Spirit Checking

[Mark A Becker]

Spirit Checking

My childhood home
hums like a low dial tone.

The living room
died with the TV on.

Your easy chair
looks worn out from long nights.

The very air
smells rank with holed up mice.





Spirit Checking

My childhood home-
no longer full of sounds.

The living room
feels unfamiliar now.

Your easy chair
looks worn out from long nights.

Stale, musty air
that smells of hidden mice.




Spirit Checking

My childhood home
no longer makes a sound.

The living room
feels cold and lifeless now.

Your easy chair
looks worn out from long nights.

Stale, musty air
that smells of hidden mice.

[tectak]

Spirit Checking

My childhood home
no longer makes a sound.

The living room
feels cold and lifeless now.

Your easy chair
looks worn out from long nights.

Stale, musty air
that smells of hidden mice.

Very few nits with this, mark. It is a tough call to offer up changes in short form. Nonetheless:
S1. Consider the concept of silence. There is a difference between the silence IN a house and the house itself making no sound.I think you mean the former but you write the latter.
S2. The living room FEELS cold (but is not) or IS cold? Ditto as above.
S3 contrarily does not a sentence make. Do you care? I do not.
Best,
tectak

[Mark A Becker]

Thanks Tom!

Your comments hit squarely on the places that I want to revise, and I will do so soon. The changes are only two or three words away now, and I believe that I'm pretty close. We'll see...

.... Mark

[Erthona]

Mark,

This is a nice piece, although a few bumps here and there. Some suggestion to smooth the reading, mostly my sensibilities rather than anything hard and fast. 

My childhood home
is no longer full of sounds. (Not a sentence without a verb.)

The living room
feels unfamiliar now.

I see your easy chair;
looks worn out from long nights passed.

Stale and musty air
that smells of hidden mice.  (I think in such a short sentence putting "that" between the noun and the verb weakens the sentence.)

Dale

[Mark A Becker]

Thanks for the comments Dale-

I've revised the first line into a complete sentence.

As a slave to my own challenges, I will maintain the syllabic structure of this piece: breaking each line into 4 syllables + 6 syllables.

The secondary challenge was to have the poem "disintegrate" to "air", while invoking a different sense in each line, and that is easy to maintain.

I don't mind being slammed for adhering to a rigid form, because I think that I can convey the tone and meaning while doing so. I set "rules" for the form, like shaping a glass. Then I pour in the words and remove the glass, hopefully making the form less visible. Virtually every poem I've ever posted follows a pre-determined pattern. (As I get older I've softened that approach). Enough on my "style", as style is a whole nother topic...

Thanks again,
... Mark

[tectak]

Thanks for the comments Dale-

I've revised the first line into a complete sentence.

As a slave to my own challenges, I will maintain the syllabic structure of this piece: breaking each line into 4 syllables + 6 syllables.  

The secondary challenge was to have the poem "disintegrate" to "air", while invoking a different sense in each line, and that is easy to maintain.

I don't mind being slammed for adhering to a rigid form, because I think that I can convey the tone and meaning while doing so.  I set "rules" for the form, like shaping a glass.  Then I pour in the words and remove the glass, hopefully making the form less visible.  Virtually every poem I've ever posted follows a pre-determined pattern.  (As I get older I've softened that approach).  Enough on my "style", as style is a whole nother topic...    

Thanks again,
... Mark

Hi mark.
Final response from me. I would go with dale on this one. Poets create the most complicated reasons for doing what they do. If they only do what they do for  themselves then we can do no more as  crits. In the final analysis any piece that explains itself in the poem is fine by me...but if I read it out loud and stumble then I have a choice....put up or shut up. Small matters of poetically subjective correctness, whilst  mentioned if noticed, are forgivable...but there is always a "proper" way. Short form verse is  by nature a magnifying glass for nits...and we are talking nits here. But who likes living with  nits?
Best,
tectak

[Mark A Becker]

Point taken Tom-

Thank you,
... Mark