Poetry Forum

In this spring night loss
attracts loss say the chimes.

You were three days back 
on the wagon, face bruised from a fall 
you called me over to start your lawnmower.

Two moments, two embraces
when I first saw you and when I left you
we held each other like we were drowning
we said the word love.

But now you’ve let go and surfaced.
Your heart is locked back up
by your necessary self-mortification.

If you had looked back,
You’d have seen me still drowning.

I’ve surfaced now too
so we can resume our street roles 
neighbors with asphalted hearts
where our love is safely underground.

In this spring night

loss attracts loss say the chimes.



You were three days back on the wagon

face bruised from a drunken fall

you called me over to start your lawnmower.



Two moments, two embraces

when I saw you first and when I left you

we held on to each other like we were drowning

we said the word love.



But now you’ve let go and surfaced.

Your heart is locked back up

by an alcoholic’s necessary self-mortification.



If you had looked back,

You’d have seen I was still drowning.



I’ve surfaced now too

so we can resume our street roles 

neighbors with asphalt hearts

we walk across as though we were strangers.

Hey Tim-
Good piece of work. Most of my suggestions deal with some of the line breaks, and a word or two, here and there.

In this spring night, loss      I moved the first "loss" up to the first line. Below are some other suggestions.
attracts loss say the chimes.

You were three days back
on the wagon, face bruised from a drunken
fall, you called me over to start
your lawnmower.

Two moments, two embraces
when I first saw you first and when I left you
we held on to each other like we were drowning
we said even said the word love.

But now you’ve let go and surfaced.
Your heart is locked back up
by an alcoholic’s necessary self-mortification.

If you had looked back,
You’d have seen I was me still drowning.

I’ve surfaced now too
so we can resume our street roles
neighbors with asphalt hearts
we walk across as though we were strangers.  Something about these last two lines needs ???, though I can really appreciate "asphalt hearts" being a metaphor for your hearts

Thanks Mark, all excellent suggestions.  I too am thinking about those final lines.  They came out too smoothly in a way, and often those are the hardest to edit.

.
Hi TqB,
this isn't really hanging together for me (either version).
(Not a fan of the title)

In this spring night loss
attracts loss say the chimes........neither the 'spring night' nor 'the chimes' feature in the poem after this, what's the point of mentioning them?
Whatever scene it is they are setting isn't one that's developed/returned to. Why not simply start with S2?

You were three days back
on the wagon, face bruised from a fall...........this seems an unnecessary detail (and again, not something developed/explored in what follows).
you and called me over
to start your lawnmower.
(Alternatively,
Face bruised, three days back
on the wagon, you called me
over to start your lawnmower.)
I really like the 'oddity' of the lawnmower, but, like the spring night and chimes, it (largely) vanishes from the poem.

Two moments,
when I first saw you and when I left you
two embraces
we held each other like we were drowning..... (embrace connotes 'held each other) drowning is quite clichéd' and would seem to have little to do
with lawns or asphalt.
both times we said the word love.......Why not say what you said and how you felt about saying it, this line seems unnecessarily coy.

But now you’ve let go and surfaced.
Your heart is locked back up
by your necessary self-mortification..........has he/she fallen off the wagon? What's changed? And why is self-mortification necessary? That 'surfaced'
is starting to look like a pun (given it's repeated, below, with 'street' and 'asphalted')

If you had looked back,
You’d have seen me still drowning......So, first 'like we were drowning' now 'still drowning' (no like)?
And now you're the one with problems. The Stevie Smith echo isn't helping.

I’ve surfaced now too
so we can resume our street roles
neighbors with asphalted hearts
where our love is safely underground......So, a sort of 'Brokeback Lawn' piece? Lawnmower a metaphor for illicit passion and asphalted for suburban
respectability?


A brutal suggestion, discard everything but stanzas two and three and go from there.

Face bruised, three days back
on the wagon, you called me
over to start your lawnmower.

Two moments,
when I first saw you,
when I left

two embraces
two swimmers
drowning.

both times
we said 'I love you'
both times we ...


Best, Knot




.

Thanks Knot, I totally agree about title, though I'm loathe to cut the poem back to the extent you are suggesting. You are also right about the chimes, the setting needs to come back into the poem somehow. Not familiar with Stevie Smith (other than the name).  Yes, "drowning in the sea of love" is in the background unfortunately, but that's exactly how it felt to N.  And it does mix the mataphors rather artlessly, but the solution to that is a longer poem.  Thanks for your careful read and comments, I'll keep thinking about the cuts.

.




.

Hi TqB,

I really enjoyed reading your poem.

Imho, it could benefit from a few tweaks, nothing major. To start, I'm not sure when the spring night occurs, unless you're using 'night' to suggest a sad time.. I like the chimes and if you decide to keep them I'd suggest a bit of reformatting to make them a bit more chime-y:

In this spring night
      loss
         attracts
            loss
say the chimes.

Subsequently, maybe a dash after fall and a bit of punctuation and/or reformatting in the third and final stanzas, just to guide the reader through. And maybe a lower-case y at S5 L2?

I wonder whether, in place of the surfacing and drowning, you could continue with the wagon, although I'm not entirely sure how that would work with the lawnmower, which I like a lot.

Endings are often tricky. Would you consider saying something about well-kept grass? How is the N's grass? I can imagine the neighbour's is looking neat, but the N's might be less so.

I hope there's something useful here.

Thanks for the read, Leaf, and catching those things that need change.  I tended to overuse punctuation and have maybe gone too far the other way.  Have to think about the lawn idea.

p.s. if you haven't read e.e. cummings, i think you would like the way he lets
                                                                                                         things
                                                                                                                   d
                                                                                                                   r
                                                                                                                   o
                                                                                                                   p.  

You're welcome. TqB. I tend to overuse punctuation too; or I underuse it. Reading my poems out loud seems to help, sometimes.

I know a bit of e.e. cummings, e.g. the one about carrying your heart and something about flowers bowing to each other. 


I do like the d
                  r
                  o
                  p,
                  it's true