Isabelle edit0.01 ella, billy

[Truerenigma]

It does feel intensely personal and authentic. I’m not sure how you pulled some of it off but you did.

You need not beg for what I give you freely.

This concept is overused. You don’t even seem to have a new way of saying it.

Can you not recall
the vow we made, though in the past is where we now both find we live?

“we now both find we live” is awkward and unnatural. This line is far too general in its sentimentalism.

I will visit you, my love. If when we meet you smile then all
the world is lit by glimmered recognition. To see you give

The smile jogging the memory here is nice.

a glance my way, then say my name, your name for me,

I don’t know if A is saying both A and N’s names, or a pet name for N.

is better than a thousand wishes granted on a dark, stark day;

What if one of those thousand wishes were to hear A say the name(s). Wouldn't N then get the same thing plus 999 more wishes, perhaps the same thing 999 more times? That might be too much for you. I’ll just say that I like stark day, but I’m not sure about dark and stark. I get that it could be a dark day because it is a day of little memory, which is a strong idea, but I get that from your comments in the thread, and I want it in the poem.

better than an ice-melt stream in this cruel desert destiny;

is there a better way to say ice-melt stream? There’s gotta be a word that will be useful here. I can’t imagine anyone ever saying this like this. “cruel desert destiny” is pretty strong and terrifying.

better than one precious breath when death has looked the other way;

“one precious breath when death has looked the other way”

This is one of those quotables. The sonics are perfect, the syntax rolls off the tongue. I love the thought. The use of the breath makes it new.

better than the hiding hope that lives in sleep but dies each dawn.

You are on a roll here taking cliches and making them brand new. Very memorable stuff.

Yet but for you, why must I wake? Can we not close our eyes and fall
together down soft steps of time, back to the place where love was born…

I was thralled in these lines up the point of love being born. I want something new there, something that only exists in this poem.

if you remember, say my name, in whispers, yes, and I will call
you by my special name for you--just let me think, I know it well--
please do not cry, it hurts too much, my blue-eyed bird, my Isabelle.

Good stuff.

Overall I think it needs a few more specifics. They don’t have to be true, just equivalent to something you want the poem to say. Phantom memories, symbolic memories, the room they are in--something.

Interestingly enough I read something not too long ago that was discovered by a poet--that mimetic and mnemonic lines of poetry can actually help bring moments of clarity and memory to Alzheimer and Dem patients. I will share it with you if you are interested.

Hi true,
I'm afraid I did my usual annoying trick of editing on line before everyone had had their pound of flesh.
Some of the lines in this were destined to be rubbished because I was using the turn of phrase to help with the characterisation....no, really, I was The near cliches are enough to set my hackles up but first person authenticity sometimes requires the common touch....though in my defense (I might overcook this) I did not and do not recognise the ubiquity of "do not beg for what I freely give"...a failing on my part.
There is a rhyme scheme strangle-hold on this which no one has yet remarked on so I forgive myself to some extent for the corny ethos throughout....others will not. Dark and Stark sound like American cops so there may be changes.
I agree, however, wholeheartedly with the objection to "cruel desert destiny"....insofar as it is an unlikely comment from the character but a highly defining moment in my interpretation of just how it must feel to be in a cerebral landscape lacking familiar features and memorised tracks. Worse, it can come to us all.
Finally, re your paper (not sic) on mimetic and mnemonic lines. Yes to a read. I extended this idea myself on more than one occasion with a few ancients in my mother's (deceased) care home...noting that familiar verse and song (Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy...a kid'll eat ivy, too. Wouldn't you) could trigger upwellings of quite surprising contemporary sentience that was almost completely lacking for most of the time.
I am treating this as work in progress but do not want the sonnet police at my door because of rhyme or form...so changes may mean that things do not stay the same!
Best,
tectak
PS. Your "Wish Theory" was long ago demolished with the Genie in the Bottle. Three wishes? The first wish is for four wishes etc. etc. etc.

Tec, clarity issues in my post. i don't object to the desert. The objections were with ice-melt. "Strong and terrifying" means good.

I meant /it/ couldn't be better than the wishes because he could wish for /it/ itself then still have 999 more wishes. Silly I know. I was merely presenting a paradox.

I will dig up the paper and p.m. it to you sometime this weekend.