Hail Mary

[tectak]

G'morning Tectak,

I don't know if any of my comments will be of use to you, but will still try here. Like JM mentioned in her crit, the switch from "her" to "you" is jarring and the reader (like moi) may wonder why that was done. JD Salinger gets away with that stuff so I guess any writer can(?) But if you decide to do that it seems to me like there oughta be a good reason. If you decide to match them up, this reader prefers "you" because it feels more poignant talking directly to Mary.


Let's just play around with it and see what changes when that is done - I'm just curious.

Mary, you died a week ago.
I can't let go. I can't let go.

I loved her when your hair turned grey.
Like yesterday. Like yesterday. (How about trying "just" instead of "like" to show how near the death feels to the speaker?)

I touched her your hand and stroked her your brow.
A memory now. A memory now.

We said goodbye and cried for you.
Friends loved you, too, they loved you, too.

Alone now with your photograph.
I hear you laugh. I hear you laugh.

I sleep and hold the pillow tight.
Alone at  night. Alone at  night.

In chill dawn air I make  believe.  ("chill dawn air" sounds contrived, how about "brisk" like it's waking him up)
I hear you breathe. I hear you breathe. (I like this too.)

I doze beside you in the shade.
A dream we made. A dream we made.

Mary, you died   (or to get it to rhyme - Mary, you passed away, it's been a week (or it's been "seven days" to express a week differently).
[b]but I see your flushed cheek ???????

Your photograph is propped on the bed
on a pillow near my head, on a pillow near my head

Or what about---

And in each moment you're not my boss------.
I cry for your loss
I cry for your loss.  Ok I'm joking but you could add a twist in the end.

yet in each moment she is there. (do you really need these last lines?  It's been covered already)
A dream we made. Remember me.
And I do, my Hail Mary. The meter is lost in the last word of the last line. Not sure I like it.
tectak 2015
(any similarities to persons alive or dead etc)

Is this a form that I'm not aware of?  I enjoyed reading the poem.  I'm bad at rhyme but you get what I'm saying.  Couplets would work nicely with this form of double rhyme.  In reading this again I see you have two bed scenes and may want to omit one of them. 

Anne[/b]

Hi anne,
not to diminish in ANY way the points you make...thank you...but the version 2 is up and may be more condensed in meaning. That is what I am trying to do,here.
Best,
trctsk

---

I want the repeats to carry over to the second half. I want Mary to be either 'her' or 'you.' I want to know why you call her 'my Hail Mary.' Is she a prayer? Did someone assign her to you as penance? Is she full of grace? I want your rhyme scheme to be consistent. A poem as simple as this, about the death of someone you ferociously grieve for, should cause me to shed tears by the end. It doesn't, yet. Carry on. Leah

Hi leah,
Thanks for this. I actually heeded your words in version.2.
The rest, as they say, is history. Or will be.
The religious dip at the end is meant to be characteristically the sinking of the saddened soul in to the solace of late spiritual revival. God, his  cohorts and effects, get dragged in to grief at the most unlikely moments and often with nothing more than a mantra to show for it. I was in the difficult circumstance many years ago when a friend of no religious persuasion chanted oh mother of Jesus oh mother of Jesus oh mother of Jesus for more than an hour after notification of the death of her partener. She never mentioned Jesus or his dad again...at least not in my presence.
Hail Marie.
tectak