To a Poet

[Todd]

Hi Philatone,

Here are some comments for you. Hopefully they'll be helpful

Was I wrong to think
Jealousy was born in your words
And not in me?

While the idea of jealousy here is a good one, this strophe doesn't feel strong enough to lead with (maybe rearrange and start with S2). This feels sort of like what got you to the poem without being the poem.

Is your mind not the wave
I watch crash against the shallowness
Of those lips, the desert of a page?

The desert of a page is fine writing. Is there some image you can use that conveys shallowness wihout pointing it out directly?

I remember how you would talkDo you need, "I remember how"? I wonder if it would be more immediate without that lead in
As I held
This very net
Over your voice
Only to see the words scurry through the line.--love this image.

They are the words I want
To take from your attic
And frame in my museum, in my cage of glass;


I like words from your attic quite a bit. I don't know if I like museum so much. It feels like we're in a home and now we're in a public building. Would the image still work for you if you cut "in my museum"?

Where you leave them
Unprotected, swallowed by dust and fingerprints,--I would be tempted to cut unprotected
I have the rags and polish,
The marble pedestal, the space;
Even a name for the room
Where they would sleep
In my house.

I think the strophe works. I like swallowed by dust and fingerprints quite a bit

If I had those words,
We would share orange juice and sit
In the silence that comes
With finished labor every morning

I like the tone of this. While I see nothing wrong with how it's written, optionally you could cut "with finished labor".

Because--I don't know if you really need because
There would be
No more pens
And hours chasing shadows
From a desk.

No more scratches. No need for erasers;--Punctuation seems a bit odd here. As to the second phrase maybe simply "no erasers"
Only a camera to take their picture
So years from now
I could say "Remember when,"
And laugh.

But instead,
I find your signature
Like fire in a dry wood
And my photographs burn into dreams.

I love this strophe. I love the last two lines of it especially. No issues with it from me.

I will have to keep
My place at the desk.

There will be
No end to this work
To have my name
Stitched to your words,

No end to the search
To have this written
Before you have the chance
To put it away
For good.

Everything after " photographs burn into dreams" is a bit of a let down for me. I would like to see you end with more power. I'm not saying that these final lines are bad necessarily just that I'd prefer to see you begin on strong lines and end on them (which I feel is my only true issue with the poem).

This was a nice read, thank you.

Best,

Todd