In Memoriam

The melancholic tone in your words just killed me. This piece speaks of deep sadness and emotions, and it really showed me how much this person meant to you. What he was in your life, and how you both loved each other. The part where those questions of how love many times someone can love or how to survive after love was gone, this part was so heartfelt and especially when you mentioned the things you failed to tell him that made my heart ache. Sometimes time steals away moments from us that we never get to redeem again...

[Weekly Contest Comment: 3/17/13]

The moments of complete openness in this poem soften my heart immediately....they are almost intimate moments where the poet is finally facing and staring the truth right back in the eye. I really was moved by this line: "I know I made you happy: your words always embraced me carefully." I absolutely experience tenderness here, almost as if he is acting as the safeguard to someone fragile, but that this woman has given him also a chance to enveloped in happiness. I thought the little dialogue in the fourth stanza added so much to the piece, and it's something I ask of myself. I think we are called to love, whatever form of it there is... and surviving is sometimes all there is we can do and hold onto. I literally got chills at the end of this write, when the poet spoke of how this man had confided in her that he wanted a fast funeral. Only 20 minutes. And in that short time the poet has this realization that she can't be as happy with him gone. Very somber yet brimming with a love so beautiful. What a dedication.

Oh dear, "We all live to live". Cherish all that is left.
God rest his soul

Would you like to tell me where you are now?
I could never understand why your love was
so heavy to carry in my heart.

- oh dear - I knew from this opening I was going to be affected by your poem, given the title I knew which direction you were going in and I could totally understand the tone and the pain that I picked up on right away.

Our past leaks between those poems
we wrote when you declared me your muse:
I tried hard to be pale and perfect.

- this gives us a little info on what the relationship was like, and confirms that you are aiming this poem at them and these words are all for them.

I know I made you happy:
your words always embraced me carefully.
They shall be our testimony of beauty
when nobody could pronounce
our names or remember who once we were.

- this is so touching and it shows that the love was deeply connecting the two hearts no matter what others seen or thought around you.

Somebody asked me how many times one can
love. I told him "many times".
He also asked me what we should do
when love dies.
I told him "survive".
I forgot to tell him there is nothing worse
than burying love when it is still alive.
I forgot to tell him I will miss your face,
your patriotic heart, your poetic communism.

- this is the most touching part of your poem - but also one of the most powerful lines I have ever read " burying love when it is still alive" this really tugged my heart because I know what this is like and there is just nothing as painful as it. Your whole future changes and it is a struggle to survive through it. Very nicely penned emotion here.

I know you were just a boy when
your eyes dissolved in mine.
You said you wanted a fast funeral:
It took only twenty minutes.

- the sadness continues here as you let us know they have passed and perhaps through illness since they mentioned what funeral they wanted.

It took only twenty minutes
to realize I am running out of time
to be happy again.

- interesting ending, I would imagine you thinking these thoughts during the service and while it is time to say goodbye to your love, you block this part out and focus on other things instead like what your life is going to be now without them.

I really did relate to this piece and think it was very emotional. Well done for capturing this emotion in suc a way that you draw the reader in and give them a clue as to what this is like to go through , if they have not been there.

Well done.

Karla. I don't know how many times I've read this, and how many times it's broken my heart to pieces.
I've had loved ones pass away over the years, and no matter how many times I try to write down how I feel, I never do, or I never really feel satisfied with what I've written. But this - this is perfect. Thank you for sharing it. And may JS rest in peace.