Liminality At The Park
#5
(12-04-2025, 08:29 AM)JC_Chalant Wrote:  The ball court’s rusted hoops, stooped 
under the weight of dusk, watch the moon-
cloud shadows swoop across concrete.
I like this imagery a lot, and the words you used, particularly stooped.
"watch the moon-
cloud shadows"
Is this creating a compound word (the moon-cloud shadows), or is it an en dash (watch the moon --- cloud shadows...)? It's unclear to me.

Nearby, in the dark, children launch 
screams from park swings and flail, awkward
as mid-flight moth wings, before pinpoint landings.

Underneath the pagoda, teens smoke marijuana
and the skunky aroma wafts strong as their coughs
across the trail where the wind picks up over the stream.
this stanza was a bit hard to parse for me - the way I read it was "as their coughs across the trail", interpreting 'across' as a verb (the aroma wafts strong, while their coughs cross the trail ...) in which case across would need to be 'cross'.
It's more likely, though, that you meant it like "wafts across the trail (as) strong as their coughs". In which case, I feel it could be arranged differently to guide the reader through the sentence with more ease. Additionally, I feel you could find a better adjective to describe the aroma & the coughs - 'strong' could be a bit plain.
I think ironing it out a bit and shuffling things around a little would benefit this stanza.

Deer in the low grass stare, heads turned,
white tails bare, until I’ve stepped too near
and they zip away quicker than sparks disappear.
This stanza feels quite different in tone from the others. It has a rhyme at the end (near/disappear) which feels somewhat cheesy due to the rest of the poem lacking a rhyme scheme. It also shifts from a seemingly third person view to first person (using "I've") in this last stanza. 
Overall I think this is a really nice poem, I like the imagery a lot but just think it could use some tidying to help the reader along.
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Messages In This Thread
Liminality At The Park - by JC_Chalant - 12-04-2025, 08:29 AM
RE: Liminality At The Park - by busker - 12-06-2025, 07:37 PM
RE: Liminality At The Park - by JC_Chalant - 12-07-2025, 02:59 AM
RE: Liminality At The Park - by palifan - 12-07-2025, 02:47 PM
RE: Liminality At The Park - by PotatoFridges - 12-08-2025, 10:30 PM
RE: Liminality At The Park - by Johicopter - 12-12-2025, 07:08 PM
RE: Liminality At The Park - by JC_Chalant - 12-29-2025, 11:35 PM
RE: Liminality At The Park - by milo - 12-30-2025, 12:45 AM
RE: Liminality At The Park - by Roggen - 12-30-2025, 03:07 PM



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