from a distance

[tom.d.stiller]

from a distance

eyes closed i can see you're there
five thousand miles or more away

my pain is more bearable today
i can almost smell your hair

i've never seen your face but know
the different curvings of your smiles

there are no seas there are no miles
i can hear your fingernails grow

impossible to say we share
a passion for the deeper pain

an understanding of the rain
impossible to say we care

i remain a stranger's soul
just like yours caught in a hole

[margaret]

I really like this one. Thank you Tom.

[LaurieAK]

tom~

Your rhyme scheme was lost on me till i read the final rhyming couplet and went back and found what I had missed.

Your line breaks therefore kept this from being an overly rhythmic piece. At least for this reader.

It gives me the sense of loss and hope, (or maybe it is perseverence).

The use of "impossible" is misleading because the speaker seems to contradict this term within the poem. I don't mean you should have used a different word. I am just commenting on its role in the poem.

Very nice!!

regards,
L

[tom.d.stiller]

Thank you, margaret and Laurie, for commenting.

I set up the line breaks deliberately to hide the rhyming structure of the Elizabethan Sonnet, and the rhythm of the lines are "deviant" anyway.

My use of "impossible" corresponds to the several contradictions in the first part. It reflects both inherent difficulties in relationships like the one described and a general stance of "there ain't no chance, but you better take it"...

Thanks again for commenting.

Cheers
tom

[Critic2]

from a distance

eyes closed i can see you're there
five thousand miles or more away

my pain is more bearable today
i can almost smell your hair

i've never seen your face but know
the different curvings of your smiles

there are no seas there are no miles
i can hear your fingernails grow

impossible to say we share
a passion for the deeper pain

an understanding of the rain
impossible to say we care

i remain a stranger's soul
just like yours caught in a hole

others have already commented on the rhyming pattern. I was unsure it worked, AB BA, when it could easily be ABBA. and I've always liked their music and it would make me in a happy dancing mood as I read your poem.

oth, your unusual scheme makes more sense when I consider your title "from a distance". onomatopoeic, not technically of course, but akin.

this has potential as a folk song if it had not already been written. the traditional piece "10,000 miles" brilliantly performed by one of my heroes, Nic Jones

Fare you well, my own true love,
Farewell for a while
I'm going away, but I'll be back
If I go ten thousand miles

Ten thousand miles, it is a long way
Ten thousand miles or more
And the rocks may melt and the seas may burn
If I no more return

Oh don't you see yon lonesome dove
Sitting on yon ivy tree
She's making her moan for the loss of her own
As I shall do for mine

Oh come back my own true love
And stay a while with me
For if I knew a friend all on this earth
You've been a friend to me

Fare you well, my own true love,
Farewell for a while
I'm going away, but I'll be back
If I go ten thousand miles

now, you have to make some concession to type, "yon ivy tree" is perfect for an olde English folke song, whereas a common novice mistake for beginner poets is to come over all poetic and start inserting "thees" and thys".

and when you hear Nic sing "And the rocks may melt and the seas may burn, If I no more return" it is chilling. I am influenced even more to love it because Nic was injured so many years ago, in a car crash, that he has never performed since.

He was an outstanding guitar player, to hear his work on Teddy Bears' Picnic, (yes, that one!) is either an inspiration for all guitar novices or enough to make you want to give up. One of my daughters is doing wonderfully with the guitar (and I see the outside chance that she becomes a star and I'll never need to murder anyone again for money) and I must play her that track soon.

Back to your piece, I do think it is worth saving and re-working but the last couplet is, please forgive me saying so, dire. It is close to a Capital Offence to use "soul" in almost any circumstances, but "hole" is just horrible. Together

" i remain a stranger's soul
just like yours caught in a hole"

spoils all the potential of the poem.

I look forward to reading any re-write

regards

c2

[tom.d.stiller]

Thank you, c2, for your critique.

I knew the final couplet was "dire" (="fraught with extreme danger"). "Soul" has to be used very cautious, the combination "stranger's soul" adds to the danger of completely falling into the cliché trap. "hole" is, in itself, less dangerous, I think, but the phrase "caught in a hole" is - to use your words - "close to a Capital Offence". The bridging "just like yours" isn't much better.

However, I had decided to keep this in spite of the dangers, because I felt that the conglomeration of these clichés and near-clichés might just pass, a balance of "poetical terrors".

Maybe I was wrong, and the couplet is "dire" (="nearly hopeless"), and I'll look for an improvement.

"Ten thousand miles" - I know several nice versions and variants of this "olde folke song". The difference between their myriad of miles and the mere five thousand of my distance is: the old songs deals with parting, and with promises of return, while I described a situation of "never having met" and holds no promise of ever getting together.

In a possible rewrite I'll try to let this shine through more clearly. There are some other details I'm not fully satisfied with, and that call for a revision.

Thanks again for carefully reading this piece and for your helpful comments.

Cheers
tom