Poetry Forum

Small Victory

Underneath our boxwood
the fox napped all day long,

and dreamed that life is good
now that our dog is gone.

(07-30-2023, 01:34 AM)Mark A Becker Wrote: [ -> ]Small Victory

Underneath our boxwood
the fox napped all day long,

and dreamed that life is good
now that our dog is gone.

I can relate.  We were without cats for a short time and very quickly there were chipmunks everywhere.  I miss them.  Life is full of tradeoffs, I guess.
Enjoyed the read!
Steve

(07-30-2023, 02:03 AM)brynmawr1 Wrote: [ -> ]I can relate.  We were without cats for a short time and very quickly there were chipmunks everywhere.  I miss them.  Life is full of tradeoffs, I guess.
Enjoyed the read!
Steve

Thanks Steve-
Interesting to me is that our cat and (our) fox had some epic battles.  Poor fox was only working for a living, and wanted nothing to do with an attack cat. 
Now that the cat and dog are gone, the critters have moved right back in. Foxes are my favorites. I'd swear that the cardinals and bumblebees recognize me, too.
-Mark

(07-30-2023, 02:47 AM)Mark A Becker Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-30-2023, 02:03 AM)brynmawr1 Wrote: [ -> ]I can relate.  We were without cats for a short time and very quickly there were chipmunks everywhere.  I miss them.  Life is full of tradeoffs, I guess.
Enjoyed the read!
Steve

Thanks Steve-
Interesting to me is that our cat and (our) fox had some epic battles.  Poor fox was only working for a living, and wanted nothing to do with an attack cat. 
Now that the cat and dog are gone, the critters have moved right back in. Foxes are my favorites. I'd swear that the cardinals and bumblebees recognize me, too.
-Mark

I love this poem. I won't say any more about it than that. I don't want to fuck it up by talking all over it. 

With regard to pets and wildlife, we had a big dopey pit bull (he sadly died this year) and I swear he was so chill the chipmunks and squirrels barely acknowledged his existence (and he plain didn't acknowledge theirs).

(07-30-2023, 04:47 AM)Kynaston Levitt Wrote: [ -> ]With regard to pets and wildlife, we had a big dopey pit bull (he sadly died this year) and I swear he was so chill the chipmunks and squirrels barely acknowledged his existence (and he plain didn't acknowledge theirs).

Hello Kynaston- I'm glad you're on board with us- always good to have more eyes and ideas.

Sorry about your dog, as they have a way of working deep into your heart, and most pit bulls I've known have been great dogs. Yeah, a little dopey, but super friendly.

I used to say that our retreiver, Jack, was little on brains, but big on heart. He'd chase squirrels all around our yard, but wouldn't even blink at 'em on the trail.

(07-30-2023, 01:34 AM)Mark A Becker Wrote: [ -> ]Small Victory

Underneath our boxwood
the fox napped all day long,

and dreamed that life is good
now that our dog is gone.

This is a delightful little poem.
I like the detail of ‘boxwood’ - it grounds the poem in reality.
The last line is a clever reveal.

(07-30-2023, 10:55 AM)busker Wrote: [ -> ]I like the detail of ‘boxwood’ - it grounds the poem in reality.
The last line is a clever reveal.

True story. Sometimes a simple observation is easy to put into words. Seems odd to even claim it as mine since it popped out fully formed- took less than 5 minutes to write. And that happens very rarely. But I'll take it when it does.

So here’s another thing that I liked -

The dog being being gone is a sad reveal. The fox snoozing happily is like something out of loony tunes. It’s cute and funny. Your loss is the fox’s gain. The circle of life and everything. It’s not the message itself, which is not new, but the clever way that it comes across.

As you hinted in one of your comments, the secret trigger is the word 'our'.

Good observation rowens. ‘the’ boxwood and ‘the’ dog would’ve de-personalized this.

I’ve written so many syllabic poems, that I hadn’t noticed that this was 6 per line until after I wrote it. The rhymes just easily fell into place, too. If I could just get more poems to pop out like this one did I could save myself a lot of time. But that would take a lot of fun out of it, too.

I have a book by John Hollander that has the different kinds of forms talked about and demonstrated. I played around with it years ago and made some passible stuff. I have a book I work on off and on where I might take advantage of that kind of stuff.

Listening to people read poems out loud gets you in a rhythm. I can feel rhythms through my body when I'm writing that tell me when to break lines and how to punctuate. Going from marching band to jazz band as the content and context feels.