My favourite story

[Keith]

You set a good scene, Keith. There's an emotional richness to your writing. I'm envious of how you set your observations down.

My only call out is a line like this:

eyes are fragile and kind.

It's a bit lazy. You attribute the characteristics without earning them. I think if you were to clean this up and let the imagery and the scene you produce do the work, it would be stronger.

All good advice Todd, thanks for the help, I decided to cut the line you called out, you are very kind with your comments. Thanks again Keith

---

Will be written by a man with a bad limp
who only writes on his good days.
When the light fills his study just right,
he wishes he could capture all the colours.        

Each morning his stick taps down a cobblestone path
to buy fresh pastries and strong coffee,
always says "good morning"
to a lady watering flowers,
she only ever smiles back.
One day she will pick him a buttonhole
and change everything
by kissing his cheek and smoothing
a soft hand down his lapel.      this stanza would give me a faint feeling of loneliness, converted to hopeful openness  

He works with an old typewriter
named Jessie after his wife, worries
that one day he will open the study door
and find that its heart no longer beats.      a sad thought, that the typewriter could ever lose its meaning.

Sometimes he rests, sipping beer
under his favourite oak tree,
watching the sky for feeding Swallows,     swallows capitalized makes me think there is something to be swallowed, too. . together with the beer.
chasing the heat of a late afternoon.

His face has readable lines,                 
eyes are fragile and kind.
With a thought he takes a journey
beyond the pain in his leg,
around the agapanthus out               the agapanthus seems to bear some meaning I can´t grasp, maybe a too specific memory, that has to be avoided. I like the exotic appearance in the poem anyway.
through the open window
to travel across the downs,
running like a child along
the edge of a wind swept beach.

The words always find him thirsty
as he sits deserted,
arid until the rains come.
He cries as he writes,
only stopping to wipe his glasses.
I like the metaphor of words coming to someone thirsty, I like deserted´s double meaning and the thought that the good days are the rainy, teary ones in the poem´s context.

Thanks for the feedback Vagabond, im never sure if birds names should be capitalised...dicuss I changed it all the same so thanks for the help and your comments. Best Keith