Walkabout - Edit

[Magpie]

Wjames, you've got some good images here although I'm left wanting some more substance and meaning to wrap the whole thing up. I agree with RBJ that it's hard to critique this in the manner that the serious forum requires, I've tried my best to leave some thoughts below.

In the pet store, her eyes
were like a puppies
before it’s given a treat. — A intriguing opening stanza, I like how we start in a pet store. Girls with puppy dog eyes are a cliche but that cliche is partially avoided by the pet store reference. I think the cliche could be totally avoided if you were to use a metaphor instead of a simile. There would be an ambiguity that could keep the reader guessing at first, it would require a slight rewrite of the stanza — just a thought

It was November,
and the ground was wet
from last nights rain. — This is the weakest stanza and seems out of place with the other stanzas. "the ground was wet with rain" is on the verge of being redundant and I'm not so sure that the rain was from the night before changes this. Also I feel that there is a problem with tense here. The rest of the poem is looking back but to say "last nights rain" is in the present. "The ground was wet from the previous night's rain" is what I feel you are trying to say here.

Outside a coffee house
a busker played Hank Williams,
and she gave him a cigarette
in lieu of change. — I like this stanza the best, the image is good. I don't feel as though the fourth line is necessary, I'm trying to see a way that you are playing with the double meaning of 'change' but I'm not getting it. Also is 'and' needed in line three, it feels awkward; if you were to remove it then shuffling the lines may help it to read better...

perhaps something like

Outside a coffee house
she gave a cigarette
to a busker... etc

When we got to the park,
she said some trees look better
without their leaves. — A nice thought and a good stanza on it's own, however in the context of the poem I'm left wondering whether I care or not about her thought. That's not to say that I don't think it can work as a last stanza, I just feel as though there needs to be something else in the poem that helps me to connect with this line. I think it's possible. Also as a minor point, do you need 'their' in the last line.

I really like some of the images and I think that they could work but there needs to be something else in between that helps the reader connect with the characters and images. At the moment it feels slightly cryptic and somewhat inconsequential. I'm looking forward to see what you may do with this poem.

Thanks for the read,

Mark