Whiskey

[bwasroy]

Someone placed hyacinths
on the table,
and I want to steal
one of the flowers
so I never have to leave.

But I don’t.


I drink alone,
remembering things
I didn't know I saw,
as a girl dances on my uncle’s feet.
 
She is so light that his feet
have no difficulty guiding her. 
 
It’s simple gravity.
 
These ghosts I carry
are too heavy
to let me dance
with the girl who lets her hair down.
 
 

[ellajam]

Hi, b, I haven't spent as much time with this as I will, but I just want to share some things that struck me.

Someone placed hyacinths
on the table,
and I want to steal
one of the flowers
so I never have to leave.

But I don’t.
While I like the breaks, image and scent, I can't figure out how stealing one will make you never have to leave. I'm missing something.

I drink alone,
remembering things
I didn't know I saw, I'm not sure what these three lines add.
as a girl dances on my uncle’s feet. And here the poem starts for me, and I love it.

She is so light that his feet
have no difficulty guiding her.  

It’s simple gravity.

These ghosts I carry
are too heavy
to let me dance
with the girl who lets her hair down.
The last four lines were a letdown for me, not in meaning but in language. Ghosts and lets her hair down are too common for this poem.

Thanks for posting this, I'm really curious to see if you make any changes and what they will do.
Hope you get some good crit, good luck with it.

[bwasroy]

Thanks, Ella. You're one of the posters I tend to most agree with. Not sure to do with this one. If I can save it or if I scrap it at altogether It's in a batch of stuff I'm getting ready to send out. I've rewritten it four or five times (the first was much longer, and probably less effective.) I hate when a poem slides out from under me. Might be the case on this one. 

[ellajam]

Thanks, Ella. You're one of the posters I tend to most agree with. Not sure to do with this one. If I can save it or if I scrap it at altogether It's in a batch of stuff I'm getting ready to send out. I've rewritten it four or five times (the first was much longer, and probably less effective.) I hate when a poem slides out from under me. Might be the case on this one. 

Nooooo, if you agree with me you'll love enough to perfect it, if not now, later. Maybe someone else will say something that will click for you. Don't scrap it, or if you do send your trashcan my way.

[bwasroy]

Thanks, Ella. You're one of the posters I tend to most agree with. Not sure to do with this one. If I can save it or if I scrap it at altogether It's in a batch of stuff I'm getting ready to send out. I've rewritten it four or five times (the first was much longer, and probably less effective.) I hate when a poem slides out from under me. Might be the case on this one. 

Nooooo, if you agree with me you'll love enough to perfect it, if not now, later. Maybe someone else will say something that will click for you. Don't scrap it, or if you do send your trashcan my way.

Here's the original version: 
"Whiskey"
 
In Central Park, I sit at a table
watching my father stir the ice
in his whiskey as he looks past
rocks protruding from the pond.
 
After all these years, he leaves
dinner to dance under crystal
with his girlfriend and knows
about what we traded to escape
from one town to the next.
 
Someone placed hyacinths
in the middle of the table,
I want to steal the flower.
 
Lavender flames, I saw them once before
sprouting by the river in Nacogdoches
where a woman dried off in the sun.
 
I drink alone. 
 
I remember things I didn't even know I saw. 
 
Once I walked along that dirt path
as the lights flickered through the trees,
from the other bank the water was
too dark to see below.
 
I watch a girl dance on the feet of my uncle
at a wedding party on a night in June.
 
She is light enough that his feet have
no difficulty guiding her. 
 
It's simple gravity, that these ghosts I carry
are too heavy to let me join the girls with hair down.
 
To my right, the last rays of summer
strain through the glass, between the night
and myself someone has strung balloons.
 
Someone placed hyacinths
in the middle of the table.
 
I want to steal a flower
as if placing it in my pocket
meant I never had to leave.
 
But I don’t. I drink alone,
remembering things I didn't know I saw
as a girl dances on my uncle’s feet.
 
It’s simple gravity.
 
She is so light that his feet
have no difficulty guiding her. 
 
It’s simple gravity.
 
These ghosts I carry are too heavy
to let me dance with the girl who lets her hair down.
Now that being said, last time I tried to note that I write multiple versions of poems I don't know what to do with, somebody included an audio version of their reading of the poem so I could "hear it out aloud" and another person told me to only publish here things that I was "serious" about. Please don't do that this time. It's a bit aggravating. I'm barely 30 and I've published 67 poems in my life. I know to a experienced level how poetry works. That being said, I don't capture every poem right. No one does. That's why we have forums. This poem isn't perfect. I'd like to make it close to perfect, or at least to where I'm to the point where I feel like this one has gotten away from me. So any legitimate help would be greatly appreciated.

And none of that applies to you, Ella. You can say whatever you like because you tend to give great feedback.

[ellajam]

Well, now I understand the hyacinths.

Reading the first version I thought it could be even shorter but there's a lot I like in the longer version, though I agree it needs a trim. I know nothing about publishing but if you're not happy with this one in any current version you may not want to rush into submitting it. I'll gladly post some comments on the long one given some more time with it. I don't think the title suits the short version as well as it does the longer one.

Off topic: The level of crit will always vary from poster to poster and from poem to poem even from the same poster. Posting in a public forum the poet can chose what to take to heart and what to give the silent finger, emphasis on silent. We try to mod as lightly as possible, but if you find a post is against the rules of the forum it's posted in, feel free to hit the report button and someone will take a second look at it.