Yuki Kokoro

*is still running away, but next time she runs past Katzaniel she tosses her a 7-up*

From one penguin lover to another, I wish you luck and hope to see you around more soon.

I've been promoted for a whole two days and didn't even know it! I feel so unworthy. I'll try hard to live up to my new rank from now on though. I think I'll start by going and checking out the spiffy new Athenaeum, now free for my profaning eyes to gaze upon. *gazes profaningly* Seriously though, thank you! I feel honored and I think I'll have to keep the scroll we were promoted on. *stuffs it into hammer-space* ...although.... I'm a page? Does this mean I have to run errands for senior members?! *runs away from the pile of errands and paperwork carrying Elders and Quill-Bearers she can feel stalking her.*

Ditto One pre-comment however: "and my eyes fumble clumsily, tripping over her face and connecting with her eyes" Really cool lines, I liked the personification and it illustrates the idea well.

In general, nice job with the revision, it's always cool to see someone put the time and effort into reworking something. The punctuation helped and good catch changing: "but destiny forced upon us/ by unknown forces" to: "but destiny forced upon us/ by unknown powers". It reads better without the repetition of "force". I also liked your revision of this sentence: "while knowing/ that I don't belong/ in this time of age". I liked the conversational style of this phrase more than: "not belonging in this/ time of age". I prefer it because it sounds more personal. I also liked the ending: "Living in the light, loving the dark...", it just appealed to me. Good job.

This is a something I have often thought about. Without the unknown, without something to dream about and search for I think it is easier to become jaded. We don't know where to go from here. We think we see the whole world and there is nothing worthwhile in it, nothing to hope for, nothing new and fresh. Sometimes leading to: "No gallantry, no romance/ No honour, no goals". For me this ties back to the same thing, but is phrased in a way to make you consider the values of conflict. No war, struggle, fear or strife sounds so good, but it leads to the same thing as later in the poem. Nothing to strive for. I also liked the lines: "Just earning a living/ Just forgetting to live", it appealed to me the way a form of repetition was used to emphasize how different two such similar words are. Reads smoothly as well. Nice poem, I enjoyed it greatly (as I also enjoy many of the poems you post as replies).

Those descriptions gave me goosebumps; you do such a fantastic job with imagery. It's used very skillfully to show just how incredible the main character's senses are, up to and including feeling heartbeats across a war zone. I also thought: "Landing on all fours, then pouncing forward, he was off again" gave a good impression of his movements and skill. Reacting so quickly and precisely to any situation. I really liked this line too: "The longer he remained alive and advancing over the three hundred meters of broken ground, the more targets he counted." This brought a mental picture of more and more soldiers coming into focus until his vision was covered in them. You have a talent for writing absorbing and creative narratives using a style that lends itself to the tone of the piece. As always, wonderful story, I enjoyed it.

Thank you everyone! *runs and huggles everyone in the room, with a special huggle for Alaeha* I've never found anyone who shares my birthday 'til now. My day has been pretty good and has the possibility of getting even better now that school is over. *goes over to the game stations and starts wading through games* Have a wonderful time at the party everybody! ~ On a side note, swim practice and school work have been taking up large chunks of my time so I'll be commenting much more rarely, but I do still drop by to see what's going on and hopefully things will taper off a bit soon.~

This is wonderful, I loved it. The easy flow was great, as well as the clear thoughts and emotions. I really liked the line: "is your love what I'm trying to find?" That sense that what you're looking for may be right in front of you is a common one; it's hard to change comfortable relationships though. Fear is always a factor. Also: "Are you forever made to be my friend/ or are there lines we forgot to read between?" This was a great set of lines and a fitting way to end the poem. The questioning of possibilities sums up the rest of the poem well and I liked the reference to reading between the lines. It's an often used concept but this phrasing was unique and made me smile. Once again, very nice poem, and welcome to The Pen.

Very nice first poem. Turning something abstract like the wind into an active particpant appealed to me. I liked the idea of wind carrying a person's thoughts and feelings, or at least a hint of them. The last stanza was great as well: "Avoiding the clues/ I don’t want to know/ If I may have your love/ I can let the wind go". This idea of not wanting to know how she feels, but at the same time wanting to know, because what if she loves the speaker. Also, don't worry about your poems being adequate, the writing community here is for all levels. Whatever you write is adequate as long as you're working at the craft.

*laughs* This was great. Skipping right to the end I think I understood the last line.. maybe. “You should take my experience as a lesson.” I can see the connection to the way many stories do give advice through example, whereas here it is just stated. Do you mean a story looses its appeal when it gets preachy? Or that advice is taken to heart more easily through a narrative? Or that pushing advice on other people is counter-productive (because the speaker never got around to the story)? Okay… so maybe I didn’t understand. My only clear thought was that it was a humorous and fitting end. I actually found the advice rather interesting, all the concepts that seemed mutually exclusive but really weren’t. “You should take every sentence and analyze it. You should just take the piece in as a whole.” and “You should pay attention to the narrator. You should question his reliability. You should also trust him.” It seems like you can’t do both, but really they are just very difficult things to master, looking at details and the big picture or trusting while questioning. I also liked the line: “You should base thought on experience, and experience on thought.” Nice piece and a very entertaining read.

From the very beginning I connected very deeply with this poem, it made me want to laugh, but also to cry. The loss of childhood or innocence is something I find to be a very emotional topic, and you dealt with it very elegantly on a deeply personal level. This part: As well as this: Made me want to cry. By the end of the poem my throat was getting tight. It's so hard to grow up and it sometime seems that the world has set out to rip away our childhoods. Our wonder at the world fades, and the squeals of delight become rarer and rarer. It reminded me of one other book that inspires these same feelings in me: The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Standing back and looking at this poem technically, I also think it flows beautifully. You cover a lot of different ideas in this poem and the transitions are seamless and natural. It's a wonderful blend of poetry and story-telling. The feelings of the speaker come through so clearly as well, and the detail given to the actions of his younger self make him a rich character in his own right. Everything is so personal and heartfelt. My conclusion is....you should post here more often. I went back and looked for some of your other poems and found The Old Bridge, which was also wonderful. Hope to see you around and my profuse compliments and thanks for sharing this.

This is hilarious! I was thinking about how emotional this image is: "Curled up in a ball. Waiting. Hoping, to hear your footsteps, In the hall," so when I hit the end it was just great. A nice melodramatic build-up with a flat, irritated ending. Great use of expectation.

I liked this image of a maze of walls so that the voice reaches the center, but the person cannot. Also, the broken lines and rhythm of this piece helps show how set and rigid the speaker is, adding to the concept of withdrawal and walls. Nice poem overall and it's good to see you applying.

This could be interpretted as lullaby, but it also sounds rather like a warning. With: "Disturb not the balance/ Make not the slightest sound/ And death shall hear you not". Like something a prophetess or something would tell a mythical hero. Cool, cool.

I really really liked Realization. I found the command/explanations very creative and they contributed a lot to the poem. It turned the tone into something like a computer analyzing life, the very brief concise observations and questions added to this impression. I also loved the concept of this passage: This idea of including the first part of writing the poem in the poem made the opening very relatable and personal. I think it's always interesting being given a glimpse of the narrative that runs through a character's (or poet's) head. Abandoning one voice and rebooting, starting another, I really liked that idea. I'd also second Wyvern's suggestion, if you have anything else to say on this topic, please elaborate, I'm sure it would be fascinating. What is there is tantalizing because it's obvious that there must be so much underneath. Last thought: "Then again; What is life..; Does the unobserved exist?" Of course they exist to them. However, since they aren't observed they don't exist to us and their existence can't be proved. It's all relative. Very original poem, I enjoyed it.

Excellent, excellent, excellent. I love it! Forsaking handshakes for hand holding; the physical difference isn't much, but the emotional difference is incredible. Nice way to tie back to the beginning while bringing it to a conclusion. I also liked the concept of a "tender touch" crumbling "granite gestures". Other favorite lines: The concept of transforming gentle chimes into echoes. I found it fascinating how well you turned this concept of distance into an audible comparison, sound fading into an echo. It was striking and memorable. "I would playfully shove, and dance, and tackle". Playful love comes off as very sincere to me because that represents more of a comfort and happiness rather than a generic "I want to hold you and kiss you and love you, etc". Playful love is so.... adorable, especially tackle (and glomp, but that wouldn't work well here ). That's all person preference though. Along the same lines of personal preference I have a few suggestion-type comments. This line: "stony as a sea urchin chasm" struck me as out of place and seemed... forced. Sea urchins drew me out of the poem because they seemed a bit random and "sea urchin chasm" isn't a concept that helps me understand the concept of stony, seems more... prickly, or maybe hostile. The only other thing would be the use of the word "bulge" in the second stanza. It changed my perception a lot because it doesn't fit in with "convey unspeakable truths" or "slip, converge, loosen, part". They seem hesitant, but more graceful, which played well into "faded spark of a moment" in my mind. That's a very elegant passage and bulge struck me as out of place. Though that may be how you meant it. Random thought: "...that separates souls from soft spoken words" Nice consonance/alliteration. Again, wonderfully intricate poem and I really loved the concept.

I went back to swim practice for the first time in over a year and survived! *in the midst of her joy she falls over backward and hits the ground with a thud and a whimper* It hurts, but I'm proud of myself.

Catchy and entertaining, I really liked: The last line was unexpected, but fits quite well, we girls can be very corrupting.

*Yuki shows up just before the end of the day to give you her best wishes for the year to come* Happy Birthday! You're an inspiration for commenters everywhere.

As soon as I saw this I knew I had to reply, but now that I find time, even a week later I still don't know what to say. From the very beginning this poem drew me in. The first two lines are wonderful, an excellent opening. "We’ve got people growin’ up to be toddlers/ We’ve got young kids old enough to fight in our wars". I've often wondered about this. Many adults are so childish that children are disillusioned and forced to take on more responsibility than they should ever have to deal with. The other line that really hit me is: "And it seems... the only way to win is by giving up". This is such a great expression of how resignation sets in and why people stop caring. This one line encompasses a whole generation and the country or the world will pay for it, and in some ways is paying for it. Also, with the election going on this sentiment: "When all you need to be a leader is a catchy phrase and a hansom face" resonates as well. It's frustrating when everyone complains that elections have become a popularity contest, but vote on the same principles themselves. "And only try to not get lost/ In this burning, churning avalanche of time" This hits close to home as well. You do a great job with this view of life as a desperate struggle trying to find anything to hold onto. It's hard when nothing seems solid enough or worth trying to keep. This is so wonderful and like X-Saber I wish I could give you something more critical than spitting back my interpretation, but I just related to a lot of it. This seems like a poem people would look back on to show the attitude of the current time. You capture so much in these lines, the attitude of a generation, or at least a significant portion of it. Wonderful poem.

This is wonderful. An excellent expression of that trapped feeling protection sometimes brings. I especially liked: "All wrapped up in case one breaks" and "force on to me everything they've known". It's a hard struggle, but as strange as it seems sometimes as humans we do have to fall and hurt ourselves before we can really understand and learn. After all, just because a certain action lead to this at one point, doesn't mean it will always lead there. The cry of: "Blind to every opinion but there own" and "they will never understand me" is something everyone goes through as they grow up, but remember that although you have the right to make your mistakes, protection is just another way of showing love.

This is excellent. I loved the topic and especially the pacing. It opens with a quiet scene then pans in to look closer at the pain hidden beneath the peaceful exterior. All the visuals complimented this sense of zooming in and your attention to detail made this almost into a movie or at least a painting. The ending also very well-done and haunting. I really liked the leaves shivering in the breeze. It makes you wonder what has happened in the forests we walk through and whether the trees remember. The rhyme scheme was impressive as well. It seems surprisingly unforced for such a rigid structure and flowed very well. That also gave the piece an older feel which I felt complimented the poem very well. Again, wonderful work.

Enjoyable poem. This came across as very emotionally because the undertone I hear shows that this is a person who is trying to remind himself all the good things about the end of this relationship, but inside is very hurt. However, the last line almost seems honestly relieved/calmed/comforted, I'm not sure why it read that way for me. The last line is also very intriguing because it could've scared the speaker because s/he wasn't ready for a relationship, or because s/he was sure it would end eventually, or because it felt like true love, and that's always scary. The title was very good, expressing the idea that only now are they getting to know each other, how ironic and strange when it works out that way.

I liked the last two lines a lot. I think they added depth to the poem and for me it was much more emotional with those last two lines expressing the common feeling of how painful it is to try to convince yourself something is other than it is. We know it is not and trying to lie makes the truth hurt even more. That repetition and idea in general was a good way to end the poem, rather than with: "A lonely tear, streaming down my face". My only question is... what's the significance of the title? I'm not sure whether I missed something that should be obvious or this has personal meaning for you. Thanks for sharing the poem.