After the anniversary

[Philatone]

V. 2 all present tense

after the anniversary


Our vase is empty
like a womb.

Petals limp from the counter
as her water is unhooked

and released into the sink.
We find her a cabinet

to stay where dust grays
every curve of glass

behind a thick door to silence
the thirst that will come;

day or night,
shadow hollows her stomach

into a quarry
where roses once opened,

blossomed, kneeled,
and hung.




original
edit: changed "our" to "Our" (aish, billy)


Our vase is empty
like a womb.

Petals limped from the counter
as her water was unhooked

and released into the sink.
We found her a cabinet

to stay where dust grays
every curve of glass

behind a thick door to silence
the thirst that will come;

day or night,
shadow hollows her stomach

into a quarry
where roses once opened,

blossomed, kneeled,
and hung.

[Aish]

our vase is empty
like a womb.

Petals limped from the counter Your verb tense changed here.That being said, I enjoy the correlation between empty womb and 'water was unhooked'
as her water was unhooked

and released into the sink.
We found her a cabinet

to stay where dust grays
every curve of glass Curve foreshadows hollow nicely.

behind a thick door to silence Excellently melancholic strophe. Thirst conveys many levels of need and obsession.
the thirst that will come;

day or night,
shadow hollows her stomach From here to the end I was breathless. I love the juxtaposition with quarry/roses. The softness of a full 'blossoming' womb makes the hard hollowness all the more rough.

into a quarry
where roses once opened,

blossomed, kneeled,
and hung. Immediately brought to mind an infant strangled by its own umbilical cord.

Hi, Phil! This is a really wonderful, painful piece. I digested it as the anniversary of a stillbirth, and as such (for me) it's quite effective. The only nit I have is I think you should capitalize the opening line.

[Philatone]

hello aish! thank you so much for the time, read, and words!
I can certainly capitalize the first line; ideally, i wanted the title to run into the poem, but perhaps the separation is too much. thanks also for sharing your thoughts; it helps me to see the piece in a new way myself

[Aish]

*sheepish* The title did run into it for me. It comes across loudly for me as a solemn anniversary.

[billy]

our vase is empty
like a womb.

Petals limped from the counter
as her water was unhooked

and released into the sink.
We found her a cabinet

to stay where dust grays
every curve of glass great image,

behind a thick door to silence
the thirst that will come;

day or night,
shadow hollows her stomach

into a quarry
where roses once opened,

blossomed, kneeled, should it be knelt?
and hung.

i like it, i think it's more tongue in cheek than profound. it almost an anthropomorphism of the vase and works well.
it could be read on a few levels though for me it's straight forward and fun. "you put the vase away when the flowers were dead" no nit's really. it did make me think which isn't hard to do
personally i'd have a preferred the cap
thanks for the read.

[Philatone]

billy

hey, switched the cap. I'm going to stick with kneeled (trying to bring your British influences on me, eh... )--honestly, I like the sound of it more than knelt in this line (not for every case; just this one)
glad it could make you think, i'm always down for that. thanks for the time

[addy]

Loved this. The imagery was quiet, vivid, and affecting all at once. You were able to convey ideas of fullness and emptiness in cleverly subtle ways. Instead of turning on and off, everything was upending, blooming, dimming, etc. What I found most distracting was the tense shifts throughout the poem, as Aish already pointed out. Stick to one and it'll probably flow easier

[tectak]

our vase is empty
like a womb.

Petals limped from the counter
as her water was unhooked

and released into the sink.
We found her a cabinet

to stay where dust grays
every curve of glass great image,

behind a thick door to silence
the thirst that will come;

day or night,
shadow hollows her stomach

into a quarry
where roses once opened,

blossomed, kneeled, should it be knelt?
and hung.

i like it, i think it's more tongue in cheek than profound. it almost an anthropomorphism of the vase and works well.
it could be read on a few levels though for me it's straight forward and fun. "you put the vase away when the flowers were dead" no nit's really. it did make me think which isn't hard to do
personally i'd have a preferred the cap
thanks for the read.

I'm entirely with billy on this one. Any poignancy or painful interpretation is, of course, subjective....but read as is, there are no complaints. I will never get used to your line breaks being no more than affectation of yours and I challenge anyone here to tell me how the piece is improved by such stylistic idiosyncrasies as:

"day or night,
shadow hollows her stomach

into a quarry
where roses once opened,"

Answers in a plain brown envelope.

In spite of

my obvious inability to
reconcile myself to acceptance

of your foibles. I believe that
this is a goer. Best,

tectak

[Philatone]

addy (+aish)-
will have a look at the tenses. think i'll keep it present. Thank you for the kind words and time!

tec-
we can agree to disagree on the breaks, though I'm working on a piece that I think will be somewhat closer to what you favor. I'm glad that no other complaints come to mind as of now; thank you for your time and critical eye, as always. They are appreciated!