09-03-2014, 12:56 PM
(09-03-2014, 11:33 AM)danny_ Wrote:I see why you might find an issue with the tense, I suppose. "Soon, you will leave me as usual.." Here, usual should imply that this isn't the only and/or first goodbye; she visits and leaves often. This is a poem taking place before she leaves, about what it's like after she does so. Hope this helps.(08-27-2014, 04:41 AM)ajcohen613 Wrote: Edit #1i like the revision. i miss some image of the bed or sheets (where you removed her imprint on the mattress.) that is kind of the centerpiece, you know. i think i would like that image because it speaks so much.
Here
You wake up with that look I like
and I smile back with squinted eyes
like the sun is shining here in this bed.
Soon, you will leave me as usual and the sky will not fall,
though it will rain enough to swamp the street gutters.
You are a pricey plane ticket to Granada purchased too late,
the warm Andalucían air that I dream of but have never felt,
the vertigo of transition turning my stomach.
I’m haunted by your leaving,
the calm that follows saying goodbye,
the howl of the Union Pacific steel trains coming and going.
With the fog still drooping about the modest field,
the sun has never seemed so hesitant to start over.
i liked the fog "hanging about" better but it's a small thing.
oh there's a bit of an issue with tense. it should either be that moment before she does leave, or that moment after she did. if it's before, you should probably say "the calm that will follow saying goodbye". but that kind of takes away from the next line about the trains. as i read it again, it seems kinda tricky to fix without messing things up.
"Where there are roses we plant doubt.
Most of the meaning we glean is our own,
and forever not knowing, we ponder."
-Fernando Pessoa
Most of the meaning we glean is our own,
and forever not knowing, we ponder."
-Fernando Pessoa

