Overall I really enjoyed your poem. I think you succeeded to write a poem with "heart" (sorry for the cliché) without being cloying, and that's not an easy thing to do. My interpretation of the poem would be that this is about the last day of an old woman, who is brought home by her children or family from the hospital/nursing home to die. The poem seems to describe the rituals of everyday life, but in a meaningful, 'hypersensitive' way, the way someone who is about to die would perceive it.
My main problem with the poem is that I found some of the images overly cryptic (I have noted them in my feedback) but this is personal, and other readers may think differently.
My main problem with the poem is that I found some of the images overly cryptic (I have noted them in my feedback) but this is personal, and other readers may think differently.
(10-26-2013, 06:39 PM)wystan1000 Wrote: All through Christmas her lips sharp
over the Daily Mail, dry
of refused, sweet sherry. Refused I found intriguing: was it refused to her in the hospital/nursing home?
And it was: “These days,”
it’s all just take,
take, take,” and, “no one knows me
in the town no more,”
As our saucepans simmered
breathed spiced smells, cabbage,
sprouts, kitchen steam and sweat.
And the husks of bright paper
filled the floors.
Now, she holds boxed-up gifts Excellent transition.
in her passenger's lap; the flat
tombola kind: hanky set,
stationery, Yardley
talc. We’ve made little purchase
on her wants.
The aghast, bare shapes
of elms rush by
and raven-crews sweep
the pink earth
for mine-bugs. I couldn't really make sense of the last five lines and they felt a bit unnecessary for the whole.
Her home, and
Dad gone to open gates.
The door slams, engine fan drones
on middle G for twenty seconds, groans Really liked the "musical" element connected to the sound of the fan drone.
down.
Alone, history riddles her again:
Jim
their holidays in France,
gloved hands
on the wheel;
administering a border,
sweet Williams, stocks.
His hands on her.
The smell of his pipe,
greasy tweed, molasses-
sweet. They meet and marry over
and over, two gymnasts on a zoetrope. This last sentence I didn't fully understand but somehow felt very expressive: excellent!
And though he’s dead these past ten years This line feels a bit unnecessary and unwieldy.
she could walk grief-hazed
over a headland
as soon as going in the lounge,This line and the one that came before are a bit too cryptic for me.
if she were a stronger woman.
A slow progress to the house
she almost treads a homemade candle
with a scrawl-note from Kath’s kid next door.
Dad hands it her, pressing hope. Pressing hope is one of the only phrases in your poem that feel clichéd. Maybe try to describe this particular hope without naming it.
Yet, when she dies they’ll find it
with their haul, unopened
in tall boy drawer
shut up in her room.