Blue Lady 3

[velvet_morph]

This is the original. I am still working on editing 1,2 and this one. As usual, any feedback is appreciated. I know that it is too rhymey and Hairy MacLearyish. I am working to remedy this.

Blue Lady 3


The shepherd’s nose twitches high in the air.
It smells so familiar but there’s nothing here.
Bounding down, through the blades,
nose to the ground as sunlight fades.

Men in red follow the hound
to a secret place rarely found.
Hooks and knives lay oddly strewn
with rod and sack, and unseen tomb.
The hound found a scent down quite low
Where the boy once stood, just three days ago.

The men hike down to where soft
grass gives way to jagged rocks.
A shouting searcher by the bay
covers his mouth, turns and groans.
But others see him; they know what’s there
some feel sorrow, others fear.

The lady took him to her bed
then spat him out all ripped and red.
The day’s run out, they need to haste
and bag what’s left, his life erased.

At home the dust is swept from the photo box
where his memories are seen through wailing eyes.
A mourning mother’s mourning tear
a mourning father’s morning beer.

The men in red leave blue lady’s breast.
They gather the boy and leave the rest.
She watches, quietly musing
she wants to take one of her choosing.

Calmly stalking from her bay
She wants to take one but not today.
“Respect the lady” she hears some flack
as man in red shouts, “Watch your back!”

[tectak]

This is the original. I am still working on editing 1,2 and this one. As usual, any feedback is appreciated. I know that it is too rhymey and Hairy MacLearyish. I am working to remedy this.
Some obvious nits, velve. In text. In the end, it just became to much. Forgive me. You need to consider making every word count. Keep the imagery clear and describe what you see in your mind's eye...then read the whole thing out loud to a stranger in a bus queue. If he moves away rewrite it...unless the bus comes before you finish it.
Best,
tectak
Blue Lady 3


The shepherd’s nose twitches high in the air. Hard to imagine. How high is this nose?
It smells so familiar but there’s nothing here. My dog has no nose. How does it smell? Terrible...tarahhh! No to this if only because noses smell...and also because the last word COULD be "there".
Bounding down, through the blades, You are a rhyme whore. This is a double-forced rhyme. Change both line end words to avoid this disaster. eg "Bounding along through grass thick with scent,
                                                                snuffling and sniffing; dogmatic intent." Your poem.
nose to the ground as sunlight fades. Boring cliche to boot

Men in red follow the hound We know they are huntsmen so just say so.
to a secret place rarely found. You say the same thing twice. Of course it is a secret if it is rarely found...otherwise we'd all find it and it wouldn't be a secret. Again, you are rhyme-challenged. If you can...do. If you cannot....er...try harder
Hooks and knives lay oddly strewn Why "oddly"? Tell me how. I cannot imagine what an "oddly strewn" collection of hooks and knives look like....nor can I imagine what on earth they are for. Will you tell me? We shall see.
with rod and sack, and unseen tomb. This is becoming cringeworthy but I admire your persistence. Kindly meant, maybe rhyming is not your thing.
The hound found a scent down quite low Read this. Just WHAT does it mean? The bloody hound has his nose as low as it can go without ploughing a furrow.
Where the boy once stood, just three days ago. What boy? You use the definite article but I have not been introduced. A boy.

The men hike down to where soft
grass gives way to jagged rocks.
A shouting searcher by the bay
covers his mouth, turns and groans.
But others see him; they know what’s there
some feel sorrow, others fear. You have given up and so might your reader. This is a hotch-potch and near criminal use of grammar and syntax. I am afraid that this stanza needs a rewrite. It is work in progress, I know, but you CAN do it.

The lady took him to her bed
then spat him out all ripped and red.
The day’s run out, they need to haste
and bag what’s left, his life erased. Ditto last stanza. What lady? Who are "they"? How far did the day run? Whose life? You do not say. This is a massive disconnect because YOU know what you are seeing in your head but you are not telling the reader.

At home the dust is swept from the photo box
where his memories are seen through wailing eyes. A wailing eye? I do not think so...even if I think with both legs
A mourning mother’s mourning tear Awful....I mean, really awful. Contrived beyond reason for the next nonsensical line. No to this
a mourning father’s morning beer.

The men in red leave blue lady’s breast.
They gather the boy and leave the rest.
She watches, quietly musing
she wants to take one of her choosing.

Calmly stalking from her bay
She wants to take one but not today.
“Respect the lady” she hears some flack
as man in red shouts, “Watch your back!” Speechless. Sorry. Very sorry.

[underthewronghat]

This is the original. I am still working on editing 1,2 and this one. As usual, any feedback is appreciated. I know that it is too rhymey and Hairy MacLearyish. I am working to remedy this.

Blue Lady 3


The shepherd’s nose twitches high in the air.
It smells so familiar but there’s nothing here.
Bounding down, through the blades,
nose to the ground as sunlight fades.

Men in red follow the hound
to a secret place rarely found.
Hooks and knives lay oddly strewn
with rod and sack, and unseen tomb.
The hound found a scent down quite low
Where the boy once stood, just three days ago.

The men hike down to where soft
grass gives way to jagged rocks.
A shouting searcher by the bay
covers his mouth, turns and groans.
But others see him; they know what’s there
some feel sorrow, others fear.

The lady took him to her bed
then spat him out all ripped and red.
The day’s run out, they need to haste
and bag what’s left, his life erased.

At home the dust is swept from the photo box
where his memories are seen through wailing eyes.
A mourning mother’s mourning tear
a mourning father’s morning beer.

The men in red leave blue lady’s breast.
They gather the boy and leave the rest.
She watches, quietly musing
she wants to take one of her choosing.

Calmly stalking from her bay
She wants to take one but not today.
“Respect the lady” she hears some flack
as man in red shouts, “Watch your back!”

I'm going to agree with tektak to some degree, though I get that you have some sense of what's at issue here.  Sure, you have some forced language and trite imagery here and there, but though it may get a rough comment or two, you have a concept, you have a form, and now you're off and running.  Kudos for wrestling with the difficulties of a lyrical ballad.

I was recently reading some interviews from Don Henley about "Hotel California," its meaning, and inspiration.  He was commenting that they were really trying to engage all the five senses in that song, "Warm smell of colitas," "I heard the mission bell," "Cool wind in my hair," "Mirrors on the ceiling, the pink champagne on ice," etc...  The theme, of course, is hedonism and the dark side of success / excess.  Anyway, (to tektak's point) I think you could take a note from that ballad which is, perhaps, equally dark and lyrical.

It can be interesting to say that there is a "familiar smell," if there is a subject from which we might ordinarily remember a scent.  As you have it, it starts out a little too cryptic.  Now that's weird to say, because Hotel California certainly has its cryptic moments, and we're all fine and happy with that ballad.  I think your ballad has a good parallel here (with Hotel California) in that it starts with a discovery, and then unfolds.  Now it may be a little weird for me to compare your work to a top 10 radio hit, but when you write a lyrical ballad, let the whole genre inform you.   In this case, I think you should maybe take a nod from Mr Henley, and start out with plain language over the discovery (perhaps giving the five senses more of a ride), then let yourself become more allusive and metaphorical over what conclusions / implications you draw about the themes as they unfold.  I think you might have spent a few too many lines to "find" the boy.  That might need to get condensed so that it happens sooner.  Likewise, I think you need to spell out the "Blue Lady" reference, and we might need to know exactly how the boy died.  It's a sad tale, and ballads tell tales, so tell it...

Regarding the content, currently I'm uncertain over the many aspects of the narrative in the poem.  A boy is dead, I'm guessing that the Blue Lady *is* the ocean?  The men in red must be rescue professionals of some sort.  I have no idea why there are knives and hooks and an "unseen tomb."  They gather the boy, and --what are they leaving?  Not sure about "watch your back," in reference to the sea.  "The mourning father's morning beer" is too stray for us to place in the narrative. His mom loved him, but his dad was an alcoholic?  That doesn't seem to have any relevance in the poem.

Now on the off-chance that the "Blue Lady" is actually a metaphor for something else in life that kills us, I definitely think you will need to make that connection stronger.

You do create some wordy moments while trying to succeed the rhythm:  the "secret place rarely found," as opposed to the secret place that is actually found quite often?  That kinda thing.  That creates a more forced or convoluted feeling in the language.  And your diction gets a little stretched around 

Now I tend not to like poems with such heavy rhythms and rhyme schemes, but that's only because they are hard to pull off.  I love Paul Simon, I love The Eagles, and that's pretty much all they do.  So I'm actually  not going to tell you to  change the form.  It's nice and dark, and aspires to put itself in somewhere in the ballpark with Major Tom and The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia...

--sorry if this is a hurried critique, hope it helps a little  :-)