The stream (all workshops)
Happy Halloween everyone!
This was written when I first came to neopoet. Being here has improved my writing beyond my wildest hopes. The secret is to accept that people are not out to destroy your poetry, but to improve it. Some will give slight critique, some in depth and others will be harsh, but all are trying to help you improve. Below is the original and the fainal version of my poem "The Wolf". I think everyone can agree with the improvement in the final version.
The Original version before critique.
"The Wolfe"
I read your poetry
Like braille
My feelings running
over the rich texture
Of your own
My fingers running
Over the words
On the page
And there, there
I find my own heart
I know myself
And if all would say to me
I cannot know myself
Through the words of another
I could not argue
But my life,
My life has slowly righted
Like a listing ship
Tacking round
To fill its sail
Yet another stony field traversed
as have been so many others;
this one perhaps among the worst
but they really seem like one another.
Each so different, yet the same,
all of equal length and girth.
Some are cultivated, tame,
well tilled and bearing rich deep earth.
Others have grown wild with brambles,
hiding vines and stones on which to trip;
slowing my steps to cautious shambles,
hands longing for a staff to grip.
Howl at the moon
Battle the torturous night
Struggle against the all enveloping darkness,
Don't bask in the moonlights' hazy pallor.
Let go of the insanity
Dance with abandon,
With two fingers up at propriety.
Embrace the light
And welcome reality,
Return from the shadows.
Set yourself free
Holler
Holler at the light
Creep back into the safety
Hide amongst the gloom
Raise a fist in defiance
Repel those who invade
Guard your fortress of gloom.
provoke is the word we must not lust after
introduction will swell
itself under
there is an infinite sin in fury
memory
gradual depression
fiddling out the angles
in anxiety
volume gliding in
calm
being in center
is the only way out
the compass will eventually
violate
its own standards
the winds
are fractured
through the inspiration of chaos
with an anchor
that can only dream about
the agility
to float
Diversify or simply
In my life, I have come to know
That a smile, in people
Are not of love, but smiles of choice
So do I compromise or sacrifice
Diversify or simply
analyze
If their smile can be trusted
Because the words they speak, are wrinkled smiles of lies
Atonement's
She will be the truth to help me stand as a man
She will balance my atonement, for peace of my sins
She will see pass ! the imperfections’,
As my Atonement's between myself and who as I am
She will believe
Leadership is more than flesh but actions, and words of a man
This catalyst is the forgiveness
Too, balance my life as I start again
Validation is to see
Atonement is a man trying to be
Infidelity is selfishness, made from weakness
A flawed true love, is all this can achieve
I am no more or no less
I am no more or no less
Than the laughter made from a smile between friends
I am no more or no less
Than my history, if my memories will not let me forget
As I become more I hope, I can become less subtracting form the memories of regret
I remember that each smile had no purpose beyond the purity of a friend ship
In this purity, I find the reminiscence that I am more than memories in any heart regrets
From every door found ajar in darkness
Escapes a slivered gleam of narrow light,
Beckoning from within blind ignorance
With promises to shine away the night.
For each wall encountered is the limit
Forcing bitter ends of antique knowledge
Into dark bruisings of futile spirit
That become warped chains of cruel bondage.
So search frantically and without ceasing
Until a tiny slice of light's release
Reveals a new doorway that is spanning
The gulf between rank ignorance and peace,
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