All Comments on 'I never'

A pretty simple and straightforward pece here, one that does it's job tastefully. It didn't really reach me emotionally, but the last stanza is still outstanding. In fact that could work as a standalone poem all by itself.

I really liked this..the deceptively simple words brought the message across most effectively.

*chuckle*

Funny, a previous comment opines that the last stanza could stand alone. I think it's the opening stanza, or perhaps the first two.

This might be a rather morbid thought, but those first two lines struck me as worthy of an epitaph. Okay, yes, that's definitely a morbid thought. Regardless, it was a beautiful sentiment that you expressed. I only wish this review was as succinct.

I never...looked at darkness as an equal to light, for some reason. Things are with light or lacking light, maybe, but never darkness as an entity equaling the power of light. Now I'm all twisted up, but I expect that from you Doc. Nice poem. I'm glad that you didn't 'never' forever.

~lucky

How do you blend light and darkness so seamlessly without producing gray?

I guess I should scroll down past the dirty stories more often. I've neglected the poetry forum. This one is worth multiple readings. Thank you.

I wonder how this was so completely missed by so many. Excellent work, Dr. I will pester you no more! lol Thanks.

made me think...Sabina

I don't usually browse the poetry submissions.

Glad I wandered over here... this is a poignant little gem.

This poem was mentioned in the Archival Review thread, in a picking through Lit's archive of over 36,000 poems.

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A very complex poem (as if you didn't know). It kind of morphs from one thing and becomes another. I find myself wondering who set silence free, who brought you out of that box when you began to write. Leighlilly

Here is a poem in which the narrator wishes he could have undone all that he speaks about and at the same time is aware of the futility of this wish. By changing and acting, any act, something positive is done -even the act of the negation itself. When memories are painful we do our best to hide it -first and foremost from ourselves. What is so enticing in this poem is that with the simple tool of double negative, the raw pained message becomes obscure, exactly as a pained heart needs it to be. <P>

The strongest example to this veiling technique is IMO in the last stanza: “I never missed you till I didn’t look/ and there you weren’t” which could be ‘translated’ to (more or less): 'when I did not look, you were gone – only then I missed you'. Painfully clear, but who needs that much pain? As I mentioned in other occasions the efforts to remove or deny the pain are usually (at least for me) the most touching of any direct statement. <P>

But thematically, the act of writing as compensation and eulogizing for a loss comes right at the beginning and it culminates in the third stanza: "I was silence in an unfilled space / the light without which darkness sees" Only in silence can one find direction in the dark; becoming aware of any other sound to be directed by. Still, the act of ‘speaking’ now, negates that past silence and yields the narrator blind to that past unique seeing. It is parallel to the last stanza where another act which breaks away from the previous status quo proves to carry grim consequences. The loved one, unlike the narrator has not stepped up with him. She has not set the silence free there fore she is still silent – and in the internal universe of this poem worlds away from him

so few words,expressing deep thoughts. as usual from you doctor,your give me something to ponder on.again thank you.

Such a quiet poem. Still I hear echoes of your erotic stories between the lines, between the words.