(11-16-2016, 08:00 AM)Sparkydashforth Wrote: He studies the dinner card,
carefully ticks off the boxes for Jell-O
and fruit cups; anticipates a deliciousness
that he will later swallow mechanically
on a plastic spoon. -- this stanza makes me instantly love this old man, with his childlike joy, which of course hints to me that I will be pretty damn sad by the end of the poem (even if I hadn't read the title)
He’s fascinated by his own breath;
smelling it on the exhalation, savoring a coolness,
as lungs struggle to filter air
from the turgid chemical soup of the ward. -- I am not sure about the word "turgid". Generally it's used for things like rivers in flood, so even though it's a technically correct descriptor for congested air, the connotation is of something flowing quickly, which this air definitely does not do.
He imagines sipping an effervescent sky, -- beautiful image
pouring it through a revitalized body. Shivers,
as fingertips remember expiring experiences. -- the two "ex" sounds here don't work well for me. They are harsh and give this line a kind of staccato that I don't enjoy in combination with such a soft sensory image.
He turns on his side, curls up into himself. -- you could probably put a comma here, run the sentence on and remove the comma on the next line.
The skin of his bone-racked back,
delicately corrugated
for the embalming caress of latex.
A nurse checks his chart, adds a note.
She does not record a certain gossamer gathering
that envelopes him, a coddling pall that covers his flesh -- the consonance of the l sounds in this line works beautifully -- pall is a good choice
with quilted retrospectives of his mother,
wife, his dog, even a 1958 Plymouth
envelopes him — imparts a sky-blue -- I'm not convinced that using envelope twice is your best choice of words
and chrome lodging for memories.
At night, he enters a potting shed
made of sweet tobacco, string
and dark red begonia’s. -- no apostrophe!
From a gun-metal tin,
he takes a small Swiss Army knife,
scrapes a yellow clay from under his fingernails,
trowels for wax from crumbling ears,
plants psychic-seeds into that residue; waters them
with the milky drops of his dreaming eyes. -- I just love this stanza in its entirety
By dawn tendrils will have sprouted under his skin, -- perfect
they will bind up all his loose ends,
until he drifts like a wane moon -- waning or waned, surely?
over the foot of his skeletal bed.
~~~~~
It could be worse