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She sat
by the bedroom window,
her sights more distant
than snowflakes
descending
from the winter moon.
In her arms,
a heart is locked
inside a treasure chest.
Nobody
not even her mother,
knitting downstairs, knows
she left the key
back home in Nazareth.
note: Nazareth or Barangay Nazareth - a town in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines
Original Version:
She sat
by the bedroom window,
her sights too remote
than the white cherubs
descending
from the winter moon.
In her arms,
a heart is locked
inside a little treasure chest.
Nobody
not even her mother,
knitting downstairs,
knows
she left the key
back home in Nazareth
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(03-18-2010, 07:00 PM)jdelacroix Wrote: She sat
by the bedroom window,
her sights too remote sounds like she's a sniper
than the white cherubs
descending
from the winter moon.
In her arms,
a heart is locked
inside a little treasure chest.
Nobody
not even her mother,
knitting downstairs,
knows
she left the key
back home in Nazareth.
note: Nazareth or Barangay Nazareth - a town in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines
i like verse 1 and 2. and "nobody" on it's own works. not sure "knows" does?
cagayan de oro is a beautiful sounding set of words so instead of the footer why not just make it the last line.
back home in
Nazareth
Cagayan de Oro
for me lines 3 and 4 need a bit of work as they leave the reader confused. would
more work better than
too
all in all a nice read which evokes a certain sadness. thanks JD
Posts: 805
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Really nice read, you set such a sweet tone for it.
Something wrong with line 3 and 4. "... sights too remote than white cherubs...", definite grammar error there. (more? much more remote? not sure if that's what you meant.)
I find it fascinating that in your poem it's the daughter who is longing for the motherland, when the stereotype is it's the parents who feel uprooted. Liked this one.
PS. If you can, try your hand at giving some of the others a bit of feedback. If you already have, thanks, can you do some more?
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Tnx 4 the critique Addy and Billy
I made the revisions and I tried something simpler. Anyway this poem is dedicated to a friend who misses her old life very much.
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She sat
by the bedroom window,
her sights more distant
than snowflakes
descending
from the winter moon.
Descending from the winter moon sounds a bit cliche.
Otherwise the stanza is solid, besides the sniping
In her arms,
a heart is locked
inside a little treasure chest.
Third line seems weak/ awkward. Might want to take out "little" and play with it a bit
Last stanza is excellent.
All I have to offer, and I agree with the other criticisms.
"To risk is to lose your footing. To avoid risk is to lose yourself"
-Soren Kierkegaard
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first off jd, whe you do an edit, try and leave the original poem up for comparison.
now to the treachery
big big improvement for me.
for me an odd cliche can be okay. once it gets over two then they all need to go. as it is, for me the winter moon works okay.
larry made a good point about little on line 3 of the second stanza. we can take a guess that it wont be bigger than a heart lol. so what other kind of treasure chests are there.
anyway as i say, for me a good all round improvement.
Posts: 20
Threads: 7
Joined: Mar 2010
(03-25-2010, 04:01 PM)billy Wrote: first off jd, whe you do an edit, try and leave the original poem up for comparison.
now to the treachery 
big big improvement for me.
for me an odd cliche can be okay. once it gets over two then they all need to go. as it is, for me the winter moon works okay.
larry made a good point about little on line 3 of the second stanza. we can take a guess that it wont be bigger than a heart lol. so what other kind of treasure chests are there.
anyway as i say, for me a good all round improvement.
Thanks Billy and Larry

I'll edit the line 3 in the 2nd stanza