Pugilist

Jan 15, 2010 ⭐ View statistics (Premium feature)

The Dawn No Longer Breaks My Heart

The Dawn No Longer Breaks My Heart

The Dawn No Longer Breaks My Heart

Upon my heart a darkness dwelt
And fed me naught but misery,
I struggled not quite valiantly
And life remained unlived, unfelt.
But when I took your hand to lips
And bathed in your resplendent smile,
So was I spared from constant trial,
And breath was served in trembling sips.
So now upon my heart is cast
A new born day of bright reward,
Both faith and hope have been restored,
And I sup joy in glad repast.

---------------------------------------------

This piece is more passion poetry I wrote as an exercises in the form a few months back and now I am slowly revisiting and cleaning things up.

The goal of passion poetry is to evoke feeling and communicate emotion but to have a shelf life and an audience that exceeds that of lust and love poetry. This is written in tetrameter with an ABBA rhyme scheme. I have found the ABBA rhyme scheme masks the sing-song feel of the ABAB or similar rhyming patterns.

For folks who wonder, I am of the opinion that most relationships are about lust and disappointment. They are began as overwhelming emotion and end in resentment. And while I am a huge fan of lust, passion is what turns lust into something sustainable.

Passion is about thought and planning and appreciation while lust is about satiation. And as I have said before, while lust may lead you to regret, I have never looked back on any action of passion and thought "that was a bad idea."

So I'll continue to play around with passion poetry in hopes that I may improve my craft.

— Pugilist, Jan 15, 2010

About This Poem

About the Author

Region, Country: Jacksonville area, FL, USA, USA

Favorite Poets: Keats, Kipling, Carroll, Yeats, Tolkien, Shakespeare

This user supports Neopoet so it can be free to all

Critiques

raskin

16 years 4 months ago

Nice sentiments

I like the term resplendent smile, that is a great phrase. I am working on rhythm and I'm curious about the rhythm you used here. I am always amazed at how someone can work a rhyme. raskin

Ink Dragon

16 years 4 months ago

Jonathan,

I do admire a good consistent metre, and you have pulled it off well here. The only thing that doesn't sit quite right with me is the final line. Despair is gone, joy in its stead. I think this is due to its elliptic structure and would vastly prefer a complete sentence here, something like "Where despair dwelt, joy now resides", though this may not be completely satisfactory, considering the chosen structure. Hoping you can work from there and come up with a much better line... Yours, ~Nina

Jonathan Moore

16 years 4 months ago

Last Line

Good point on the last line. I've updated it for now but will continue to think on the structure. Thanks for the commentary. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Kailashana

16 years 4 months ago

Who woulda thunk? Passion

Who woulda thunk? Passion poetry from our resident Pugilist? Jus' kidding. You done good. The last line...try something totally different for you... totally *out of the box*.. It just doesn't have the right *punch*. ~A

Jonathan Moore

16 years 4 months ago

I am full of many things

Surprises being just one of them I took what you said to heart on the last line and so extended the metaphor began in line 2, furthered in line 8 and, I hope, confirmed in line 12. My initial review and consideration of an hour or so indicates this is a smoother ending and supports the image without overstating it. Your thoughts are welcome. Thank you for the review and commentary. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Kailashana

16 years 4 months ago

Are you now?Very very

Are you now? Very very nice...Jonathan, I'm impressed, (she said knowing full well Jonathan doesn't do impressions...._ For another possible variation on the theme: And (so) I sup joy. *my* glad repast. Of course this totally breaks the 8/8/8 you have going... and/or using *my glad repast* is a bit more personal. Just throwing more thoughts your way. ~A I

Jonathan Moore

16 years 4 months ago

It is always appreciated

Both feedback and thoughts, and thanks for enforcing the last line needed work. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Skumpfsklub

16 years 4 months ago

Sweet, Jon, very sweet

There remains some awkwardness in L8, but it seems to me no problem that you can't iron out if you agree that it's a problem at all. As it stands, I find myself needing to downshift at the beginning of that line. A pause only, but annoying to me, as the rest of the poem is such an easy ride. The piece works. It conveys masculine surrender to tender feeling, quite unlike that easy surrender we see in similar poems from the distaff side. (We were trained to shun such sentiment as boys, weren't we? I wonder what rationale lies behind that weird pedagogy. And I wonder how many of us scrotal types never manage to get shed of that training). I don't suppose that is your main point, but it is the point that I took first from this piece. The observation about ABBA vs. ABAB rhyme schemes is useful. The 'sing-song' problem is greatly reduced--but I think it never really quite goes away when the line length is short. Tetrametric lines are right on the edge, I think; you make for yourself a more difficult technical problem with a tetrametric ABBA than you would have with a pentametric ABBA, as there is less room for maneuver, as through word choices and rephrasings. Perry

Jonathan Moore

16 years 4 months ago

Before I read comments, I reread the piece

And damn it if I did not have the very same stumbles. So I will take it apart and smooth it out and see what I can see. And I agree, tetrameter does give me less wiggle room. I've been playing around with pentameter as of late so I will probably swap between the two and may reserve tetrameter for blank type verse and narrative poems and move to pentameter for most passion poetry that happens to rhyme. Thanks for the review and comment. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Kailashana

16 years 4 months ago

I forgot to mention. The

I forgot to mention. The title is totally kick arse. ~A

Jonathan Moore

16 years 4 months ago

Danka

I spend a lot of time and thought for most of my titles and am always happy to see them appreciated. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

lyz

16 years 4 months ago

Ah!

The hidden heart of passion. Well get your feather duster out and bring it on. Lovely to see you and your poetry finally gracing these pages again. I enjoyed reading and wonder, was there a love behind these words. I hope so. Love Lyz. XX

magics02

16 years 4 months ago

Loved it

Pugli I just read this poem and your comments and let me tell you I know now deep inside your heart lies a great poem as this. I really like it very much so. Ms Mona

Jonathan Moore

16 years 4 months ago

Updates

After puzzling over this poem for the last 11 days I believe I have addressed the flow issues noted. Hopefully, in the modifications, I have not created additional issues but any critique is welcome. To answer a question poised above, this poem is not about any person. It is an idealised vision or romantic passion akin to the concept proposed in the Renaissance era where a man might spend time and effort to honor the ideal of a specific woman without ever pursuing her. The purpose of passion poetry is not to express feeling for a single person but rather to express feeling in hopes that others might understand the intent and be inspired by it. Love and lust poetry is about people, passion poetry is about emotion. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

magics02

16 years 4 months ago

Thanks

Thank you Pugli for this update and it makes a great amount of sense here. I would like to see more of this kind of writings myself. I like the passion poetry..... Mona

Skumpfsklub

16 years 4 months ago

That works.

Diminishing returns hereafter, Jonathan. I don't see any burrs, and I can't feel any when I recite it. Done poem. Perry

Jonathan Moore

16 years 4 months ago

Agreed

And thanks for the push. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Pamela A. Lamppa

16 years 4 months ago

wonderful poem of love and discovery.

How beautifully elegant and gentle. My favorite line in this one is: "my breath was served in trembling sips" That simply set up such an amazing image of vulnerability as well as acceptance. Lovely meter as well in ABBA rhyme scheme. Could go on forever in this wonderful poem of love and discovery. I enjoyed this very much. ~Pamela

Jonathan Moore

16 years 4 months ago

Thanks

I appreciate the review and critique. And an extra thanks for gleaning the emotion that inspired line 8. During the re-write and smoothing out phase, I was afraid I might have to lose the reference but I took extra time because of the encouragement I got from solid critique. Had there been nothing but praise offered from all quarters I would have believed the poem was finished when I first posted it and I would have missed the opportunity to make it better. And that may be fine for some folks, but I'm here to write better, not just OK. Thanks again for the review. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Jonathan Moore

16 years 3 months ago

Minor change

Line 8 was originally: "My Breath . . ." The mouth movements required for "My Breath" added a stumbling feel to the poem when spoken aloud. The substitution of "and" brings the lips closer to the position required for the word "breath" thus allowing smoother diction. At least that's what I feel at the moment. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

Tam the Chanter

16 years 3 months ago

dialect

Jonathan, I really like your Elizabethan foray. The one thing I find strange is L7, which, to my speech, needs another syllable, say, "So was I spared from constant trial". Or is that just a Scotsman trying to get as many words as possible for the same price? lol Regards Ian

Jonathan Moore

16 years 3 months ago

Actually, I think you are right

And this is a case of dialect. "Trial" to my ear is one syllable while "fire" is two but the dictionary insists I am mistaken. This is a case where I will have to go with my ear because I agree, the sentence feels short. Plus, who wouldn't want to get a free syllable? Thanks. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)