Stealing Fruit (edit 2)

[tectak]

An early version of this poem was described by other reviewers as "a bit Mills and Boon" in places, so I'm keen to know if this reworking carries credibility.

Stealing Fruit
 
The oak at my back
was a useless sentry.Stoically confident opener in first person  works to inform me. Accepting the past tense as where we start, is the hook. Though I do not know where the metaphor will take me I am drawn to read on...but with the trepidation of experience I fear a let down.
Pine circled Hmmm. Where did the metaphor go? You lift me up, you cast me down. We go from quercus to pinus but still the hoped for clarification eludes us both. OK. You say  *sentry"...a protector, a  barrier, a look-out. The sentry fails in purpose. It is useless. Is that it? What made it so? Ah, perhaps it is the superiority of the pines(s....surely?).  What am I seeing here that the opener gave me to believe would slowly unfold as the metaphor matured? I am at a disadvantage already. YOU can connect your thoughts but I cannot. Adding simile to metaphor is not the answer. WHAT is LIKE witnesses? By using singular pine, you cannot mean plural witnesses. Do you see the structure crumbling? For me, you must finish one clarifying metaphor (in a stanza would help) before lurching in with a simile. It is the panic of purpose.
like witnesses around casualties,
while undergrowth in chlorophyll robes Chlorophyll, as I know you know,is but a molecule in a photosynthesising cell. You mean "chlorophyll green"
curtained privacy
for a crop crying out to be eaten,
though mine to neither pick nor taste. Have you read this out loud? I have. I needed to hyperventilate first. This is several sentences...almost concurrent life sentences...in one. As it is, I just cannot make any sense out of the extended wordiness. Also, it is clunky. I question " curtained" even though I know what you mean. Drop the "while". It is unnecessarily concommitant.
Undergrowth, robed in chlorophyll green,
casts  curtains of privacy round the crop (? question crop)
Though crying out (cliche) to be eaten,
these fruits are  not mine
to pick or taste.
I reserve the right to declunk without knowing what the hell I am declunking.

 
Blushed skin, freckled with fine hair freckled and silky with fine hair. A hair is NOT a freckle, nor can it be freckled about. Why? Because skin can be hairy and can be freckled. To use both descriptors on a known substrate, skin, is asking for trouble because the metaphor is not seen for what it is. Talk about a beach, freckled with crabs, OK...  but a peach freckled with hair?
brushed my mouth, releasing
notes of almost summer Oh come,come. Think positive. Why almost? If we are in autumn, then summer gone.
that approached my palate Though I like the wine tasting terminology, the line lacks the vintage of veracity. Nothing wrong with that per se...in fact, I would say well tried...but just a little more expert erudition would help the metaphor slip down.
then gently withdrew. ...back to the poetry. You are  not attempting to use meter or rhyme...that is fine if it flows from a decanter but these short gulping lines is making it glug from a bottle. You.should look at your line  breaks and choose your enjambments with care.
The morsel hastened a mouthful Disconnect. Once again, I got the peachy fruit a long time back  but now it is a morsel. If I am wrong then what is it a morsel of and if I am right then a morsel of fruit sounds er...
and now my prize bit back,
resisting while yielding
and tasting while being consumed. Watch this habit. This stanza has that, then, and, and. Not good
Eager participants in mutual destruction.
 
Oak and pine enshrine our secrets
one circle deeper with each passing year.
But taste fades like memories,
never forgotten, only losing
potency with each reimagining.
Like the shrinking shadow of her scent
where she rested briefly against my shoulder. Hmm. Scrap everything before this stanza and call it a poem. Conversely, make this stanza one and correct the rest

Hi,
If anything it over heated before it was cooked. Turn down your passion and simmer your way through an edit. This is me liking it...but who the hell am I.
Best,
tectak[/b]