James

Like your play on “reflections” and love the way you’ve transposed the wording at beginning and end. These lines have a quiet beauty that is perfectly in keeping with the topic and your interpretation of it. Also appreciate the way the other lines are also transposed in order and meaning in second verse.

You’ve so nearly got a winner here! Please fix spelling and typos. I would also remove “and” from start of 3rd line, and “I ask” from end of 4th line. (You could keep the colon, perhaps.) I’m also not sure that “ignorance slave to knowledge” is the most apt metaphor here; doesn’t quite match “dispells” in first verse.

This poem is so worth a little bit of tightening!

All this said here is my submission…

Reflections

Reflected light
streams through the window.
and bathing the the room in light.
I sit, quietly pondering. I ask:
Light cuts through the darkness.
Knowledge despells ingnorace.
Hope conquers fear.
Is their meaning to life?

Can life have meaning?
How is fear conquered by hope?
And ignorance slave to knowlegde?
Why does darkness flees from light.
I pause and ponder the quiet while sitting
in a lighted romm, bathing
beneath the window’s stream
of light reflected.

Close, he looks nervous
Closer, secretly amused.
My smile looks happy,
reflections obscure my eyes.
Body language? We look close!

See for yourselves: http://rosemary-nissen-wade.blogspot.com/2009/09/well-look-at-us.html

(This is also doing duty as my “Tanka on Tuesday” at MySpace today – being posted to both places Tuesday 8th in my part of the world.)

With internet, you are never alone
Always accessible

Nationally
And internationally
Instant communication

Always available
Always connected

But

Never alone
Yet never present

You see people
But you hear online

You talk
But you engage online

You are never alone with internet.

The Girl In The Mirror

I looked into the mirror
And saw someone else;
Someone who was different
Alien, really, as well.
Though she was my reflection,
I could barely claim recognition;
For she seemed very pale
And quite near to depression.
That old song came back to me:
Something about reflections,
And even as I shook my head
The mirror looked back at me.

Ready to fight, fearing little.
Who to ask out, to trust and share
Jump, Run, Laugh

Yearning to Love,
Not knowing the word,
Kisses, Touches, Shivers.

Paths separate, join and dissipate,
who was first, last, or still on the journey,
Circles, Triangles and Flat lines.

Responsibilities to money,
Fights are with shadows,
Gifts, Given and Received.

Seeing change as more,
Feeling that life is won more day,
My reality is not death.