3 am

[ThePen]

My thoughts are racing, my heart pacing,
Wondering still, what my life is becoming;
Outside, there is the malevolent darkness,
Inside, is the fragile mind under great stress.
The silence is clear, as sounds disappear,
Only the noises of machines remain here.

Minutes pass by, and still there is no sleep.
So I am thinking about the watch to keep.
I turn on the lights, to chase away the fright,
My mind stares at the lamp, thoughts take flight.
Dreaming of stars streaking in the heavens,
As a night bread warms up in the hot oven.

Suddenly, I am overcome with great solitude,
So turn on the television, chase away hebetude;
Images dancing around, sounds without shape,
A mind is entertained, as it slides in the drapes.
But boredom soon takes ahold of my imagination,
As the heart experiences feelings without emotion.

What to do, in the case of recurring insomnia?
I want no pills, but I soon sink into paranoia.
Is anyone watching, are neighbors listening?
I fear for the drugs, they are mind-tampering.
So I make an effort, as I close my weary eyes,
It is 3 am and the nightmares might still come by.

[fluorescent.43]

My thoughts are racing, my heart pacing [.]
Wondering still, what my life is becoming;
Outside, there is the malevolent darkness,
Inside, is the fragile mind under great stress. weird sentence structure.
The silence is clear, as sounds disappear,
Only the noises of machines remain here. the line breaks are boring. too many semicolons and commas.

Minutes pass by, and still there is no sleep.
So I am thinking about the watch to keep.
I turn on the lights, to chase away the fright,
My mind stares at the lamp, thoughts take flight.
Dreaming of stars streaking in the heavens,
As a night bread warms up in the hot oven. the capitalization of each line undermines your attempt to introduce fluidity of thought. also, night bread? is there such a thing? or is it just bread?

Suddenly, I am overcome with great solitude, comma splice.
So turn on the television, chase away hebetude;
Images dancing around, sounds without shape,
A mind is entertained, as it slides in the drapes.
But boredom soon takes ahold of my imagination,
As the heart experiences feelings without emotion. man, these line breaks are really boring. change it up a bit. introduce something interesting. the human attention span does not last for long.

What to do, in the case of recurring insomnia? that is the question indeed. (sorry, i find i am too sarcastic for my own good )
I want no pills, but I soon sink into paranoia. conflict here is cliché.
Is anyone watching, are neighbors listening?
I fear for the drugs, they are mind-tampering. comma splice mid-line.
So I make an effort, as I close my weary eyes, and another.
It is 3 am and the nightmares might still come by.

this type of poem has been written many times... the insomniac-nightmare trope is well-worn but as i read this poem, you could make it work. i just feel that the style you use in writing this is conflicted with your subject matter- very organized, neatly rhymed, etc. since the subject has to do more with disorderliness and confusing and the sort that comes with not being able to sleep, i would suggest a sparer style. the rhyming is optional, but pretty well done here i think. that's just a personal opinion.

the concepts introduced are worth a read, but the way you write them is utterly uninteresting. nothing stands out- every line is uniform and the same. the one thing that stood out for me, as a reader, was night bread.   and not because it was a good line. mainly the suggestions i made above are personal nitpicks, so feel free to ignore me! good luck if you intend to edit. (sorry i went overboard in novice! )

43.

p.s.-- mainly, all this needs is some rearranging of sentence structure, paring down of wordiness, and a grammatical check up.

[Magpie]

Hi ThePen, you've got some of the contents of a poem about insomnia that could work but not in the organised fashion that you've got here. Your need to write in rhyme adds a sing-song almost lullaby feel to the poem which is at odds with the subject. If you weren't too fussed about sticking to a metre then perhaps you could chop and change with line length to disrupt the flow and give a more edgy feel. Even the title seems almost kind of polite and neat, whereas if it was perhaps something like "03:37 and 51 seconds" or something along those lines???
The other thing I would add would be to trim some of the unnecessary words, there are a lot of lines that could be trimmed and still say the same thing. Possible example of trimming could be 

My thoughts are racing, my heart pacing heart
Wondering? still, what my life is becoming;
Outside, there is the malevolent darkness,

Inside, is the a stressed fragile mind under great stress.

The silence is clear, as sounds disappear,
Only the noises of machinery is all I hear s remain here.

That's just a possible example more than a suggestion.
You do have some of the contents of an alternative insomnia poem here, you just need to lay them out in an alternative way and it definitely could work

Cheers for the read,

Mark

[ThePen]

Hi ThePen, you've got some of the contents of a poem about insomnia that could work but not in the organised fashion that you've got here. Your need to write in rhyme adds a sing-song almost lullaby feel to the poem which is at odds with the subject. If you weren't too fussed about sticking to a metre then perhaps you could chop and change with line length to disrupt the flow and give a more edgy feel. Even the title seems almost kind of polite and neat, whereas if it was perhaps something like "03:37 and 51 seconds" or something along those lines???
The other thing I would add would be to trim some of the unnecessary words, there are a lot of lines that could be trimmed and still say the same thing. Possible example of trimming could be 

My thoughts are racing, my heart pacing heart
Wondering? still, what my life is becoming;
Outside, there is the malevolent darkness,

Inside, is the a stressed fragile mind under great stress.

The silence is clear, as sounds disappear,
Only the noises of machinery is all I hear s remain here.

That's just a possible example more than a suggestion.
You do have some of the contents of an alternative insomnia poem here, you just need to lay them out in an alternative way and it definitely could work

Cheers for the read,

Mark

Thank you very much for the recommendations Mark. I will take them to heart, and I will try to improve on my poem based on them.

[John]

Hi, ThePen,

Your subject here is suffering from insomnia and contradictory emotions. If you reduce the wordiness and tighten up the whole, you can alter the pace of the poem. On the one hand you've malevolent darkness and a fragile mind, contrasted with silence, thoughts taking flight, and dreaming of stars. Altering the rhythm can accent each emotion.

I'd also be inclined to either make proper rhyme (not just working here and there), or minimise it - probably the latter. That way a restless and fractious individual may come to the fore, rather than have readers running for a dictionary to find what hebetude means.

Cheers.

My thoughts are racing, my heart pacing,
Wondering still, what my life is becoming;
Outside, there is the malevolent darkness,
Inside, is the fragile mind under great stress.
The silence is clear, as sounds disappear,
Only the noises of machines remain here.

Minutes pass by, and still there is no sleep.
So I am thinking about the watch to keep.
I turn on the lights, to chase away the fright,
My mind stares at the lamp, thoughts take flight.
Dreaming of stars streaking in the heavens,
As a night bread warms up in the hot oven.

Suddenly, I am overcome with great solitude,
So turn on the television, chase away hebetude;
Images dancing around, sounds without shape,
A mind is entertained, as it slides in the drapes.
But boredom soon takes ahold of my imagination, Too informal. Goes with alot (opposite of alittle.)  
As the heart experiences feelings without emotion.

What to do, in the case of recurring insomnia?
I want no pills, but I soon sink into paranoia.
Is anyone watching, are neighbors listening?
I fear for the drugs, they are mind-tampering.
So I make an effort, as I close my weary eyes,
It is 3 am and the nightmares might still come by.

[Wjames]

First Revision

Thoughts racing, heart pacing,
Wondering still?  I don't understand the question here.
What is life becoming? This seems to be the question you were wondering about. You only need the one question mark, like in the original version.
Outside, the malevolent darkness,
Inside, fragile mind under stress.
The silence is clear,
Sounds disappear,
Only the noises of machines
Remain here.  I thought it was silent? Remain where (forced rhyme)?Ttry and be more specific, this stanza brings up a tonne of questions with no (or few) answers (i.e: what is malevolent about the darkness? - what is causing all this stress?)

Minutes pass by,
Still there is no sleep.
Turn the lights on,
to escape the fright.
Thoughts take flight;
Dreaming of stars
Streaking in the heavens. What is the narrator scared about?

Suddenly, I am overcome with
Solitude.
So turn on the television.
Images dancing around, sounds without shape, What images? When do sounds have shape?
Mind is entertained, slide in the drapes.
Boredom soon takes ahold,
As the heart experiences feelings
Without emotion. What feelings? I don't have the background to understand why this character feels so lonely.

What to do,
In the case of recurring insomnia?
I want no pills,
But soon sink into
Paranoia.
Is anyone watching,
Are neighbors listening?
Fear for the drugs,
They are mind-tampering.
Make an effort,
Close my weary eyes,
It is 3 am.
The nightmares might still come by. Too many questions, not enough answers for me to feel what the character is feeling.

Just some of my thoughts as I read it. I  can't empathize with this character, there isn't enough knitty gritty details ( mainly images, and the context behind the insomnia and nightmares.)

[HardScotch]

Yours is a perfect example for learning. It could use some polish yes, but i havent the faintest idea of where you were trying to go with this piece. maybe practice with some structure.

[Misanthrope]

I agree with much of the above criticisms.  I am a sucker for meter and rhyme scheme, so that didn't bother me as much.  My problem with it was that it was inconsistent.  Inconsistency could possibly be a direction to take it to emphasize the quasi-delusional state of mind that you seem to go for, but it would have to be more intentional and probably more direct(if that makes sense).  I am an insomniac myself, although my demons are that of fear but of analysis.  I think too much... So perhaps the structure and rhyme could be solidified instead if that is your aim.  Below are what would be my revisions.   As I said, I like structure and I will tend to always lean towards that over more 'free' poetry so I kept the syllables to 10 per line(gotta love Shakespeare).  That being said, I tried to alter as little as possible.


My thoughts are racing, my heart is pacing,       First stanza is merely to keep the same length of line, taking out unnecessary articles, etc.
Still wonder what my life is becoming;     
Outside there is the malevolent darkness,          
Inside, is the fragile mind under great stress.
The silence is clear, as sounds disappear,
Only the noises of machines remain here.

Minutes pass by and still there is no sleep.
So I'm left thinking about the watch to keep.   You rarely need the word so in this context
I turn on the lights, to chase away the fright,     Or continuing to refer to yourself
My mind stares at the glowing* lamp, thoughts take flight.  (insert 2 syllable adj)*   
Dreaming of stars streaking in the heavens,
As a night bread warms up in the hot oven.       ...I don't even know....

Suddenly, I'm overcome with great solitude,        I change to 11 syllables here 1) your lines get longer 2) solitude and one extra syllable??
So turn on the TV, chase away hebetude;      That 'so' thing again    
Images dancing around, sounds without shape,
A mind is entertained, as it slides in the drapes.      I think we all know it's your mind....  unless... scitzo...   no, no no,  It's your mind.
But boredom soon captures my imagination,      captures is a more concise way of saying 'takes a hold of'
As the heart experiences feelings without emotion.   This line confuses me - a slight oxymoron I think.  Emotions are feelings I                                                                                                         think...   I would change this entirely, find a clear way to say what you meant

What do I do in the case of recurring insomnia?     I switch to 13 here because of the stigmas of 13, and again your lines get longer
I want no pills but I soon sink into paranoia. 
Is anyone watching, are the neighbors listening?        I also emphasize 'I' because is it not your thoughts that are the nightmares?
I fear for the drugs, I think they are mind-tampering.
So I make an effort, as I close my weary eyes,
It is 3 am and the nightmares might still come by.



Overall, I like this and with some editing it could be great!!!  Looking forward to more!!  Time stamp.

[JS]

Hi ThePen - this is my first post I have ever done and I struggle with feeling that my criticisms are worthy just yet but here goes. What drew me to your poem was the fact that your title was a time. I am looking for advice on a poem that also has a lonely hour, time stamped title and so I felt connected to this one.

What I like is how easy it is to visualize the subject going through the motions in this story. The actions are very relatable for anyone who has dealt with insomnia including the ongoing debate in their mind of turning to a sleeping pill. I also really enjoyed the line "only the noises of machines remain here" as I thought it really allowed the reader to get a feel for just how lonely a state of insomnia can be, like you are the only living thing that is awake at that moment (a bit dramatic, yes - but true!)

What I would consider tweaking is the rhyming. I strongly agree with John's post that by lessening this you will more accurately hit the mindset of someone dealing with insomnia in the moment - their thoughts are fragmented and restless. While reading I also felt at times that the focus was more on making sure it rhymed at the end of the line then clearly communicating the emotion. Maybe by taking John's advice here you would feel more free to dive deeper into these feelings?

Overall nice job and I look forward to reading more!

[BrokenSoul]

True to the forum, I am a novice and can only offer my opinion.

Your first two lines grabbed me, but then I got lost in all of the imagery. I agree that the piece would provide a clearer understanding of insomnia if it were stripped down. In my opinion insomnia is not so verbose. Usually the mind is racing with disconnected thoughts. I also feel that a subject like this loses some of the effectiveness of portraying the despair felt by the subject if there is too heavy of a focus on rhyming. Just a personal opinion. I would also suggest to play with the line lengths and breaks. Remove unnecessary words. Sometimes a single word can say much more than a full sentence.