Writing Return of the Alyssa's Poetry! {E}

[Zhara]

[COLOR=Indigo][FONT=Garamond][B][CENTER]Phantasmagoria[/B]

[SIZE=3][I]A dream-filled slumber
Eerie fantasy induced by beauty
It?s vivid and true
And all about you.

We ran through an orchard
Filled with cherries and lace
An orchestrated opera
High notes and low

The fantasy ends
Chaotic percussion
And I awake to thunder[/I][/CENTER][/SIZE]

I like this one...I think I wrote it when I started dating my boyfriend. Not really a story behind it, I just pulled it up out of the depths of harddrive abyss.

You're right, Mitch, it does look better with the hyphen.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[2010DigitalBoy]

Oo, I like this one. I like the orchestrated opera line, that made it seem really cool. My only complaint is that it was so short I couldn;t really get into the mood of it, but other than that, really nice. You may want to up the font a bit, it's hard to read. Also, what does the title mean?

[Mitch]

The second stanza was the higlight of this poem. I thought the use of language in that stanza is more along the lines of poetry. I say this because I've been reading a few poems on here, and most of them have been layered with abstract language that feels more like nonsense and doesn't touch on anything [i]real[/i]. The other two stanzas are a mixed bag, and aren't as good as the second.

In the two other stanzas, yet again you, like others, rely on abstract words - such as "dreams" or "fantasy" or whatever else - and don't give them any material essence and so those two stanzas are much more muddled than the first. My suggestion is to try to find fresh images (like those in the second stanza) and use them, since that's the bread and butter of poetry.

I do like its shortness and how you seemed to have chosen your words at least somewhat carefully. The rhyming in the first stanza "true/ you" felt pretty forced, and as a reader I was wondering then if you were going to follow a pattern and rhyme in the other stanzas, too. You might want to get rid of the rhyming, because I feel it doesn't add anything to the piece, and "true" isn't giving any essence to the poem at all since it's just an abstraction and doesn't have anything to make it concrete in there. I also believe "dream filled" should be "dream-filled" (with the hyphen). That's how I've often seen it.

[Zhara]

[COLOR=Indigo][FONT=Garamond]I think you're right Mitch, I do tend to kind of force the ryhmyes and then forget to rhyme the rest of the stanzas...'tis a curse of the most profound portions. Anyways, I dunno what I'm going to put here, I guess this time I'll just let it flow, seeing as how I'm supposed to be doing, like, four essays and I really, really need a break.

Oh, and Tical, I can't do long poems, I'm just not good enough. <.<'

[SIZE=3][CENTER][I]So different,
You and I
Like chocolate and vanilla
Love and lust.

But everytime someone mentions
The strangeness of you and I
I tell them how well
Chocolate vanilla swirl tastes.

You should see the look in their eyes
Like they think they know
How love is meant to be
"Red and blue don't mix"

So they think we're violet?
It's my favorite color, you know
So I think we're just fine,
I love you.[/I][/CENTER][/SIZE]

I'm eating vanilla ice cream... I ♥ Alex! (I was totally just pressing buttons when I tried to make that heart! I don't even know how I did that, I just pressed Alt and some numbers! Freaky...)[/FONT][/COLOR]

[2010DigitalBoy]

I'll review this one stanza at a time...

1. A good basic introductory stanza, though you start with "chocolat and vanilla" and "love and lust" but only the first gets used throughout the rest. Perhaps instead, "love and lust" could be replaced with "red and blue" so that both are repeated. Or, to go more extreme, the first two stanzas could become.

"So different,
You and I
(something else)
Love and lust.

They say we're like chocolat and vanilla
so strangely different
But when they say that, I remind them
How good chocolat vanilla swirl tastes"

Or something to that effect. That way you would eliminate the strange repetition.

2. I liked this stanza, though the last line is a bit longer than the others, which threw me off at first. It is good, though as I said, that repetition feels a bit strange.

3. I really like this stanza, the "red and blue don't mix" line I thought was really cool.

4. The first three lines, I thought, were really pretty and don't need to be changed, but the "I love you" at the end seems like you just threw it in for the sake of having that there.