A Crofter Dies edit 0.0001abu

[tectak]

I've nae grievance to cite against this poem.
So be it. Though it pains me, me hats off my head;
exposing the hairless waste, a shinny* dome.

dae


* yeah, so what, I use it with purpose!

You liked it, then?
Though that would not be considered valid crit and I would need to ban you...Ah, how fortune swings the points; stars by night, lodestone by day. North by north east...we tack the winds, that once blew us the other way.

---

Oh, I'm in love with this one. The varied line lengths and rhyme pattern hold my interest and never disrupt. Is this a specific form or what can become of forms once they are learned so thoroughly you can depart from them to the poem's advantage? This one makes me read it over and over, it's a pleasure.

For my read something seemed to be missing between shins and fought.

"The heather, higher than his shins, fought his feet and snagged his stride."

Thanks for the fine read.

Donald drew a cross-line through the six stiff days that passed him by;
each week so marked detached him more
from where he once thought he might die.
He rubbed the lines and felt the stone beneath the crack-crazed beige.
(Like salt-pans dried by long, hot days;
like clay-split land in summer haze;
like fractures in a pond-ice maze.)
Donald, there’s the door.

Donald placed his hazel hand upon his staff of willow whip;
he hoist and hauled his aching bones,
through strength of will, with trembling grip.
The blanket fell about the floor, he upright stood in night-tight clothes.
(Like soft bark on Sequoia grows;
like water round a smooth rock flows;
like sepals on an early rose.)
Donald’s leaving home.

Donald never turned his head, but steadfast walked into the sky;
no tears squeezed out from those grey eyes,
that further might his sight deny.
The heather, higher than his shins, fought his feet and snagged his stride.
(Like briars hook from every side;
Like blackthorn stems the fiercest pride;
Like….but no…sweet suicide)
Donald lived…then dies.

Tectak
A tale in the Coylet Bar
2014

Hi ella and thanks for struggling through this one,
The rhyme scheme is mine until I am advised otherwise and was really born out of meter...which comes from closely listening to how people tell each other stories in pubs and interject when they feel they have something to contribute. I like the off-rhyme and wish I was better at it but
A
B
A
Cb
Cb
Cb
Cb
B
works for me. The Cb thing is not important but when it rings it rings clear.
The "shins" thing should be read like this:
The heather [higher than his shins] fought his feet and snagged his stride
I hope that is clearer.
Best,
tectak
PS I could have written it in porridge-thick Scottish vernacular, but the bloody Americans think I'm being Rabbie ( Sorry, Robert) Burns, and that he is Jewish.
I may speak it that way in the privacy of my own bothy.