Just for a night-- edit 2
#2
(01-30-2014, 08:14 AM)justcloudy Wrote:  Wednesdays in dreamland her neck cranes
upwards, drops down in time with the plane
crashing into her parents’ alfalfa field.
Tonight it’s orange and purple: FedEx,
smashing through the noontime clouds

For me these build up lines are convoluted and drag a bit. The weekday, the neck craning, the plane colors and the gifts of... strike me as non-germane. I think you can contract a whole lot. Let the FedEx plane crash into the alfalfa field in two-three lines, reveal that it is a dream directly through absurdities, instead of stating it. The snooze will let the reader know soon anyways. Perhaps add something heart-attack like, such as a motorstop, if you need it for the pacing

bearing gifts of-- morning talk show intrudes
so she slams on snooze, clinging In the poem it seems like the interruption precedes the dad (rather than the reverse), so you cling to an unstarted dream sequence of dad when you press snooze. If you subtly planted the dad in the beginning this might be more elegant and bring the reader closer to the intended experience. But of course since this is a repeated dream, the dreamer knows what to expect.

onto daddy standing in his checkered shirt,
hand covering eyes from burning glare, Is the glare from the crashed plane? Maybe this could be made more obvious by some small modification.

heart still unattacked. This is a key line. Keep it short.

He chuckles that the scene smacks
of that dream she always has, shaking his head
as he laughs, just like he did
sixty-seven days ago.

I think the ending could be improved by a stronger sense of location than "that dream" and "the scene" which both strike me as rather abstract. Maybe a specific word or two about the location and environment would be enough. You could use something symbolic like a burning teddy, a piece of the plane in the narrator's bed or what ever.
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Messages In This Thread
Just for a night-- edit 2 - by justcloudy - 01-30-2014, 08:14 AM
RE: Just for a night - by MissingBob - 01-30-2014, 11:11 PM
RE: Just for a night - by justcloudy - 01-31-2014, 07:04 AM
RE: Just for a night-- edit - by billy - 01-31-2014, 12:22 PM
RE: Just for a night-- edit - by Erthona - 01-31-2014, 03:06 PM
RE: Just for a night-- edit - by justcloudy - 01-31-2014, 08:50 PM
RE: Just for a night-- edit 2 - by justcloudy - 02-01-2014, 12:10 AM
RE: Just for a night-- edit 2 - by tectak - 02-06-2014, 01:11 AM
RE: Just for a night-- edit 2 - by justcloudy - 02-06-2014, 08:26 AM
RE: Just for a night-- edit 2 - by billy - 02-06-2014, 10:04 AM
RE: Just for a night-- edit 2 - by justcloudy - 02-06-2014, 07:28 PM
RE: Just for a night-- edit 2 - by justcloudy - 02-08-2014, 01:21 AM



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