greenbank [2014-02-12 22:48:41 +0000 UTC]

Great strength of vision and expression here, carefully teasing out the essential impacts rather than the superficial/conventional reactions. And some lovely images, too. Very satisfying as a poem, but at the same time definitely unsettling as a statement (which means it's a good poem).

One thing I'm not sure of: the word "conscience" in line 4. I can see a way that it would work very well there, but that's not really supported by anything else in the poem. On the other hand, maybe you meant something more like "consciousness" (in the senses of awareness, internal world or state of mind) - but "consciousness" would of course be a horribly clumpy word to use here. Just to say that this is a slight stumbling-block in my reading of the poem.

Also I enjoy the internal rhymes and assonances, which help pull the whole thing together, as a continuity of emotion. However, when you do this there is always a slight risk that it'll look as if you thought of the next word just because it sound like the last one (swirl/swell, wandering/pondering), instead of actually meaning that second word particularly.

Minor point: there's a typo in line 11 (breath, not breathe).

Slightly less minor points:

(1) I know the tone is meant to be conventional and conversational, but I think maybe you have too many "and"s in here. You might like to try leaving some (most?) of them out to tighten up the density of imagery; after all, this obviously isn't straight prose, and if you get it right the sense won't be affected. Then you can put them in when you want a really strong sense of conjunction, or the sense of a succession of equally weighty statements.

(2)The same for "like": simile is always a little weaker than metaphor, so changing one into the other can shift the intensity up a gear. Leaving out words that aren't really needed for the sense can open up some spaces for other words to be added, to give additional weight or breadth to your images.

(3) Maybe don't start each line with a capital letter, unless it's the start of a sentence. I realise that's more a question of convention and how you feel about conventions; but for me, leaving out the automatic capitalisation gives me more of an intimate, informal feeling (which is what you want here, of course). For me, punctuation is a big deal - I tend to go on about it in comments, but really I think it can have a big impact on how the poet makes the reader read the work; so attention to how it works in conjunction with other structuring effects, like line ends, is something I pay a lot of attention to.

(4) One thing I'm always striving for is ways to make a personal statement more universal in its reading. Here you have found marvellous ways to attach some very personal, individual emotions to ordinary things like snow and cigarette smoke; people who appreciate this poem won't ever look at these things in quite the same way again. However, achieving this means you need to be careful not to get too specific; for example in line 4 I feel "the air of" is not really needed, it's too specific for the point you want to make. (Remember: I feel this - it's only my opinion!)

To show you what I'm on about, I have - quickly and crudely - rewritten this piece as I think I might have written it, bearing in mind the points I've just made. This is not to say the re-write is better, just that it makes the points in slightly different language.

The soft snow settles, blanket, silence;
I feel their weights on my skin.
The lingering scent of your last cigarette's smoke
still drifts through my conscience.
The cold wind howls—I feel it cut through my clothes
reminding me how naked I am.
I watch the stars wheel
circle and swirl in the swell of night sky
think of the stars in your eyes
the lies in your smile.
There is loneliness in my breath
crystallizing in the darkness
to float away like it means nothing—
like I mean nothing.
I'm wandering and I'm pondering
how I hate that you've made me know
happiness tastes the same as sorrow
feels like cigarettes and silence,
looks like stars and snow.

One thing I'd point out is that in line 7, leaving off the comma at the end allows "circle" and "swirl" to come out as nouns as well as verbs. For me, doing that lets my mind expand the visual aspect as well as the sense of movement, even to the point where it brings in the image of froth circling/swirling in a cup of coffee. Drinking a cup of take-away coffee, alone in the night, cold and abandoned... Hot, cold, bitter, embarrassed to be caring so much...

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lostindefinite [2014-01-22 04:15:05 +0000 UTC]

Your writing and your mind are lovable.

In my experience, happiness tastes sideways from sorrow.

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expeed [2014-01-06 00:11:40 +0000 UTC]

I love that!

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anila73 [2014-01-05 21:03:18 +0000 UTC]

I know, I know. We've all been here.

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ItsKocot [2014-01-04 15:55:29 +0000 UTC]

This is a beautiful poem, and I can empathize. I hope that you're alright and that this experience wasn't too painful.

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CMB9139 [2014-01-04 07:32:17 +0000 UTC]

Lovely poem, I could acutely feel everything that you described here.

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Lackeysan [2014-01-03 00:07:40 +0000 UTC]

The imagery was really vivid in this. Beautiful.

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