Salad Blues, winter leaves. edit 1.005,milo,billy,merc,erthona,fromcancer

[tectak]

This year I'll grow no greenhouse envy; no green at all, Did you mean to use a semicolon? I'm all for creative punctuation, but grammatically speaking, after the semicolon is a fragment, and semicolons require that both sides be complete sentences.
no ruby fruits, no piercing darts of piping chillies, no egg-plants
pendulate and purple breasted. Not even one great, golden star First, why did you spell eggplants that way? Also, pendulate is a verb, the adjective form is pendular. Even then though, I think that pendular would be a weird way to characterize an eggplant, as they don't naturally swing like a pendulum. No...but breasts do! I spelt eggplants egg-plants because I made an error.Good catch
will burst anticipating pollen dusting; so no zucchini... and no me.
Winter holds no happy promise, its quaint demise a silent death.
There will be no wake to follow, no joy-filled pots or feast to come.
Instead, the lichened lights are shaded. Unfettered growth
of creeping things greys out the windows, cracked and crazed.
Old frost footsteps tell tails of slugs, no longer threatened by extinction, Do you mean tails? Or do you mean "Tales"?
they blaze their bands of sunlit slime. This year the sun will shine
benignly on the cedar staging, littered with old snail-shell shards.
All are victims of the killing days when sulphur gas combined to acid
and black-tar fluid ran incongruously white down fragrant panes
in alloy frames. I like this sentence, it paints a clear picture of the greenhouse.
Not this year. If only there was one more season,
one more potter, one more yield then I would take my Salad Blue, What is Salad Blue and why is it capitalized?
cut it into sighted slivers, dip in dust of saffron yellow,
dibble but a hand-depth down, into the mulch of ages.
Then gently lower, cover over, scoop up ramparts all around,
each mound a living grave, volcanic life just waiting...waiting, but for what? I think this rhetorical question feels a little out of place. The poem lacks the inquisitive or curious tone that gives an author license to use a question like this.
The shoots would stir me while I sleep, they in their bed, me in mine.
Yes, perhaps I will make one last effort, before this winter leaves. I don't really like that the speaker all of a sudden changes his mind at the last second. It seems like a trivial shift and detracts from the rest of the poem.
Tectak
2015

Overall, I do like this poem, as a sort of seasonal work. However, sometimes I think some complicated phrasing and forced vocabulary bar the poem's ability to relate its message to the reader. The title is really interesting. I particularly like the phrase "Salad Blues" it implies not only sadness, but a growing coldness that runs throughout the poem.

Hi from,
First of all,to make the point, google Salad Blue
OK. Semicolons. Fundamental disagreement. The semicolon can be, and more often than not is, used to link connected clauses. Sentences would more likely benefit from conjunctions or commas but NOT always. Even lists can be seperated by semicolons when the only connection is that the items are IN the list.(https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/Semicolons.html) Nonetheless, I overuse semicolons and am in a large club. Why? Well, this is poetry...not an excuse for faulty grammar...and so the second use for semicolons comes in to play. Semicolons and colons introduce pauses. You can research this use yourself.( John Whale, "Put it in Writing")
I give you credit for your "pendulate" observation.My excuse is in the words that follow. I thought that breasts might pull you in, but no.You have seen an egg-plant? Pendulate is a swing too far perhaps. I may have even made the word up. It will change methinks. Credit.
Tails-tales.Pun. Failed. Credit. Tell tales and tell-tails didn't do it for you?
I am inclined to leave the end alone. The whole thing is lengthily pensive and the pathos at the bitter end is transient. I hope you can see that.
Excellent crit. Changes coming.
Best,
tectak
Note. I checked up pendulate. I didn't make it up...I meant swinging like pendulums and so I was wrong when I said I was wrong...right?
tectak