Cliffside of Suffering

[minor breach]

Cliffside of Suffering, by Ven

I stand on hallowed ground,
The rain a voracious sound.
My hair matted and drenched,
Yet my throat far from quenched.

Not all that falls on this day so wretched,
Comes from those clouds so dreaded.
As drops trickle down my wetted cheeks,
And bated caws leave those crows’ beaks.

Yet naught touches my mind beyond this scene,
My ears blind to that which is unseen.
These bloodshot eyes fixed on her remains,
As they lower into these great plains.

My thoughts a mangled mess,
As I remember her last caress,
Before her hand fell listless
—My long lost mistress.

Your body now low was once so high,
Whereas I was never but a fly.
Yet you brought me under your roof,
While others were all so aloof.

They spared me no time of their day,
Left to starve on those streets in dismay.
Some raised their fist at my unkempt face,
Angered by my life’s lacking grace.

But you stretched a hand so gentle,
I could not help but think you mental.
This world ever so conceited,
Wished me beat and defeated.

But for you, I stood defiant,
And to you, I was reliant.
You were my neverland.
And I wished for your hand.

But this vast chasm between your station,
Could not be coaxed by mere flirtation.
And so I buried this desire and left,
Unable to withstand this heft.

And now I return with regret,
Never again to see you fret,
To feel your beaming smile,
To be fooled by your cheeky guile.

I should have never ran away,
To at least try and convey…
But it is long too late,
And I can only wait and abate.

Your casket now covered by soil,
I feel my mind uncoil.
Perhaps I too should lay to rest,
These feelings hidden in my chest.

I wrote this a year ago and named this now so maybe the name will be changed lol

It was an experimental piece, my first ever and ignited in me a passion and standard for poetry I found difficult to live up to. It has its flaws, constructive feedback is always appreciated even if old... I see some though I refrain from editing out of courtesy to my past self. I still consider it my magnum opus, though my friends may argue that lol. Inspired by a game I hadn't finished, which was inspired by a book, the title chosen is a reference to that game but not really appropriate haha. It was a What If scenario of mine that played through my thoughts at the time. What if a character died and they were at the funeral.

Comments and thoughts appreciated

[shut bolt]

@minor breach has sent a notification! - @versed pendant

[keen lark]

i really like this one! in terms of comparing this to your other piece "Seven Days of Grey", its difficult since they're quite different in terms of emotions, tone, and structure. both are incredible on their own, so i dont have a preference :p
i like the darker imagery in this with the rain, crows, starving on streets, casket. you've painted a clear atmosphere and did a great job with the storytelling. i also really like how this one has some
fluidity- shifting from longer stanzas to shorter ones. the shorter lines really hit, i especially loved "But for you, I stood defiant,//And to you, I was reliant."

[minor breach]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I was experimenting with imagery in poetry when I made this and really liked that couplet too. I appreciate you entertaining my weird question

[steel temple]

It moves from grief at the funeral, to memories of kindness, to regret, and more. I mean you hit every single stage of grief and feelings. Something people can gasp onto. The rythem and wording. This was written beautifully. I love when personal experience is a refrenese to a poem. It tells a poem!

[gentle glade]

Wonderful! @steel temple has just progressed to level 3!

[minor breach]

Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts, interesting to see it hits several aspects of grief because it was unintentional haha. Though these days I try be more intentful with my poems, here was a moment of intense empathy (fortunately not personal experience) about how it would feel to go through this, and then I followed the flow. Cool to see that naturally grasped the elements of grief, and gives something to think about in my future poems so thanks again for sharing

[royal island]

no holds barred critique wanted?

@minor breach

[minor breach]

Lmao

Sure it's a year old, dont mind for this piece

Was written impersonally

[royal island]

😁 gotta gain that license before i do

alright

[royal island]

I was doing my first reading and i prefer that to be analytical rather than evaluative but im sorry, "ears blind"? stanza 3, line 2

[minor breach]

Purposeful

Granted it's been a year and I never noted my thoughts for this anywhere but I remember it was a purposeful decision

I can come up with many interpretations off the spot like being both deaf and blind and emphasising that, as well as being a juxtaposition to cause some pause but ultimately I dont remember the real reasons

[royal island]

feels gratuitous, contributes nothing. it feels more like the poet being clever than smth that the text requires. i think "eyes blind" here wud serve the poem better. a lament/elegy like this one is not the right place for that sort of phrasing

it jars and distracts from the main poem, and feels like a mistake

anyway, first read is over, so I'll start the real analysis now

[minor breach]

Wouldnt want a double mention to eyes twice, I didnt like the way deaf felt for whatever reason but I cant remember. Perhaps there was an attempt to be mildly clever, but I dont think it was the main reason.

Also the jarring aspect is reflective of the mangled thoughts to come

Also blind and unseen link etc etc

But a fair criticsm to try remember the reason for oxymorons, and make sure they serve their intended purpose

[royal island]

thematic overview:
The poem explores the lament of a person (gender unspecified) regarding the death of the one they loved, and their regret at not having acted on their desire while its object was still alive to possibly reciprocate it.

technical overview:
the poem operates with a rhyme scheme of aabb, but no discernible meter of any kind so for the purposes of this technical analysis, we'll focus entirely on the competence of the rhymes and the content rather than the rhythm.

technical analysis:

The opening stanza places the narrator on "hallowed ground", i.e., a cemetery where the corpse of their beloved is being laid to rest. "voracious" here is not the right choice of words at all, it has to go.
"yet" in line 4 of stanza 1 is gratuitous and unnecessary, the idea is good, albeit conventional, and could be delivered more smoothly without the usage of that word.

wretched/dreaded is an excellent slant rhyme, so kudos on that. the subtlety of the first two lines of stanza 2 is excellent, and already tells the reader that the narrator is crying, rendering line 3 redundant as it explicitly states what is already implicitly implied.
line 4 is transparently for the rhyme, but it does have interesting thematic implications (a murder of crows automatically brings with it images of death).

the line 2 of s3 is the weakest in ur poem, but I've already addressed this so I won't dwell on it. on a second read, i see now that it's entirely redundant. that which is unseeable is, obviously, not gonna be something u can see and so ur eyes wud naturally be blind to it. that line has to go for sure.
"great" in line 4 here is purely for padding and serves no purpose. a more suitable adjective cud strengthen the impact of the lines. maybe "damned", "accursed"- you get the idea. also, a corpse isn't generally referred to as "remains" unless the body's disfigured in some way, or it's like ashes.

character limit met, will continue if u want me to in this vein.

[minor breach]

Yep I wrote this when I still disliked meter, I remember paying very loose attention to syllable count at most but I didnt pay much attention to flow at this stage of my writing

The sound of the rain is loud, and all consuming. Hungry and devouring of all thoughts, noises and surroundings. Voracious

I quite like the word, why do you think it's inappropriate? I think the main reason would be it's a lesser known word that could put people out of the poem and reaching for a dictionary

[royal island]

voracious essentially means hungry. the "hungry rain" is not a very clear metaphor and doesn't serve the purpose u want it to

if u wrote explicitly "the voracious rain consumes all thoughts, deafening me"- it works, but u haven't, and so it sticks out as a poor word choice

[minor breach]

Yet is a word I generally use often in speech so it's probably something that came out of habit. I like it more than "but" here and in this context I like it more than it's omission. Would you have an example concept to illustrate what you might suggest as alternatives for where to look for? I do recognise I sometimes struggle with finding alternative words to simple things like "As" and "Yet" when I start lines

[minor breach]

Hmm right this reminds me of something I read recently about being careful with abstractions and sticking to dictionary definitions in poetry. Thanks, I'll keep it in mind in the future

[royal island]

as a rule of thumb, prepositions don't do a whole lot of heavy lifting in poems. in poems like urs without meter, dont use them unless they are absolutely necessary

[minor breach]

Stanza 2: Hmm I havent quite yet achieved a philosophy for how apparent I want poetry to be. I struggle in deciding how clear I want to make things for the reader and leaving them to their own thing. This poem was me attempting "show, dont tell" for the first time, and I remember thinking about how to show they were crying without saying it.

I dont know if the 4th line was just for the rhyme haha, I do remember liking the imagery a lot but at this stage of my poetry I did form the basis of my line ideas around rhymes.

[minor breach]

Hmm Ill keep that as a loose thought to maybe expand on one day, cant say I understand yet but I imagine it's a long topic

[royal island]

that's quite common, so don't worry about it. as u grow, the rhymes will come more naturally. ur show dont tell in the first two lines is genuinely good. the way you've expressed it is elegant too, but u undercut ur own lines with the third one, which is unnecessarily explicit and mildly melodramatic

[minor breach]

Third stanza: it isnt redundant. Your ears* can catch wind of things your eyes cant see, but they are blinded here. Hence ears not eyes are more appropriate

[royal island]

i think u meant "ears can catch wind" and i shall respond accordingly. you are, of course, on point there- in which case the change i'd suggest is changing blind to deaf

[minor breach]

Great was probably from me thinking of syllable count and flow I think, and I quite liked the impact. To me it emphasised how wide the area was, how empty and exposed the person was. You're right though that thinking of more thematically relevant adjectives is a better idea

Again with remains, I think I was trying to refer to the idea of it being a corpse without using more explicit words

Since was experimenting with show dont tell imagery

[minor breach]

Yea I did mean that. I cant remember why I dislike deaf but I did consider it at time of writing and will think more on having clearer reasons for oxymorons in future works

[minor breach]

Some useful feedback, my takeaway lessons:

• Dictionary definitions with adjectives
• Thematic adjectives, not just padding
• Clearer oxymorons, dont feel "clever"
• Prepositions? A topic to look into
• Think more on Show dont tell and how much thought to allow the reader to have

[minor breach]

I honestly really loved the imagery of the 3rd line more than the other two before it

Food for thought though, thanks

Appreciate the detailed feedback and lessons

There are quite a few

You can feel free to continue giving more feedback if you'd like, since you asked. Though I remember the amount of attention to detail at which I wrote waned from here on and it'll probably be reflected in the writing

I was initially displeased with it as a result till I shared it with those with context to good responses

Though I feel like there are a few stanzas that are unnecessary and I even often forget them when I try recite from memory

[minor breach]

Though this much is probably enough to work with and you might find better use of your time

[royal island]

excellent :)

[royal island]

nevertheless, it doesn't rly add to the poem a whole lot, and the idea of "empty and exposed" does not come thru in that phrasing.
"remains" has its semantic issues, already mentioned before.
i think deaf works just fine in that context, contributes to that idea of sensory disorientment that often accompanies grief after loss.

[royal island]

it's just

conventional asf

it cud've been written in a thousand other poems

but the first two feel original

an elegant way of describing crying

[minor breach]

There's nothing new under the sun haha

Fair enough though

I have two poems I tried to convey crying in and I did find my limits trying to repeat the same imagery

[royal island]

I will continue, since you've asked me to, and i do remember mentally cataloguing a lot of lazy or forced rhymes that i cud lyk about if u want me to. but if u've given it less thought, consider if i'd be able to provide feedback that wud genuinely be valuable. if u intend to fix this piece with the feedback im providing then i'll continue, otherwise it wud be a waste of time coz it will just boil down to "be more intentional with ur word choices and rhymes"

[royal island]

also true. i myself deploy fairly conventional imagery in most of my works, and that's not necessarily bad- but you should know its conventionality reduces the power of the line, and it stands out among definitively superior lines like lines 1 and 2 of the same stanza

[minor breach]

Nah I dont intend to edit the piece, it holds a special place for a lot of reasons and I'd like it to be maintained as is for many reasons

Though Im thankful for all the lessons to take forward

[royal island]

fair enough

[minor breach]

A symbolic part of my journey as a poet

[royal island]

in that case, I'll take ur leave to go have my dinner :)

good night, and have a great day!

[royal island]

that's fair, i have pieces like those too