Gentle wind
persuading
a dark cloud.
A robin listening
for motion
in the ground.
Smoke drifting
from an unseen
barbecue.
Neighbors watching
the same channel
in separate houses.
A basketball
bouncing from
a narrow rim.
Street lamps
preparing for
haloed vigils.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
i think this might be more evocative in present tense. and i think the first stanza doesn't quite make grammatical sense. i love the neighbors watching the same channel in separate houses, and does the boy really need to look "nervously"? the adverb takes away from the "unrepentant" in the next line. i love the ending, except maybe go for more the image rather than commentary? like, each in its own solitary halo? too many syllables, but you see what i mean.
and that is why I have you read my poems.
aaaargh, I like "each equally alone"! This darling I cannot kill. And it is sort of supposed to be imagery because the street lamps are at equal distances from each other on the road.
i agree about present tense (although I'd like some of the images to be joined on a different level by using participles--I'll show you what I mean). also that the first stanza should be cleaned up. otherwise, everything in this poem can be taken at face value until the last two stanzas; maybe you could remove "unrepentant" instead of "nervously" (since a boy can be observably nervous, but a sky cannot be unrepentant) and remind the reader of the connection to the first stanza in some other way. I'm also not sure if the "grill" is a vent in the ground or a cooking grill, although it seems likely that you mean the latter due to the neighborhood context. Also, it seems unlikely that someone would be mowing lawns around the same time that the street lamps turn on, but I'll leave that up to you--maybe you can show more of a progression in time to the whole thing. Here is an example revision:
[I'm not sure what you're trying to say in the first stanza. Don't call the wind "subtle," though--maybe "gentle"?]
Gentle wind;
dark lines
in every cloud.
Four blackbirds pace,
a robin listening
for what they missed.
A bit of smoke
from a barbecue
somewhere nearby.
Neighbors watching
the same channel
in separate houses.
The boy mowing lawns
glances nervously
at the sky.
The street lamps
guarding the light
of their separate halos.
i like what dan did with the verb tenses, i should have been more explicit about what i meant by present tense. and i really like the "gentle wind" version of the first stanza, except it doesn't fit the tone of the thing, it's too "lotusy." maybe it's just because of the semicolon and the "every" cloud. i like "separate" halos. masie, stop preaching with "equally alone."
I like it better now, thanks guys. The barbecue stanza still feels awkward. Like it?
yeah, that one doesn't sound quite right. i think it's because it explains too much about where the smoke is coming from. maybe you could say smoke drifts along with the smell of barbecue, or something along those lines.
what do you think of this for the last stanza:
The street lamps
prepare for their
haloed vigils
I like it.
Post a Comment