08-12-2015, 11:49 PM
(08-12-2015, 09:27 AM)Cousin Kil Wrote: FLEASMy main thing is that you may be able to use punctuation to make the subject clearer. Good luck.
In the hollow -- What hollow?
dogs were howling -- Maybe a period here. I originally thought that you were still referring to the dogs with "near the sill..."
near the sill over the kitchen --
sink my dad could hear them attention-starved -- Not sure about this line break. Why interrupt kitchen? Interrupting the collocation "kitchen sink" causes a major hiccup in the poem, so if that's what you want than this could be good. If that's not what you want maybe you don't need the line break. That's my BS theory anyhow. Attention starved is an interesting way to describe dogs though, I sort of think.
blueticks,
rowdy sweet dogs were howling chain-linked -- Howling again?
and he was washing dishes with his -- I think the subject, which appears to be the father, is kind of hard to track here.
dad in the basin
while he was young
clenching carefully the soap
grandpa flashed dull arms
asked him if he saw the fleas on them
like black and tanned
he’d been howling, reeling,
peeling in chips from
so many plastered
nightcapped evenings
he’d been clinking tumblers, sinking,
asking his boy
you see the fleas? when there were none
grandpa washed with watered scotch and
dogs howled,
sweet and starved
like father, fleas, son -- Having trouble making out what this means, but I could be having a brain fart or something. This seems to be about alcoholism and delirium tremens or something along those lines. The final line is oddly somewhat reminiscent of John Donne with the flea and the mingled blood and such.
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Wrote this a night ago. Beat it up.

