their way to love

[Ike]

I agree with colm, this one is not the best in my opinion. "sliver of breath" is beautiful and its use in the first line works to draw the reader in very well. I end up doing the light and darkness thing a lot so maybe Im more apt to notice it but I can't help but feel there are better word choices (maybe i'm projecting). I like that the idea recurs subtly going forward with "translucent" and "opaque" however. That was very well done. It gets clunky for me around this point. I feel as though something similar to

drawing them opaque after love's history shown through stained glass like the painting they saw the day following their cold november fight

for lines 4,5,6 would help tie together better and more smoothly. You also kind of lose me after "caspar david friedrich picture" that doesn't read well and comes off as pretentious. This, interwoven with no grammatical foundation leaves me wanting, but not receiving, the finale that the beginning deserves.

[Dave]

No worries Colm
Good to have a range of views and criticisms, helps keep the feet on the ground.
Dave
 

[Dave]

Sorry Ike. Just saw your comments. Thanks. Useful. Not sure I agree with everything but that matters little - for example, there is not much to be done with the idea of pretention, which does not resonate with me except to say that any ambition for our feelings is pretentious and the couple, who in my mind#s eye are young, are naturally pretention.
While this point is as valid as any, the rest is more useful to me. Thanks
Dave

[Tracy Mitchell]

Dave - if there are specific paintings which this poem references, and I suspect there are, then it would be interesting if you could either post the pics, or links. Just a thought.

T

[Dave]

Casper friedrich david the seavof ice not sure how to link it yet and of course the sunflower by van gogh. The other painting is fantasy

[Tracy Mitchell]

Cool. Thanks.