I’m Indigo Blue

[terence]

I’m Indigo Blue

An indigo darkness
seeps through
the overhead leaves as
a peacefulness calms
my tortured body.

My eyes reopen to
faraway pinpoints
of light above me
and below. I reach out
but my hand is
not there, only space,
and I am
alone.

[Lortimer]

I'm indigo blue...
When I first read this poem, I had
to look up "Indigo blue" on the web.
I didnt find anything until I looked into the quite
setting sky and I found it. I found the emotion
that you captured and the near minimalist
approach you took. Your poem breaks most
conventional boundaries of rhyme or capitilization
but I found a subtle rhyming scheme to it.
My only criticism is "A peacefulness calms my
tortured body" I found that the word tortured conveyed
pictures of bright red raw emotion that seemed at odds
with the cool collected flow of your poem. Perhaps you
could change that or elaborate on it. However,
Excellent job.

[jeremyf]

I disagree with Lortimer on this (I am sorry to give you conflicting advice). I think the poem stands strong for the tone/sentiment/message by remaining brief. My suggestion is that you play a bit more with the format to accentuate what you are trying to say here. A couple more line breaks or word isolations will not only add punch, but I think it will highlight feelings of isolation.
The only other advice I have is when composing a brief write, there tends to be much more scrutiny with regards to language selection. Be sure that every word has specific value.

[krake]

The concept of this seems almost ingenious to me if I read it right. I agree some punctuation or format change could help but at the same time I read each stanza as a single sentence so it may not help at all. It's almost like prose, but not.

[terence]

Thank you all for your thoughts.

@jeremy, I did pick my words carefully though 'peacefulness' may not be the most appropriate. My problem is getting across my main theme, which I don't think had been picked up yet but is not isolation or loneliness -the obvious inference. There is another interpretation, I believe, which may be clearer when tying together both stanzas and adding significance to the stanza break and title. Believe me, I am not into writing puzzles, so I may be missing a key aspect.

@krake, maybe you are on the right track, I'm not sure.

Terence

[withheldindarkness]

I like the poem a lot. My only critical point I can make is that some lines I rushed, such as "but my hand is" ... because it ends with "is" my brain automatically rushes to the next line.

I don't know if others do that but when I write I try to avoid the use of words in this manner ... as I create line breaks in my poems to stop the reader and make them think of the line they just read. By adding "is" at the end I can't but help wanting to read the next line straight away (so as to tie in the line).

As I said is my personal perference. The rest of the poem I really enjoyed, I think the beauty of the poem is the simplicity and the fact that it's interpretation is open to the reader ... my first thought was someone is sick or dying in hospital, then thoughts of being alone, depression, death etc. all rose up during and after re-reading it. Good work!

[terence]

withheld, there are various reasons for making lines break where they do, including wanting to make the reader to go to the next line or to introduce an unexpected element, and the intent you have. I am far from expert and willing to learn from others’ writing.
Your thoughts are pretty close to my intention, at least for the first stanza. The second stanza is meant to be open to interpretation depending on the reader’s faith, or lack of.

Thanks for your comments.

[rupertpupkin]

hi terence, i enjoyed this,i'm not good at interpreting poems but i did feel the sense of isolation and depair that perhaps you intended.i like the miminal approach and thought the word choices were ok.i wasnt so sure about`reopen` as one normally just `opens` their eyes,(nitpicking).good job, as always.

[scarlett]

Hi Terence,
after reading your poem several times it grew on me, however I feel it would benefit from some revision, at the moment it seems rather abstract. Why are you tortured and who tortured you?Try to give the reader something to grab hold of, make them want to read the next line.I didn't like the use of peacefulness as it seems a bit clunky and throws the flow of the poem of for me, maybe just saying a sense of peace calms my tortured body would be better, this is only my opinion though and I am in no way an expert. I am a bit confused by the last few lines, why isn't your hand there? What has happened to it? The pinpopints of light I percieve as stars maybe? But again I don't understand why they are above and below you in the beginning of the poem you describe the light through the overhead leaves leading the reader to believe you are at the least lying beneath some trees so the apparent change of location seems a bit off without an explanation. I enjoyed the vocabulary you employed in this piece. I hope my thoughts are taken in the spirit they were given, I am new to poetry forums, if not poetry, so am feeling my way in the dark a little. S

[ladylilith]

Ahhh! Terence! It's always a pleasure to read you, even when I'm asked to roll up my sleeves and go to work on a piece.

Reading the above, it feels that some had an issue with meaning? Well I kinda like it as something ambiguous, the way you have worded it, the striking colour and carefully chosen words, leave it open for the reader to take it on board as they wish. I always like that in a poem.

The only thing I would personally reconsider is the enjambment in the second stanza:

'but my hand is
not there, only space'

There's something so jarring about that line break. It's like thinking you're at the bottom of the stairs, but forgetting the final step, that icky unsettling feeling. You could make 'but my hand is not there' one line and place 'only space' by itself, which leads into the shorter lines of the end.

But yeah, that's jus tme nit-picking since I really like this as it is!

Lily^^

[ternic73]

I like this poem, I like how you chose the color and went with it. Minimal but straight and to the point

[rupertpupkin]

Oh gosh! I remember this one from the PCC. lovely poem. Well done on the spotlight

[eploscik]

I saw it as a spiritual piece, sense of calm and relaxation overcoming the tortured body. The mind being renewed yet looking for the spirit in a physical sense, without realizing it is inside of you. good write.

[terence]

Wow, I didn't think I would hit The Spotlight again, so thank you for that and for the suggestions. This is one of my favorite pieces. eploscik, it is a spiritual piece, my version of life after death, the invisible soul blending with the cosmos.