In midnight depths, the thoughts they fly,
Down oh so deep, then to the sky.

I think any of/all those lines could be the start of a verse.
Depending on which one you begin with would define how the story ties with that first line or you could create a journey with the poem.
You could make a poem that creates a quick punch or one that builds into a climatic drama.
I prefer the short ones, but that's just me.
I'd take each line and make a poem out of each.


I posted that late...

Avoid rhyming couplets - they tend to sound like doggeril and very amateurish.
I think it's better for a poem not to rhyme at all (but to be blank free verse) than to have the rhymes sounding contrived.
If you feel you need a rhyme, then a four line verse form with only the second and fourth line rhyming is a lot better and sounds more professional - as long as you keep the rhythm going and make it scan.

Or how about going for the sonnet format?
i.e. three four-line verses with the second and fourth line in each verse rhyming followed by a rhyming couplet at the end?
14 lines in all.
It's very classy.

Decide first on the format of your poem and what rhyming scheme if any - and then decide what you want to say, BUT KEEP OFF RHYMING COUPLETS all the way through.

quote:

Originally posted by BeerBelle:
I have some ideas but i need them sorting:

a dream so vivid it slips away
a friend so needy you turn away
a light so bright you cannot see
a taste so sweet it sickens me
a silence so deep it deafens you
a cold so icy it burns your skin
a pain so harsh you just feel numb
a child so beautiful, it makes you cry
a happy memory that hurts like hell.

I need a beginning middle and end??
Anyone help??

I alwasys go from A to Z with similar sounding words and then fit someothing around it so for example

End would have blend - fend, lend, mend pend send tend vend wend
and if that doesn't work I change the ending

quote:

Originally posted by Artymags:
Avoid rhyming couplets - they tend to sound like doggeril and very amateurish.
I think it's better for a poem not to rhyme at all (but to be blank free verse) than to have the rhymes sounding contrived.
If you feel you need a rhyme, then a four line verse form with only the second and fourth line rhyming is a lot better and sounds more professional - as long as you keep the rhythm going and make it scan.

Or how about going for the sonnet format?
i.e. three four-line verses with the second and fourth line in each verse rhyming followed by a rhyming couplet at the end?
14 lines in all.
It's very classy.

Decide first on the format of your poem and what rhyming scheme if any - and then decide what you want to say, BUT KEEP OFF RHYMING COUPLETS all the way through.

Looking at your poem so far, you seem to have written most of it in Iambic Tetrameter - i.e. 4 beats to a line with the accent on each second syllable -
de DAH de DAH de DAH de DAH
de DAH de DAH de DAH de DAH

(Shakespeare wrote his all in Iambic Pentameter - 5 beats to a line.)

If I were you I should concentrate on getting this rhythm of your poem consistant all the way through, and don't have any rhymes at all - unless you just have a rhyming couplet at the end to finish on a flourish.

thanks arty, that is really constructive.
the lines i had were just a thought dump really. not meant to be the poem as such. I was feeling creative in the middle of the night whilst feeding bubs. I wrote them down as they came into my head but in the morning i couldn't think how to sort them out.

quote:

Originally posted by BeerBelle:
thanks arty, that is really constructive.
the lines i had were just a thought dump really. not meant to be the poem as such. I was feeling creative in the middle of the night whilst feeding bubs. I wrote them down as they came into my head but in the morning i couldn't think how to sort them out.

As for the content I think you could manage without a beginning or introductory part but you DO need some sort of conclusion. You've listed all these different sensations and emotions, but you need to end it in such a way as to bring them together. End by saying what they all make you feel or what meaning they all have for you or what realisation they bring you to (nothing to do with "the goodness of god" though, please! )
You need a profound and cogent summing up. And a rhyming couplet would be good for that if all the rest was in blank verse.

the original inspiration was nothing godly, believe you me
I was thinking about a colour wheel and how colour in light is determined by wavelength and that although the extremes of the rainbow are created by short length lightwaves vs long length, they still merge on the colour wheel which screwed my mind a bit trying to logic it out. this gave me the idea that opposites can often have similar feelings. So, for examples, crying with laughter, chill burns, etc.

(I have plenty of time on my hands in the wee small hours)

Well that couold be the answer to the final couple of lines. And the beginning could be something about your tired mind in the wee small hours.
Look at Philip Larkin's poem "Aubade", how that begins. His mind also is working overtime during a sleepless night.

quote:

Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:

The title could be "Colour-wheel of life".

Best to keep poems a bit obscure - especially modern ones. Don'r spoon-feed the readers with the meaning. Allow people to put their own interpretation on the words and that way the poem says something meaningful for them.

I used to teach Creative Writing and I remember telling one teenage girl to keep off the flowery stuff and purple prose and tighten the meaning to get the piece terse and cogent.

She sent me in the usual flowery rambling poem to mark and had written a little footnote to me -

quote:

"Please Miss - I can't do terse and cogent".

well, i have hit apon a good place to ask for help with my poem then. at school i did chemistry, biology and physics for my A levels because I couldn't choose between the sciences because I loved them all so much for diferent reasons. However I also wanted to do English language or Geography (my next fave subjects) but we had to do general studies and 4 is enough for anyone so unfortunately I had to drop all my humanity subjects which is a shame.

And as for the poem, I have loads of ideas floating in and out of my mind now. (I have just been for a long walk). You have set me on a path of thought.

i will be back at some point with something else for your scrutiny.

quote:

at school i did chemistry, biology and physics for my A levels because I couldn't choose between the sciences because I loved them all so much for diferent reasons. However I also wanted to do English language or Geography (my next fave subjects) but we had to do general studies and 4 is enough for anyone

Really? No-one told me that!
I did Physics, Chemistry, Maths, English, French
and 'O' Grade Spanish in my 5th year at secondary school.

i went to a very small school too so you had limited options because of time-tabling. but still I did my GCSE in astronomy as well during my lower 6 and was still playing the piano and had a job one night a week and 8 hours on saturdays. I really couldn't have managed the workload of any more. I am totally not as clever as you!!