Botanica

[Pilgrim]

in places it quite sad. the potting shed a killer, i never noticed the rhymes so they worked, the meter was good, not perfect iambic but where it wasn't you made it fit well (does that make sense?) i couldn't work out why they brought you flowers from the mall, i'm guessing you used to get them from that garden, but i never saw the connect. really enjoyed the read and sorry for no line by, good to see ya back

Botanica

Oh, for a garden like the one
that lately graced our urban street;
where florabunda bloomed profuse
and finch and magpie chanced to meet.

Where citrus hung in golden globes
to cushion winter’s creeping chill,
and pansies beds assured the world pansies' beds (i think)
that spring would keep her promise still.

It’s said the man who owned it waned
from grieving for his lifelong mate;
and in his potting shed arranged
with rope his life to terminate.

They’re ripping up the garden now
to build a clutch of smart abodes
for business folk who can’t afford
to waste their time in useless modes.

So last weekend a neighbour brought
me floral tributes from the mall:
that panorama at the sink
and Monet’s garden in the hall. the last two lines (specially the last one) feel awkward, i get it, it works but i wonder if it could be better stated.

Hello, billy. Thank you for your critique.

With regard to the points you raise:

1. I spent some time pondering the pansies apostrophe, and even sought the opinion of a friend who was just as equivocal about its inclusion. As another long-ago friend once advised: When in doubt, leave it out. So I did.

2. My poem was intended to be about loss – of the garden so admired by the narrator, and of the human life which immediately preceded it. There was intended, too, to be a touch of irony – in that the real-life garden was replaced, courtesy of a friendly neighbour, by the floral prints (those ‘floral tributes’) of a panorama and Monet’s garden. Implicit in the poem was the suggestion that the narrator, for whatever reason, was unable to establish a garden of his own – perhaps he was disabled, but I left that to the reader’s imagination.

Thank you again for your critique. I need all the analysis and suggestions I can get, and appreciate every one.

Regards,

Pilgrim.