Escapement

[Naish]

Hello and welcome to the Pen.

First the title - it is one of these words that just needs to have a poem made around it - the metaphor of both time and literal escape is ripe for the mining.

My friends are in the living room waiting on snacks. 
The clock's due Friday and the catch-release keeps slipping. 
The weighting is harder than I thought.

The opening is very informal invoice - almost prose like.  I don't quite understand how a clock is due Friday - is it  due for repairs? I assume the "catch-release" is the escapement?  If so, I don't know why you wouldn't use the word for it right here - it would help cement your metaphor in my opinion.

weighting/waiting - I like the pun but wonder about it with the subject being serious. Also, it only works one way as a pun and the best puns work both ways.

Creak (release).
Creak (release).

not a huge fan of the literal onomatapoeia - there might be a way to refer to it indirectly and also use it to strengthen the metaphor

She's in the attic again. Did I forget to hide the box? 
She finds it anyway, even with his name torn off.

I called him J.J.
She always stops at the first line of his project, 

my very educated mother—

you have multiple decalratives in a row and it starts to read more like narration than poetry - just a note.  Also - I am not sure what "very educated" adds as a whole - it feels like a dangling plot line

Eyes closed, she knows
what's under his solar system:
shin guards, yearbook,
first retainer,
 last report card.

The floorboards 
hold her rocking.

She's got no catch.

Her song wears
through the ceiling 
and sinks to the kitchen.
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,


This is all pretty good.  Many of your examples could be thought of as time measurements in their own right with the exception of shin guards

J
   
   U
      
       L
         
          I
            
            U
                  
               S

Shit. The snacks.
Smash the Doritos in the bag. For cover.
Grating cheese would be too quiet.

Creak (release) 

They’re good plain. It's not cold yet.
Porch. Just serve them on the porch.

I am not a huge fan of concrete effects in poetry but here I think it really does serve the overall poem so it gets a pass.  The final strophe doesn't seem to deliver the payoff the rest built up to - a sudden abandonment of time measurement but just the literal escape - I am not sure, might work better to rethink it.

Overall, it is a strong poem, the metaphor is created and maintained throughout, the narrative itself doesn't feel forced.

Thanks for posting

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Hello and thanks for your feedback!

Your comments are very helpful. I may try "escape wheel keeps slipping." I was reluctant to repeat the title, but I do like the cyclical nature of a wheel.

The clock is supposed to be a science project that is due. Yes, it's too advanced for a science project and not very realistic either. That's definitely something to consider in future drafts.

Point taken on the pun.

What is your opinion on "catch then slip" instead of "creak release"? I didn't love "creak release" either, but I couldn't come up with anything better.

I'm not certain it carries the sound in the same way that "creak" does.

The dangling plot line is actually the first line of the mnemonic for the planets: My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nachos. That's why the daughter is making nachos, or trying to at least. Without the mnemonic, the ending doesn't really work the way I intended. I hope to find a way to make it land whether or not the reader picks up on the reference.

Well, thanks again for reading and commenting. Much appreciated!
/Naish

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I like it sometimes. Overall my experience of the poem is that it is too crafty by half. There's a sense of the young pianist putting trills all over Brahms or whatever. Like I'm with the speaker most of the time but sometimes, like with the creak (release) or the juliuuuus, tbh the whole conceit begins to wear on me by the end. I am just not a huge fan in principle I think, of the poem-as-cryptic-crossword aesthetic, which is not to say that's what this amounts to but that's the energy I get. I would love to see this speaker be less coy and impish about it all and just level with me from the jump. They seem to have a lot to say.

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Hi!

Yeah! I get that comment a lot. I love playing with layers and that often calls attention to itself... as you noticed. Will see if I can pull off a less trilly version. As I said, this is a problem I have in a lot of my poems, so it's a good reminder.
Thanks for reading and commenting!

Best/ Naish