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Behind the storm clouds, the moon consoles the sun.(edited) (Free verse) by ALChemy Oh morning girl, let your tears fall.
Though mother sky and father light
are engaged in such a turbulent fight
I will hold you safe by day or night,
through thunder and through squall,
through whatever fates befall.
Come, ride on my shoulders Sunshine.
Let us play in the midst of the rain.
Let us ride out the storm and in time
Let love and smiles heal pain.
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Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 5.6
Posted: March 28, 2006 5:33 PM PST; Last modified: April 12, 2006 3:21 PM PDTWeighted score: 5.0715218 Overall Rank: 6578 The following users have marked this poem on their favorites list:
Comments:
Very aptly timed considering tomorrow's total eclipse, where the moon will block the sun in Africa. They are saying pregnant women should not look at the spectical or their babies will be born with hair lips. And your poem is the stuff of myth, too. If you had written it three thousand years ago, it might have given birth to gods.
Ya know I almost titled it "The Solar Eclipse" but I didn't want to confuse the meaning of the poem with something that wasn't stormy. (See my explanation above)
I'm thinking of changing the ending to "Let this child smile again."
Do you think that might sound even better?
The problem with tweaking the ending is that I would not have known the sun is the child, or that the moon is you, without your explanation. Therefore, I would not have known anything about the child, whether she was happy, sad, smiling, except for what the last line says. From tht unknowing position, it could go either way.
Maybe I need to attach it to the "Sunlighting" poem. Hmmmmm.
Comes off a little twee, Al, rather than tender.
Well, she(my niece aka morning girl) is after all only six years old. I actually think the wine line is too adult. I'm thinking maybe "laughter's chimes" instead. It was written pretty much on the spot.
"Twee"? Ranger's englishness must be rubbing off on you.
Nah, I'm just pretentious. Like Madonna, I'm fluent in "Mockney."
I write twee poems about my niece all the time, e.g.: My pink girl, cat-lick clean and shining, you smell of icing and tears, the warm press of you heavy, heart-hand, heart-bloom. Oh, crap, now in the interests of "twee" neice poems, I'm going to go post my "skiing with niece" poem that I can't seem to fix to my satisfaction. Also, I've got nothing else done and I'm helpless in the face of "User Can Post New Poetry." Please be sure to comment that it's twee (or an even more awful word, like "precious."
) <close paren> Ah well, you'll have to wait a few hours to call my niece poem "precious"--I got ahead of myself. ;)
I really want to write something for my nephew too but I haven't found the right metaphor yet. I think their will be one more for my niece to follow "Sunlighting" and this one. It'll be a tweelogy.
Oh, I forgot to say--it's the "laughter's wine" line that, most of all, prompted "twee" from me. So, yeah.
I've never used 'twee' in my entire life, old chap. Well, maybe once or twice, but that's beside the point.
I shall return and comment later on this and others; have been away for a few days and only just got home (completely knackered). Cool poem though, with any luck I'll say something more useful this evening.
You've been partying haven't you? I think England would be a great place to party. I hear those English girls like Kylie Minogue are extra, extra randy.
http://www.actressass.com/pictures-1/kyl
'English girls like Kylie Minogue'...I can't tell if you're having a laugh or not!
Partying? Lord no, a few days in Cornwall...pretty much the antithesis of partying.
I am confused as to what is going on here...the mother is the sky, and the father is light? Your niece is a source of her father? I like the thought here, I think you have a good idea, but I would suggest reworking the comparisons.
I had thought of using father wind. It was more of a visual thing, sky + light make the sun in visual composition. Plus father light is representing the lightning in the storm metaphor. You make a good point though and you did it without being insulting which puts you way above many others in my book. I'm definitely thinking about a rewrite.
Ya, they're just jelous. I think the point is to help someone with one's comments, not try to make their work seem like the worst thing ever written in order to make your own poetry seem significant.
Blake.
Now that you mention it, it does remind me of one of his Songs of Innocense.
I do hope it's William and not Robert that you're talking about.
red·neck
n. Offensive Slang 1. Used as a disparaging term for a member of the white rural laboring class. 2. A white person regarded as having a provincial, conservative, often bigoted attitude.
I noticed how you omitted part Dictionary.com's definition.
redneck n. Offensive Slang 1.Used as a disparaging term for a member of the white rural laboring class, especially in the southern United States. 2.A white person regarded as having a provincial, conservative, often bigoted attitude. Then beneath that: redneck n : a poor white person in the southern United States [syn: cracker] Rewriting the dictionary for how you think it should be, how typically you.
Redneck: a person whose neck is red in the back from sunburn - not from Texas where everyone wears broad-rimmed hats, nor from the South, where itâs always too nasty to go outside. No, rednecks live only in Southern California and are restricted to bicycle-riders, who always lean forward on the handlebars. â Dovinaâs Dictionary
Lovely. This reminded me of one of your poems... 'Sunlighting'. Somehow, poems like this get right to me. And the idea of it being about the eclipse.... fits in.
About the title, I'm not sure which way it should go. Present one sounds okay. Or perhaps.... 'Moon's Affection'
It's basically the sequal to "Sunlighting". Where Sunlighting was about making time to spend with children This poem's about carrying a child through difficult and traumatic events. In this case my niece's parents were on the verge of divorce and she had just found out about it so I was helping her make it through that hard time. I've been thinking of renaming it something like "Solar Eclipse".
And what may I ask is her name... if you don't mind. And don't tell me it's Sunshine!
Brittany.
Lovely!
I don't know why people are being so rude about this poem.
I love it, and I always have liked anything about the heavenly bodies. Nice work ^^
pish, posh, a lot of noise on this one, wot?
(had to put in a stuff line so my post won't be out of place...) as you know, ALChemy, i love the Sunshine poem. I do agree that this one needs a bit of tweaking, but what doesn't? i agree that the line about wine is a bit out of place. and that the moon reference is not barely there and i would not have known it but for your explanation. however, the sunshine does ride on the shoulders of the moon, else we would scarecely see the moon from our earthbound station. keep working on this one, please. as for the comments, take what you want and leave the rest, i say. if someone bashes your work, whatever. if they have something useful, great, otherwise ignore it.
Thanks Imp. Consider it done.
I'm trying to ignore all that's been said and read it as if new. I'm trying to see the moon in the morning, consoling the sun, and forgetting about your neice. If the moon is in the east in the morning, I think it has to be a thin crescent. Maybe it can console the sun no matter where it is in the sky, or even if it has set. It holds the sun even at night, so I guess proximity is not the point. I'm trying now to see the sun riding on the moon's shoulders, and them playing together in the rain. Again an eclipse comes to mind, but you mean it symbolically, I'm sure.
Without further input, I would take it as whimsey or pure fascination with nature.
I guess if you can except that the moon talks and plays in the poem then it shouldn't be much of a leap to get to piggy back rides. It also brings out the childish quality of the poem, me thinks. If this had been about a grown up I think I wouldn't have gotten away with the metaphor, so good point.
I'm thinking now about changing the ending to "Let only love and smiles remain." or something like that. Have a happy Easter this Sunday D. :)
Dovina, i am sensing a theme her in your comments (with reference to yours on my latest): why does a poem need to reflect what actually does happen? can no fantasy or bending of truth to fit an image exist? i do not know you so i cannot say, but i find that it is limiting to work within those sorts of confines. maybe it offends your sensibilities, but this is art, and art is expression of a person's throughts, feelings, observations. if they choose to - or cannot - express themselves with ideas that are factually and scientifically true, does it invalidate their expression? i think not. i find the creative points of view to be enlightening and even more revealing to the true meaning of what is said.
but that's me and you are you, so i'm just spouting off at the keyboard, i guess. just an observation...
I've always said that fantasy is the most honest form of writing because at least the reader knows your bullshitting them right from the start.
I have not been clear. Fantasy is all right. It's just that in this poem, Alchemy had explained it, (see the comments) then he revised it. Now it looks more like fantasy than it did originally. Nothing wrong with that.
ok at the risk of being nitpicky:
1st line: maybe a comma after "Oh", as in "Oh, morning girl..." you may want to set off this line from the rest of the following 5 lines as it is a complete sentence of its own at the very opening. or not. 3rd line: i would choose "tumultous" instead or turbulent. i realize that you are perhaps making weather references and turbulence fits, but tumultuous i think has a better ring to it. and maybe they are not a single fight, but many: "...engagged in such tumultuous fights" 4th line: lose "by". a little smoother rhythm. and maybe "day AND night". 6th line. "fates" [plural] - to me - needs to be "the Fates". or, you could say "fate befalls." i think "squall" (singular) will still rhyme enough with "befalls". 7th line: comma before "Sunshine". 10th line: needs another syllable? "the pain" or "your pain" would do it. this is another very lovely and touching poem; i like its bittersweet quality. very nicely done. i also realize that my comments are not everyone's taste, so "take what ya want and leave the rest", as it is said in some circles.
Thank you Imp, your critique raised alot of good questions.
The first line is me addressing her, much like I did with you in the first sentence above. It's one continuous thought like if someone got your attention by saying "Hey Imp". I actually thought about using "tumultous" but it has one too many syllables. It actually stretches the line too far although my intent was to keep the meter of the rhyme a little off to accentuate the tumultuousness of the poem. I actually prefer the rhythm with "by" left in and it sounds more like a declaration that way. I'm not sure about a comma before Sunshine. My grammar check program doesn't seem to have a problem with no comma before Sunshine and it seems to have a problem with the comma. I usually like to end my poems off meter. It tends to give that extra sense of closure to it. You're absolutely right about "the Fates". This is just my reasoning for why I wrote it the way I did. You might be right on all counts. I'll certainly consider what you've said for a while.
It's taken a long time to come up with anything useful to say. I really like this one; I think you nailed it with the edit - it ironed out the couple of flaws (minor flaws, to be fair) in the original. The only thing I can say here is that 'ride on my shoulders Sunshine' might open up the possibility for drawing parallels with the myth of Atlas (which would fit the general fantastical feel of this).
Good poem. 2672 view(s)
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The moon is not the child, the sun is. The moon is me. The sun is my niece. Her parents are on the verge of divorce. Her and her brother just found out today and I spent the day consoling them while their parents yelled at each other in the other room.
The Sun and moon metaphor is a continuation of the one in this poem: http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.j
Then it should be 'let your'. Also it should be 'fate befalls'
You bore me. I must go to work now.
Lemme guess, you work at some tourist trap where you dress up as Lord Byron and "write poetry" for anyone with 5 bucks, $7.50 if they want a polaroid with you.
Lemme guess, you're a screen writer for John Hughes films.
Which poems look like hellacious dumps?
I wouldn't write a screenplay if my life dependent on it. Now a stage play well that's an entirely different matter. Ah! The Thee-a-tur!
In fact I'm working on a play in three acts about a sniveling redneck who fancies himself a 19th century literary genius.
In the First Act our antihero receives some local success on the community access channel, but only because the students at the local university have made it a tradition to gather at a dive bar and watch the hilarity that is "Poetic Alchemy" tun-tuhta-duh with your talented and irrepressible host Billy -The Alchemist- McDugal!!!
In the Second Act poor Billy's 1986 Buick Skylark breaks down just as his latest triumph is about to air. He hurries into the nearest bar afraid he'll miss Camille Saint-Saëns' Dance Macabre, which he choose after much diliberation, as the overture for his program. At first Billy is thrilled to find the telly already tuned in. No one at the bar recognizes Billy without his black satin cape with the red velvet lining and his floppy hat, so they berate the program, as is customary, and take turns immitating the oaf while reading really bad poetry. The student who wrote the worst poem or most like the poems bellowed out by Billy,(which is actually redundant come to think of it)wins a free pitcher of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Billy is crushed.
Act Three:
Billy returns to his apartment building, which looks pitifully like a public storage warehouse. It actually was a public storage warehouse, but it was confiscated and converted into low rent apartments after a police raid which uncovered the largest meth lab in the entire state. Billy finds a message on his answering machine from a crank caller threating to murder him if he butchers the English language any further. Unfortunately, or fortunately,( I'll leave that up to the audience)he doesn't take the threat seriously and erases the message. The following week, on his way home from an appearance at the Happy Meadows retirement home, he is kidnapped. They find him hung by his cape over the side of a bridge. There is a suicide poem pinned to the front of his puffy shirt written in Billy's antiquated style. "Oh poor daft looney, he must have finally realized how talentless he was and jumped, how ironically poetic", the chorus exclaims. The actors shake their heads but no one sheds a single tear. Not even the police care enough to investigate further.
The End.
Many of your poems resemble this pretentious, pompous drivel that you've written here. Those are the ones that are hellacious dumps.
As for me being a redneck? I've only lived in North Carolina for a year so I haven't deserved the honor of such a distinction yet.
It's nice to see you were obsessed enough to check my user info though.
Does it bother you that I criticize your poems without giving any specific and useful remarks? I guess you know how the people you've criticized feel now don't you?
#2 Which of my poems resemble this pretentious, pompous drivel?
#3 I was checking your page to look at your other poems, not because I was interested in your user info.
#4 There is nothing you could do to bother me. I am not asking for specific or useful remarks. I am asking WHICH of my poems you are discribing. You moron.
#5 In my critique of your style I gave you specific and useful reasons why your poems are corny at best, and I have probably even left some positive comments when there was something positive to say about your poems, as I have always done to any poem I've commented on. So, no I don't know how other people feel when I criticize them without giving any specific and useful remarks because I have never done that. On the other hand, I do know how to consider any specific or useful criticisms of my style or technique as valid observations. You incredible, incredible moron.
p.s. You don't have to be from the South to be a redneck.
#2 You still don't get it, do you?
#3 All that effort to read my poems and you only comment on two of them which both came before this argument started. Sure, it had nothing to do with finding more things to insult me with.
#4 If I don't bother you then why bother with all this bullshit you're slinging? What I'm saying is that you are pretentious, ergo most of your poetry is. I may be wrong about the poems but seeing several unnecessarily long poems certainly puts up a red flag.
#5 If you'll look you'll see I had no major beef with your critique on this poem but then you'll drop a bird turd like "That poem's a piece of crap" with no reason. You gave Dovina a specific explanation on the "To Michelle" poem, not me. Your specific reason is misguided at best. I've given you several comparisons to help you understand that. Now see, I went through your whole list without ever stooping to the pathetic level of calling you a moron. By the way, I bet my IQ is higher than yours and I've got paperwork to prove it.
p.s. From the obvious displays of provincial often bigoted attitude towards other style/forms of poetry I'd say you're pushing closer to the definition of redneck than I am.
p.p.s. Feel free to point out any misspelling or bad grammar I've used in this comment. I'm sure I probably did some and I'm sure you'll notice.
#2 Probably not.
#3 Because it's fun. Please, just tell me which poems.
#4 When I said that poem's a piece of crap i was refering to my poe"She Thinks She's Fat" and I already know why I think it's a piece of crap.
My IQ ten years ago was 180. I'm sure it's come way down since then. Why do you keep paperwork that proves your IQ? I wasn't using the word moron to say you're stupid, just thick-headed.
I gave a specific explanation on a public website. The comments are there for everyone to read. My manner is sometimes provincial but my character is not. I can't be a redneck because I am 'a person of color' as it were.
I never ever point out mis-spellings in comments, because i usually don't see them. If I can understand what your saying I don't care. I only point it out in poems because it makes a difference in how seriously the poem can be taken. in the comments it doesn't matter if you write your or you're in less it confuses things and it typically doesn't.
#2 I'm just showing that being insulting doesn't really help anyone.#4 I actually thought you were talking about the "Sunlighting" poem I linked in my comment. So most of this argument is based on us missinterpreting each other. Talk about a humorous bit of writing? This argument has been one big situation comedy. Priceless:)
I'm dyslexic so they had me take IQ tests at different point in my years of schooling.
I hope the redneck comment was sarcasm becuase otherwise it's a straight up racial slur.
I promise I won't point out your spelling and grammar mistakes too, unless it confuses things.