Hiatus

[Donald Q.]

Hiatus


Sweet beer is a lampshade askew intruiging, doesn't quite make sense yet but it is pleasant, sets a tone
in the corner of a must-scented
room, blue for the evening, blue for the evening is pleasant 
with a blue stained sofa borrowed Blue is an odd colour of stain to get... what is it, some cocktail spillage?
years ago from one of mom's
work acquaintances she hasn't seen in years. By the end of this sentence I thought the first line would have become more clear, but I still don't understand how beer = lampshade
I mean a poem is like a dream
in that you don't remember most of it.  These two lines are a bit too direct I think... not sure
Or the moon is like the broken
record player I got as a Christmas gift
in middle school, which was not
broken but delightful when I got it awkward phrasing, I think you can get away without repeating broken, perhaps. 
and which now looks cool as ever
with its crocked up lid and needle,  'crocked' ???
with its dust, only it plays
records wrong, a little too fast
or a little too slow, rending it unusable.  Ha

False plants curl in the shadow  False plants, nice
of the windowsill, and the dog with an odd
occasional grunt rests on the rug
at the foot of the stair.
The typewriter I rarely touch
rests beside me on the desk,
loaded with paper, gleaming in the lamplight.
I've written some good poems on that machine.
Or the drafts that later became
good poems, or the bad poems remedied
bit by bit on my laptop until
they became not-quite-perfect Maybe too many lines here explaining this writing process
but at least themselves. Years ago  
this was the desk in my bedroom, and over
the years it hasn't changed.
It is red mahogany—blue in the dark—
covered with scratches and cup rings.
This is the same house, rearranged.

Cold moon tomorrow.
I mean December's full moon.
I've got work, and also
I think I'll lose my mind.
Just a little. In spring I'll move out.
Leaving my parents and sister, and
most of my things, until my parents also
move and my sister goes
to college, and then this place
where I sit, so familiar in its proximity
will drift forever from my life
and become the stuff of dreams.  A lot of direct detail in this last stanza. An interesting approach, plenty of poets would not give anything like this direct detail. I don't hate it, but just make sure you are sure of every word and beat if you are going to open up this frankly.

This is very frank poem about the writing of poetry, and seems very directly conversational. 
It seems like the lines are all aspiring to be almost the same length, occasionally the lack of consistent meter undercuts this aim, but it's not always a problem. These two elements mean that the poem feels slightly aimless; the main through-line of imagery seems to be about fakeness and lacking; unused and broken machines, unreal belongings, a near-comatose dog... I think that this mood can be harnessed further. It's difficult to balance the sense of aimlessness with the content of the poem, I personally think some of the lines can be got rid of, but obviously as a whole you are going for something slightly sprawling so you will have to make a judgement call there. Look forward to reading an edit.