have a blessed vision from my muse, She directs me put away my blues - To paint the sun with dots of shining gold. I smell the sweet incense of romance burn And taste a wine so sweet I cannot turn. My troubled heart again to be made bold. A lover I have neither seen nor heard, My heart yet hangs on her every word.

Up the ladder: Time Thief
Down the ladder: dear jim d.

You must be logged in to leave comments. Vote:

Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
 GraphVotes
10  .. 10
.. 10
.. 10
.. 10
.. 00
.. 20
.. 00
.. 00
.. 00
.. 00
.. 10

Arithmetic Mean: 6.285714
Weighted score: 5.345782
Overall Rank: 3420
Posted: June 18, 2005 9:35 PM PDT; Last modified: June 18, 2005 9:35 PM PDT
View voting details
Comments:
[7] Blue Magpie @ 212.205.251.8 | 19-Jun-05/1:10 AM | Reply
An interesting variation on the two main rhyme schemes. You seem to get a bit lost in the words in the middle, and in line 8 the words "She directs" are not iambic. However the biggest problem, technically is in the last line where 'hangs on' is a serious miss step, giving you a 'dum dum' where you need a 'dum da'.
[n/a] Joshua_Tree @ 68.230.105.101 > Blue Magpie | 19-Jun-05/11:45 AM | Reply
Line 8 began with "and" at one point. I cut it in one revision and forgot to replace it.

I think that I need a different 3 syllables before 'word' to make the reader feel more comfortable putting the stress on 'her.' If you read it in iambic, it make the emphasis that I wanted when I was in the middle of the TABS (Teenage Angst...), but I shouldn't have to rely on the reader to force the rhythm for me.
[10] zodiac @ 213.186.177.137 | 19-Jun-05/5:26 AM | Reply
Not enough variation to avoid rhyming "love" and "above". You might be tempted to ask, What's wrong with that?

This is: http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=97622
[n/a] deleted user @ 81.69.23.196 > zodiac | 19-Jun-05/6:47 AM | Reply
The frustrating thing about rhyming is that a lot of interesting and beautiful words cannot be used at the end of a line because they simply have no onomatopoeiac (?) equivalent. Unless you pull the alliteration trick (sort of fake rhyming). All you can do is stash those words away by changing the sentence structure. Which often results in a struggle with the conjugation of the verb. I think that's the reason why so many writers yield to prose-poetry. They also think that the contents, their story, offers all the poetry a reader needs. Ha!
You object to rhyming cliché's like Moon/June, but I'd rather see those lollipop words halfway through a line than lines full of so-called literary words that grate in sound. Matter of taste? I'm not so sure.
[n/a] Joshua_Tree @ 68.230.105.101 > deleted user | 19-Jun-05/11:54 AM | Reply
Lollipop, lollipop. Oh, lolly, lollipop. Lollipop!

I agree that triteness and cliché are generally to be avoided, but I don't think that it has to spoil a particular work. The main things are to avoid obvious work arounds and to avoid hingeing the development of the poem on the afflicted lines. In this case, the offending couplet originated later in the development of the poem, but I moved it closer to the begining in order to de-emphasize it.
[10] zodiac @ 213.186.191.33 > Joshua_Tree | 20-Jun-05/5:14 AM | Reply
See my list below.

Also, there's no reason to think using complicated rhymes necessarily means nonsequitors and work-arounds. I once rhymed "Mariachi", "lot - She", "crotchy" and "watching" so seamlessly that no one TO THIS DAY has realized it's a rhyming poem.
[n/a] Joshua_Tree @ 68.230.105.101 > zodiac | 20-Jun-05/9:09 AM | Reply
"Necessarily"? No. More often than not? Yes. One alternative as you mentioned, is the pseudo-rhyme, which I'd gladly accept in free verse, but which I reject for a sonnet.

Again, I agree that love and above are white trash rhymes, pimple poetry, whatever, I am just suffering from one of the effects of bi-polar disorder... It's absolutely true, but it doesn't apply to my situation.

Put that way, I see that I may have given up too easily back when I decided to calll that poem complete. I'm ready to see if I can't find love in the bodice of the goddess.
[10] zodiac @ 213.186.177.253 > Joshua_Tree | 21-Jun-05/3:04 AM | Reply
Yes, more often that not, surely. You end up throwing a lot of poems (or rhymes) away, but what you end up keeping is worth it. At least, as far as poetry in general is worth it.

Don't reject half-rhyme. Most sonnet-writers today (and there are more, and better, than you think) are writing half-rhymes. For my money, the best half-rhyme I've read recently is Pinsky's Inferno. Which is also half-pentameter, and sounds just like real Italian terza rima.

Nevertheless, except for "watching" the words above are one-hundred-percent rhymes. The poem itself (partly half-rhymed, I admit,) is here: http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=94353

I just read a pretty well-received contemporary (ie, published last year) poem with love/above rhymed. It's not impossible, but I'd say if you stick with well-known rhymes, you're almost sure to write the same poems as everybody else's. If you start out with, say, "bipolar" at the end of a line and can make it work, you've got a chance at doing something that hasn't been done yet.
[10] zodiac @ 213.186.191.33 > deleted user | 20-Jun-05/5:09 AM | Reply
I disagree. For one thing:

frustrating <=> bust rating
rhyming <=> hymen
interesting <=> Pinter wresting
beautiful <=> cuticle
cannot <=> planet/Janet
simply <=> dimply
onomatopoetic <=> emetic/a mulatto aesthetic
equivalent <=> ambivalent
[n/a] deleted user @ 81.69.23.196 > zodiac | 20-Jun-05/6:02 AM | Reply
This is crazy. Building a poem around a few nonsensicals just because they rhyme?
[10] zodiac @ 213.186.191.33 > deleted user | 20-Jun-05/6:03 AM | Reply
No. It's much more difficult than that. And much less rewarding. Sigh...
[8] INTRANSIT @ 204.110.228.254 > zodiac | 20-Jun-05/4:28 PM | Reply
But it can also lead to some really awesome and interesting rhymes if given enough rein.
[8] INTRANSIT @ 204.110.228.254 | 20-Jun-05/4:30 PM | Reply
5and 11 are the pimpleyest. If you can fix those it's kosher with me.
[n/a] Joshua_Tree @ 68.230.105.101 > INTRANSIT | 28-Jun-05/7:32 AM | Reply
That's fair enough. This poem will stay posted, but it's going back into my work pile. I thank everyone for their comments.
210 view(s)




Track and Plan your submissions ; Read some Comics ; Get Paid for your Poetry
PoemRanker Copyright © 2001 - 2024 - kaolin fire - All Rights Reserved
All poems Copyright © their respective authors
An internet tradition since June 9, 2001