i really dig the metaphor of happiness as an elusive mistress. i can picture myself swimming harder and harder towards that giggle in the distance, only to tire myself out haha. i also dig the last line, a witty way to end the poem. it just sounds cynical, which works well with the previous stanza. kudos.

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[it's so random, there HAS to be a purpose]

- schmeng o(';'o

Thank ya!

It doesn't wholeheartedly sucks, although it could use some rescuing.

"Your life is awkward silences and embarrassments" strikes me as the most awkward line. The use of "is" and then a plural doesn't read right for me. I don't really have any suggestion of how to fix it, but it does sound weird. Maybe "is full of"? The entire stanza is probably the worst of the five.

As schmeng said, the metaphor of happiness as an elusive mistress is a good one. In a way I want that to be explored more than you do in the poem, but I understand that each stanza has to be sort of a separate idea that shifts the poem gradually through the spectrum of emotions you're portraying.

The last line is great. It ties the entire poem together, but it manages to avoid being cliché or needlessly dramatic.

--
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan

~superstitious13 and =shutterbug13 lured me here.
Maybe Dats Your Pwoblem Too

Ok dude, don't take this the wrong way, but...you are waaaay too technical when it comes to reading poetry. Poetry isn't supposed to be about proper grammar and metre and...anything else technical. Maybe if you're looking at a specific form of poetry, like Shakespeare or Italian sonnets, forms that are *supposed* to have a rigid structure. Then I can understand adhering to technicalities. But there's a reason I don't write in those forms.

I don't like feeling constrained by technicalities. That's why I never did well when it came to creative writing. The line you don't like? I'm sorry you don't like it, but I'm not changing it. It's not awkward. I'm saying that the person's life *IS* awkward silences. It's not full of them, it's not made up of them, it *IS* them.

I do appreciate your criticism, but when you criticise the technical side of it...it doesn't mean anything because unless its a glaring grammatical or spelling error I'll just leave it. Things are written the way they are because that's how I want to write them. Criticise the content, or the imagery, or something like that

I understand. I too don't really like writing structured poetry, nor do I like structured writing in any format (mostly because I'm too lazy to put any real effort into it).

On top of being too technical when it comes to analysis, I just suck at conveying my thoughts in general. I've got an inability to communicate how things make me feel, which only compounds my overtechnicality when it comes to critique (and presents serious challenges when I try writing poetry). See, I'm rambling right now because I tend to be a bit too verbose and wordy when I'm making comments. I'll seize on the smallest point in a paragraph and wander way off on a tangent discussing it, mostly to my own self-deprecation. I've tried to improve on this but have reluctantly come to accept it as a limitation and character flaw with which I'll just have to live.

Mmm . . . and there I prove the point again that I think too much.

The line genuinely didn't feel right to me. But I tried looking at it from a mechanical perspective when seeking out alternatives.

Can't get people to stop overanalysing poetry? Stop cooking with cheese!

--
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan

~superstitious13 and =shutterbug13 lured me here.
Maybe Dats Your Pwoblem Too

I hope that didn't come off as an attack or anything, because I sincerely didn't mean for it to. It just bothers me that English Lit classes tend to focus so much on the technical side of things that the important stuff gets ignored, so people don't really get how to interpret things. At least...that's how I see English Lit classes. I could be wrong, who knows.

And I can't stop cooking with cheese, that's blasphemous! I'll just bait the cooking with poison.

Nah. It did make me feel bad, but that's okay, because I'd be in a worse mood if you didn't criticise my criticism. I prefer it when people point out my faults and things about me that bugs them rather than let them slide by. It makes me paranoid when people don't. I'm addicted to honesty, sadly.

I agree about the English class thing though. I sadly await the day when I arrive in something like first year university English and have to brainless analyse mechanics like that. As I have proved, I am capable of doing it--I don't derive joy from it though. The big non-secret, of course, is that they do it this way because most people would have no idea how to interpret things. It's easier to poke at commas and segregate semicolons than it is to (supreme being forbid!) think about the significance of a piece of writing. So rather than going through the trouble of teaching us how to think for themselves, they just take our money and spoonfeed us in return.

--
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan

~superstitious13 and =shutterbug13 lured me here.
Maybe Dats Your Pwoblem Too