Routines: Poem 1

[ellajam]

Hi, welcome to the Pen.

I can see from the title that the heart of the poem is supposed to be in the details but you haven't found a way to make the narrator's routine any more interesting than my own. Some notes below.

Routines: Poem 1

I clock out from White Digital Media Group where I write B2B copy and walk to my sedan. I ignite the car, tune it to Jazz 88 and drive to the reserve. I change into my running clothes and the woods breathe me in and breathe me out. I drive home and am greeted by my folks, their tenants and our animals: chickens, dogs, a cat and cockroaches.
I am confused by the drive, change clothes, drive sequence. The "woods breathe me in" line caught my interest but it wasn't sustained.

Mom is in bed, often with pain from a car accident, or sleeping with the TV turned up to block noise. At 10 PM, she will get up and dress for work: the blue top and black bottom Walmart uniform. Her husband watches the salacious mock court TV show, Caso Cerrado, in the living room.

The Guatemalan tenants eat and talk in the kitchen. Everyone says buenas tardes. I check to see what mom’s left for dinner and eat standing up. I wash my dishes, throw them on the drainer and retire. In my bedroom, I denude and form an arc at my desk over a book. Later, I straighten up and wrap myself in sheet and blanket. Nube curls up behind me and I shut my eyes.
Denude was an odd choice for me.

Through the night I am a linen hung on a clothesline in an open space. Dreams and nightmares blow against me. I remember past loves, act out taboos, repeat trials and am visited by ghosts. I wake as if bursting from under water. I inhale and look around. All things are in their place. I push the covers off and throw my legs over the edge of the bed.
The first line of the dream has great potential but what follows gave me nothing, here's where some details might have helped but all I get are general statements.

I know this is a pretty lightweight critique for the Serious forum but it's all I've got, maybe someone else can be of more help. I hope you enjoy the site.

Hello Ella, 

Thank you so much for reading my poem and putting your two cents in! Your comments are helpful. 

I have a couple of questions. Can you tell me more about why the starting sequence is confusing?

And can you expand on what you mean by "breathe me in and breathe me out" not being sustained? 

Hope you can help. And once again, thank you!

My pleasure.

" and drive to the reserve. I change into my running clothes and the woods breathe me in and breathe me out. I drive home"
I can follow it better now, I thought the N lived at the reserve, changed, ran, then I couldn't see why he was driving again. I guess there's a place at a nature preserve to change, I hadn't originally thought of that. In a poem full of detail I guess I need a few more.

"the woods breathe me in and breathe me out."
What I meant was this was the first line that caught me, that had what I read poems for, it was something I could feel and it got my imagination going. By "not sustained" I mean nothing further in the poem kept me at that interesting place.

Sorry I wasn't clearer, and hopefully someone else will give you a view of their read.