Blood and Pain

[BigRich200]

Fireworks in the sky
Sparklers sitting on the kitchen table,
No use for them tonight, ‘cos I’m all alone.
A phone call’s never quite the same.

Fireworks on the TV screen,
Happy smiling faces,
People laughing, people crying.
No-one really knows why.

I’m sitting alone, drink in fist.
I’m sitting alone, hand on heart,
Praying for a new beginning,
Praying for a new start.

So many memories of the year now gone.
So much heartache, so much blood and pain.
So few smiles, so few happy moments,
So maybe here we start again.



This was written by me last Fireworks Day as I was sitting alone, desperately missing my daughter, and thinking back through the last year of a messy divorce, unpleasant custody battles, blood and pain.

Comments welcome, as always.
~BigRich~

 

[Fairytat]

Fireworks in the sky
Sparklers sitting on the kitchen table,
No use for them tonight, ‘cos I’m all alone.
A phone call’s never quite the same.

"Call's" is possessive so instead just write out "[a] phone call is..."

Fireworks on the TV screen,
Happy smiling faces,
People laughing, people crying.
No-one really knows why.

You don't need to capitalize every word on the left. If you wrote this in a word program, often times they do that automatically. It is distracting to the eye as we are conditioned to see Capitalized letters as the beginning of a new sentence.

I’m sitting alone, drink in fist.
I’m sitting alone, hand on heart,
Praying for a new beginning,
Praying for a new start.

This stanza might do better if you would put it in earlier. The reader has a sense of your desolation already and it would be a tighter poem if you mentioned this a few lines earlier.

So many memories of the year now gone.
So much heartache, so much blood and pain.
So few smiles, so few happy moments,
So maybe here we start again.

This is stanza could be cut out completely and wouldn't be missed. Since you already mentioned "praying for a new start" it is a bit redundant to state "so maybe here we start again."

Fireworks in the sky,
on the TV screen,
happy smiling faces,
people laughing,
people crying.

No-one really knows why.

I’m sitting alone,
drink in fist,
hand on heart,
praying for a new start.

Sparklers sitting on
the kitchen table,
no use for them tonight,
‘cos I’m all alone.

A phone call is not the same.

BR --- I took the liberty of rearranging your poem just to show you another way to write it. I do not presume to know the best way but hope you will use this suggestion as a guide for tighter writing.

 

[BigRich200]

Thanks Fairytat.. I've never seriously written poetry, and have certainly never had any of my material analysed to any degree....

I'm not quite sure I like all the re-arrangements you've made, but I shall bear your comments in mind when writing in the future.. My style of writing has always been just to sit down and write when I feel like it, and not to think about what or how I write, and so you're quite correct - I need to be far tighter..

Thanks again
BigRich

 

[Star At Sunrise]

Makes me think

Hi rich interesting poem.

It was effective in the way that it was heartfelt. I could tell that you posted your poem just to share and less for discussion and analysis. It's a sketch of your feelings at the moment.

But I'm guessing (I'm still realitively new) that this thread is more for feedback and discussion, in the fact that the poets really want to be critiqued in order to become a better writer, or to edit and improve an exisitng poem.

 

[The Huntsman]

Rich

This is a great start, and even better because of its source.

Thank you for opening up a significant pain to the world.

When I began reading, I immediately thought of "No Quarter" - "lock the door and kill the lights/ no one's coming home tonight."

I would like to focus my attention on the final stanza.
I think I need a more abstract image of the pain, the drawing of the blood, to believe or empathize with the presupposed torment.

I like the direction: the positive affirmation at the end.
But the "hope" is glimpsed against our better reason. What process, synthesis, or replacing structure is going to get us through this dark stretch of sea?