Eternal

[Leanne]

Edit 8/1/17 (thanks Tom)

Jess was working later than all the others
down the dockside bar on the Upper Tweed,
serving drunks and wiping up beer and vomit,
dreaming of Christmas.
 
Mike saw Jess and knew that he had to have her;
struck by love, he told her one balmy eve.
Nothing could convince him they shouldn’t marry --
destiny waited.
 
Mike and Jess forever, the perfect couple:
brains and beauty admired by all the rest.
Everyone who thought that he couldn’t keep her
said that she’d leave him.
 
Jess caught joy in sponges and wrung it into
buckets lined with echoes of laugh-filled hours,
grey now, mixed with sordid regret and silence:
memory’s cocktail.
 
Mike was waiting patiently just like always,
soon to walk her home through the darkened streets --
pretty girls like Jess need a strong protector,
safe from temptation.
 
Jess hummed bits of songs that she half remembered,
scores from operas played by the drinking crowd;
fractured carols echoed beneath the orders --
four pints of cheer, love.
 
Grandma had the girls when she worked the late shift --
double time meant Santa would come this year.
Aching feet were nothing when gifts were opened --
smiles make you pretty.
 
Every night she fended off stale suggestions --
men and alcohol make a potent brew.
She would star in hundreds of drunken stupors:
hangover goddess.
 
Light to dark adjustment is never easy --
stars, though dazzling, shine from too far away.
Jess stepped out and Mike put his arm around her:
noble protector.
 
When the knock came, somehow she knew the reason.
Two small girls in nightdresses slumbered on;
all their mother wore was her bloody wedding
ring and her silence.

Original version 
Jess was working later than all the others
down the dockside bar on the Upper Tweed,
serving drunks and wiping up beer and vomit,
dreaming of Christmas.
 
Mike saw Jess and knew that he had to have her;
struck by love, he told her one balmy eve.
Nothing could convince him they shouldn’t marry --
destiny waited.
 
Mike and Jess forever, the perfect couple:
brains and beauty admired by all the rest.
Everyone who thought that he couldn’t keep her
said that she’d leave him.
 
Jess caught joy in sponges and wrung it into
buckets filled with remnants of laugh-filled hours,
grey now, mixed with sordid regret and silence:
memory’s cocktail.
 
Mike was waiting patiently just like always,
soon to walk her home through the darkened streets --
pretty girls like Jess need a strong protector,
safe from temptation.
 
Jess hummed bits of songs that she half remembered,
scores from operas played by the drinking crowd;
fractured carols echoed beneath the orders --
four pints of cheer, love.
 
Grandma had the girls when she worked the late shift --
double time meant Santa would come this year.
Aching feet were nothing when gifts were opened --
smiles make you pretty.
 
Every night she fended off stale suggestions --
men and alcohol make a potent team.
She would star in hundreds of drunken stupors:
hangover goddess.
 
Light to dark adjustment is never easy --
stars, though dazzling, shine from too far away.
Jess stepped out and Mike put his arm around her:
noble protector.
 
When the knock came, somehow she knew the reason.
Two small girls in nightdresses slumbered on;
all their mother wore was her bloody wedding
ring and her silence.

[billy]

i remember this one, still half pissed, will get back to it

[Leanne]

cheers billy, never workshopped it so I thought I'd take it for a spin

[tectak]

Jess was working later than all the others
down the dockside bar on the Upper Tweed, I suppose there must be a reason for working late and for why "down the dockside bar" rather than "at the..." or "in the". You could name the bar, as you named the Tweed. Are we talking Scotland here, because there is a real shortage of docks in the Upper Tweed valley?
serving drunks and wiping up beer and vomit,
dreaming of Christmas.
 
Mike saw Jess and knew that he had to have her;
struck by love, he told her one balmy eve. ...but not as rare as "balmy eve?'s in Scotland. I read eve as eye. Wrong but less of a cliche.
Nothing could convince him they shouldn’t marry --
destiny waited.
 
Mike and Jess forever, the perfect couple:
brains and beauty admired by all the rest.
Everyone who thought that he couldn’t keep her
said that she’d leave him. The precipitous hint that a rhyme is coming then it doesn't is at first cute then annoying...to me, that is. Deliberate?
 
Jess caught joy in sponges and wrung it into
buckets filled with remnants of laugh-filled hours,
grey now, mixed with sordid regret and silence:
memory’s cocktail. I am liking this. It is how I would "feel" the cameo but sponges/ wringing/ buckets implies metaphorical liquid....remnants not so much.
 
Mike was waiting patiently just like always,
soon to walk her home through the darkened streets --
pretty girls like Jess need a strong protector,
safe from temptation. What's not to crit
 
Jess hummed bits of songs that she half remembered,
scores from operas played by the drinking crowd;
fractured carols echoed beneath the orders --
four pints of cheer, love.[b] The dissasociation of observer (writer) from the story is confusing. I am not sure who is saying what to whom....but worse, I think it matters to the style AND the continuity. Without quotation marks anywhere I must assume that there is no narrator yet I cannot but deny that someone said " four pints of cheer, love"
 
[/b]Grandma had the girls when she worked the late shift --
double time meant Santa would come this year.
Aching feet were nothing when gifts were opened --
smiles make you pretty. [b]OK...you are stuck with the format....but I don't have to like it. I do not like it.
 
[/b]Every night she fended off stale suggestions --
men and alcohol make a potent team.
She would star in hundreds of drunken stupors:
hangover goddess.[b] Liking this for its easy clarity but the potent word as a descriptor of a team is stretching it a little. I think another word for team would help
 
[/b]Light to dark adjustment is never easy -- [b]This is overly philosophical in context not to mention its singular lack of veracity...why is it given prominence here? It is an  unlikely scenario that after a booze'n'brawl night shift the temporary effect of darkness would warrant the protectionism described. Am I missing a girlie one here?
[/b]stars, though dazzling, shine from too far away.
Jess stepped out and Mike put his arm around her:
noble protector.
 
When the knock came, somehow she knew the reason.
Two small girls in nightdresses slumbered on;
all their mother wore was her bloody wedding[b]Oh dear, hit me for thinking  bugger not bleed...but which is it? This is, again,  open to misinterptetation...and that makes for an inconclusive ending. It is as though you know something which I do not and I don't want it to end like this
[/b]ring and her silence.

Hi Leanne,
I am going to pick at this tomorrow as Merlot mellows me. First couple of reads makes me think the intuhlektual eye glass keeps falling off. ..the observational sing-song is inconsistent ...not a lot, but enough to notice. S1 L3 jars with "Light to dark adjustment is never easy" It is a though you wrote the piece in a number of chronologically separated parts. Am I wrong?
I may be better in 24 hours.
Best,
tectak
Next day in text. Sorry about the format symbolism. I cannot get rid of them Something has gone wonky.

[Leanne]

I don't live in Scotland, you knob The Tweed River here at the coast is the border between NSW and Qld. The vernacular is specific to the place. "Where are you going tonight?" "Down the dockside bar for a few coldies mate."

"Balmy eve" is important as Mike is also a knob, although of a different sort. He sees Jess as a cliche.

Sapphic odes don't rhyme. It's about the meter:

Trochee/ trochee/ dactyl/ trochee/ trochee
Trochee/ trochee/ dactyl/ trochee/ trochee
Trochee/ trochee/ dactyl/ trochee/ trochee
Dactyl/ trochee

Will think on "remnants". How would "flotsam" work?

Nobody's saying owt to anyone. Omniscient narrator -- I guess that's out of favour with today's privilege of I.

If you can think of a substitute for "team" that's not going to screw up the dactyl, I'm all ears.

Mike is not a protector, though no doubt he thinks he is. He protects her from ever having to interact with the world again. Would it be clearer if I had "When the knock came, grandmother knew the reason"?

[tectak]

I don't live in Scotland, you knob  The Tweed River here at the coast is the border between NSW and Qld.  The vernacular is specific to the place.  "Where are you going tonight?" "Down the dockside bar for a few coldies mate."

"Balmy eve" is important as Mike is also a knob, although of a different sort.  He sees Jess as a cliche.

Sapphic odes don't rhyme.  It's about the meter:

Trochee/ trochee/ dactyl/ trochee/ trochee
Trochee/ trochee/ dactyl/ trochee/ trochee
Trochee/ trochee/ dactyl/ trochee/ trochee
Dactyl/ trochee

Will think on "remnants".  How would "flotsam" work?

Nobody's saying owt to anyone.  Omniscient narrator -- I guess that's out of favour with today's privilege of I.

If you can think of a substitute for "team" that's not going to screw up the dactyl, I'm all ears.

Mike is not a protector, though no doubt he thinks he is.  He protects her from ever having to interact with the world again.  Would it be clearer if I had "When the knock came, grandmother knew the reason"?

Oh. That's alright then...but  how come you bleedin' antipodes nicked our river...huh? Answer that why don'tcha...
Best,
tectak

men and alcohol make a potent punch....you have already had a cocktail.
... bucket filled with echoes of...after all, it is impossible to tip anything in to a bucket which is matter-full, remnants or not.

[billy]

not much by way of constructive crit. i like the way you set the drama of the poem up in the first two stanza. in the 2nd stanza the use of "he knew that he had to have her" is ominous and as such brings into the poem a darkness that left me expecting some foul deed. [as a hook for the reader to keep returning to]

the first stanza is much softer yet as telling by jess' dreaming.
till the penultimate stanza i'm led to believe they've become an item albeit with regrets.

and then the roundhouse kick of jealousy. the nobility a facetious statement. all he's doing is protecting his property. [the third stanza told me they were a couple and the last they were married]
finally gran opens the door to her battered daughter.

there is a perfect amount of ambiguity to the poem and i confess to see gran in the last stanza as being jess on the first couple of passes. and then it hit me as all good poems should. i missed the twist. the good thing about missing twist first time or two is that the reader upon discovery of enlightenment feels like they've won something, i suppose in a way they have, they've won understanding [possibly ]

sorry for not doing a line by, it was easier for me to flit from place to place.

Jess was working later than all the others
down the dockside bar on the Upper Tweed,
serving drunks and wiping up beer and vomit,
dreaming of Christmas.

Mike saw Jess and knew that he had to have her;
struck by love, he told her one balmy eve.
Nothing could convince him they shouldn’t marry --
destiny waited.

Mike and Jess forever, the perfect couple:
brains and beauty admired by all the rest.
Everyone who thought that he couldn’t keep her
said that she’d leave him.

Jess caught joy in sponges and wrung it into
buckets filled with remnants of laugh-filled hours,
grey now, mixed with sordid regret and silence:
memory’s cocktail.

Mike was waiting patiently just like always,
soon to walk her home through the darkened streets --
pretty girls like Jess need a strong protector,
safe from temptation.

Jess hummed bits of songs that she half remembered,
scores from operas played by the drinking crowd;
fractured carols echoed beneath the orders --
four pints of cheer, love.

Grandma had the girls when she worked the late shift --
double time meant Santa would come this year.
Aching feet were nothing when gifts were opened --
smiles make you pretty.

Every night she fended off stale suggestions --
men and alcohol make a potent team.
She would star in hundreds of drunken stupors:
hangover goddess.

Light to dark adjustment is never easy --
stars, though dazzling, shine from too far away.
Jess stepped out and Mike put his arm around her:
noble protector.

When the knock came, somehow she knew the reason.
Two small girls in nightdresses slumbered on;
all their mother wore was her bloody wedding
ring and her silence.

[Leanne]

Thanks billy, that's a really good reading. I don't want to close to much of it off -- I don't mind if people read it as them still being married, as them never having been married but she was married to someone else and it made him mad with jealousy, or if they were divorced and he couldn't handle the idea that she might some day be with someone else. I also don't mind if people read the knock at the door as her, coming home battered -- or if it's the police telling gran that Jess has been murdered. Any outcome is possible in a situation like this, but it's never a good one for the woman and/or children I'm afraid.

[Leanne]

Tom, changing the bucket line a bit, and the team one -- many thanks.

[billy]

which goes to the point that sometimes ambiguity adds to the poem by allowing the reader their own vision of what transpires.

Thanks billy, that's a really good reading.  I don't want to close to much of it off -- I don't mind if people read it as them still being married, as them never having been married but she was married to someone else and it made him mad with jealousy, or if they were divorced and he couldn't handle the idea that she might some day be with someone else.  I also don't mind if people read the knock at the door as her, coming home battered -- or if it's the police telling gran that Jess has been murdered.  Any outcome is possible in a situation like this, but it's never a good one for the woman and/or children I'm afraid.

[Leanne]

Almost always, frankly, as long as there are enough keys to give you access.