Second Edit: Professor of Poetics

[nibbed]

Hi Richard. I am riding on the edge of what you are really trying to say. Maybe I can help, I don't know. But I was thinking:


 Professor of Poetics                                                       

he is just a memory now-                                since the title leads, why not 'just a memory now'          
part of a cruel dream
forever far
yet always close

he would lecture                                            * perhaps eliminate the pronoun in the other stanzas, and work through the verse:
about the clumsiness                                       * 'talking of how poems', 'scaring away young poets'
of clichés:
“Grey leaden sky
is meaningless,” he would say

he would talk
of how poems were like candy
so sweet sounding
in our mouths

he would also scare away
young poets
by dissecting their lines                                      maybe remove this prep.
like a mad surgeon
his plain pencil                                                   this is really good metaphor
a scalpel
most of his surgeries
unwanted

he never made steel                                          'never making'
like my father
he never waited a table                                      'never waiting'
like my mother
but he influenced me

he taught me                                                      'still, he taught me'
and prolonged my dream of poetics:                    'prolonging'
a cruel dream
forever far
yet always close


Thank you for the opportunity to critique.
I certainly understand about faraway/close dreams.
I hope you get the poem to go where you want it
to go. Today I am worried I am too forward
in my suggestions, but tomorrow I may boldly
critique without a care, who knows?
I hope my suggestions have been a help to you.

have a wonderful blessed day
janine


* I edited a few of my comments after going over it again.