september plane to boston

[midnightcowboy]

you don’t seem happy anymore,
yet more bottles of alcohol still lay on the shagged floor, 
moments of clarity from you are thought to have never happened before,
and a moment of still soberness still, behind blue bus doors.

yet you,
you still drive hours inside a truck,
hoping that one night, you’ll get hit or struck, 
hoping that one night, lightning would hit your course, 
hoping that one night, you’ll reach the mile they autopsy your corpse,
 
yet you, you never really had a moment of happiness before? 
Such words can’t be true, such words must be tailored. 
Such words must realize they’re entire existence is some unorthodox-cry-for-attention 
letter.
yet they don’t, fleeting cries of laughter are extended to his name,
“you don’t seem happy anymore” she says, 
he responds with 
“that’s why i’ll happily crash like a September plane”

[Knitrockbottom]

I generally like the flow of this, but find the first two stanzas a little more difficult to follow than the last. The first has some convoluted language that I think could be rewritten to make more sense. I appreciate the rhyming but it definitely feels forced in the first and even second stanzas. I really like the repetitive nature of the second, as it feels very pressing and urgent like the character spoken about is trying very hard to get to something, that being death. However, the rhymes still feel very forced and take me out of the narrative. I really like the final stanza. It flows even better and the metaphor comes across much better when allowed to follow whatever form it wants to take. Overall, I think it's very poignant and I like it a lot, just a few tweaks and it could be spectacular.

[Trillium]

This is my first critique post, so please bear with me. My favourite line of the poem is “you reach the mile they autopsy your corpse “. I think the pairing the idea of travel ending in death (autopsy) was creative. I found parts of the first stanza challenging. You use the word “still” three times which becomes unnecessarily repetitive. It seems that you are talking about someone who is unhappy and drinking so I found the word “yet” in the phrase “yet more bottles….”  Removing the word yet makes the meaning clearer to me- saying yet seems like it is a surprise rather than an expected consequence of being unhappy.

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An additional note, as a reader I am stuck on the phrase “you drive hours inside a truck “. On the first few reads I thought it might refer to a truck driven for work. After a few more reads I was wondering if it was someone driving aimlessly in their own truck- looking for something, driving aimlessly, looking for death. I really want to know if you mean “driving in your truck “ or “driving your rig/delivery truck “. I think knowing the role of the truck changes how that stanza is interpreted.

I looked up references to plane crashes and September, I am assuming you are referring to 9/11. Very powerful reference in the context of the poem - it is more than unhappiness. Good job.

[hyperviolet]

overall great, but it falls apart grammatically in a few places:

you don’t seem happy anymore,
yet more bottles of alcohol still lay on the shagged floor, 
moments of clarity that still from you are thought to have never happened before,
and a moment of still soberness still, behind blue bus doors.

yet you 
you still drive away the days in your inside a truck,
hoping that one night, you’ll get hit or struck, 
hoping that one night, lightning would strike hit your course, 
hoping that one night, you’ll reach the mile ^that they autopsy your corpse,
 
yet you say you never really had a moment of happiness before? 
Such words can’t be true, such words must be tailored. 
Such words must realize they’re their entire existence is some unorthodox-crying-for-attention 
letter.
yet they don’t, fleeting cries of laughter are extended to his name,
“you don’t seem happy anymore” she says, 
he responds with 
“that’s why i’ll happily crash like a September plane”