12-19-2015, 11:54 AM
duke - this is a nice poem.
I don't think you can cut it too much - the introduction, the 'becoming St Francis, the birds tugging, and then the awakening make for a story that needs some length.
Some suggestions:
1. I know you're trying to paint a picture with 'blooms / eye level' - but it comes across as irrelevant detail. i don't think more than 3 words to convey the impression that there were flowers around you, is required. In fact, 'shrubbery' suggests all that anyway.
2. 'temperature perfect' - a clunky phrase
3. nits - 'flickered off' or 'flickered on'? you'd think the latter, since your mind is now declared absent. Also, 3 birds <> two plurals
4. 'mild sun or sapphire sky' is a mini compendium of cliches.
5. "After time"....this is the best stanza in the pome. but would a bird try to pick hairs from a tonsured head? slightly confusing
6. The 'crow' stanza is also very good.
7. the last stanza had me confused...does it end with St Francis or with you? are you now speaking about yourself in the third person? I got the impression that it ended with St Francis, whereas after 'See him stand' I was pretty certain that the whole poem was about you. Once St Francis has returned, it should be 'I smile at' etc.
It's considered bad manners to attempt to rewrite someone else's poem, so I hope the version below won't come across as anything like that. Just a few changes here and there. Feel free to accept or reject any changes as you see fit.
Afternoon, September sun.
Standing deep in stalky,
gone-wild shrubbery, over which
loomed a feeder with its wary birds.
Dazed by the sky lithographic,
postcard-blue, I dozed,
absent of mind.
When the “vacancy” sign
in my eyes flickered on,
three little birds - wrens, a junco,
were pecking around the feet
of a statue of St. Francis of Assisi
erected in my absence.
One pictures him, St Francis,
gloriously rapt,
of an Umbrian noon, the sun-stung sky,
by Immanence in all.
See him stand, stricken by
the great awe, absent of mind.
After time,
small birds begin, losing fear,
to pick brown woollen tufts
from Francis’s robe.
Then gaining confidence, and in need
of bindings for their nests,
they start tugging grizzled hairs
from the beard and head
of the meditating man,
he unaware, lost in delight.
Then, at the end, a crow, obsidian,
perched on his shoulder,
begins to covet
those vacant, glistening, tear-filled,
appetizing eyes.
Whereat the Spirit,
unready to collect another saint,
relents: they blink,
his soul returns;
I smile at Brother Crow.
I don't think you can cut it too much - the introduction, the 'becoming St Francis, the birds tugging, and then the awakening make for a story that needs some length.
Some suggestions:
1. I know you're trying to paint a picture with 'blooms / eye level' - but it comes across as irrelevant detail. i don't think more than 3 words to convey the impression that there were flowers around you, is required. In fact, 'shrubbery' suggests all that anyway.
2. 'temperature perfect' - a clunky phrase
3. nits - 'flickered off' or 'flickered on'? you'd think the latter, since your mind is now declared absent. Also, 3 birds <> two plurals
4. 'mild sun or sapphire sky' is a mini compendium of cliches.
5. "After time"....this is the best stanza in the pome. but would a bird try to pick hairs from a tonsured head? slightly confusing
6. The 'crow' stanza is also very good.
7. the last stanza had me confused...does it end with St Francis or with you? are you now speaking about yourself in the third person? I got the impression that it ended with St Francis, whereas after 'See him stand' I was pretty certain that the whole poem was about you. Once St Francis has returned, it should be 'I smile at' etc.
It's considered bad manners to attempt to rewrite someone else's poem, so I hope the version below won't come across as anything like that. Just a few changes here and there. Feel free to accept or reject any changes as you see fit.
Afternoon, September sun.
Standing deep in stalky,
gone-wild shrubbery, over which
loomed a feeder with its wary birds.
Dazed by the sky lithographic,
postcard-blue, I dozed,
absent of mind.
When the “vacancy” sign
in my eyes flickered on,
three little birds - wrens, a junco,
were pecking around the feet
of a statue of St. Francis of Assisi
erected in my absence.
One pictures him, St Francis,
gloriously rapt,
of an Umbrian noon, the sun-stung sky,
by Immanence in all.
See him stand, stricken by
the great awe, absent of mind.
After time,
small birds begin, losing fear,
to pick brown woollen tufts
from Francis’s robe.
Then gaining confidence, and in need
of bindings for their nests,
they start tugging grizzled hairs
from the beard and head
of the meditating man,
he unaware, lost in delight.
Then, at the end, a crow, obsidian,
perched on his shoulder,
begins to covet
those vacant, glistening, tear-filled,
appetizing eyes.
Whereat the Spirit,
unready to collect another saint,
relents: they blink,
his soul returns;
I smile at Brother Crow.