Sitting on my chest

[Keith]

I was a sickly child,
always breathing,
a bronchial battering
spun under control
by inhalers that popped
and whizzed
pushing powder down my tubes,
always pounding.

Violet had an ice-cream van,
our dog used to bite the tyres
it smelled of sprinkles and sherbet,
and I knew how he felt.
"They make your chest bad,
stupid lad"
and they did,
so I stayed off school.
Action Man zip wires,
parachutes
and wet suits
ski gear and shaved hair
eagle eye and facial scar  
a bridge too far?

Mum said cider ones
with all their E's
were probably the worst,
strawberry mivies might be ok
but whose to say
best to keep the vice at bay.

No one seemed to notice or care
about the clumps of white dog-hair
and that I was left to play,
in a house with a habit
of nearly forty fags a day,
always breathing.

[Leanne]

I really enjoyed this, Keith. You have a multitude of very vivid images in quick succession that paint a clear and unpleasant picture, which is wrapped up with the extreme irony and hypocrisy dripping from the final stanza. The punctuation could do with a going-over, but that's all I've got.

[Keith]

I really enjoyed this, Keith.  You have a multitude of very vivid images in quick succession that paint a clear and unpleasant picture, which is wrapped up with the extreme irony and hypocrisy dripping from the final stanza.  The punctuation could do with a going-over, but that's all I've got.

Thanks for the feedback Leanne, yes a cynical poke at bad parenting, glad you picked out the irony. Best keith

[71degrees]

I was a sickly child,
always breathing,
a bronchial battering
spun under control
by inhalers that popped
and whizzed
spinning powder down my tubes,
always pounding.

Violet had an ice-cream van,
our dog used to bite the tyres
it smelled of sprinkles and sherbet,
and I knew how he felt.
"They make your chest bad,
stupid lad"
and they did,
so I stayed off school.
Action Man zip wires,
parachutes
and wet suits
ski gear and shaved hair
eagle eye and facial scar  
a bridge too far?

Mum said cider ones
with all their E's
were probably the worst,
strawberry mivies might be ok
but whose to say
best to keep the vice at bay.

No one seemed to notice or care
about the clumps of white dog-hair
and that I was left to play,
in a house with a habit
of nearly forty fags a day,
always breathing.

The narrator being a young kid is fine and for the most part works, but I question a phrase like "...a bridge too far" as something that a youngster would think. Just doesn't work for me. Every time I hear that phrase I think of the movie and Richard Attenborough and I want to laugh. My mother was a terrible asthmatic. You have captured this well. Her inhalers were a part of her as much as a person wearing glasses. It would be a solitary life for a younger person when all the other kids are probably out running around. I was depressed after reading this the first time and am every time I read it again. I've come back more than once to read and always end up in the same dump. The sign of a good poem in my book. Thanks for posting this.

[Erthona]

Yeah, I have to agree "a bridge too far", it is trite and seems ad hoc as it is used here, making it appear as a forced rhyme.

"Mum said cider ones
with all their E's"

Evidently a British thing, but I haven't a clue what "cider ones" are, or why they have many "E's". So as far as I am concerned it is disruptive to the poem. Personally I could stand with a little more fleshing out to give it greater substance. For me, there simply wasn't enough there to be able to connect with the speaker and care about him, so at the end, the statement has less of an impact on me than it should.

Dale

[jkprry]

S1L4: I think you could remove "under control" and just say "spun by". You also might want to reconsider "spinning" in S1L4 since it is so close to "spun".
S1: The "always breathing" "always pounding" repetition works really well, and reads really great out loud also.

S2L2: Semicolon after "tyres"?
S2L9: It seems like this line should start another stanza because it seems to stray a bit from the lines above. Also, I interpret those last four lines as you realizing the distance between you and your father, but I feel like there should be some transition between this and running after the ice cream van.
(if that is even what you were going for. ahhh. aha.)

S3L4: mivvis?

S4L1: care / dog-hair is really forced. This whole line comes off pathetic in a bad way.
S4L2: This line also reads forced.
S4L4: You might consider "house of habit". It's just to me the "in a / with a" starts to sound sing-songy. But I do like the personification, so I'll leave it entirely up to your feels.
S4L6: Such an excellent end. Very smart. You could add this element to the S2 or S3. I think it might be interesting to have a more gradual transition from the child breathing to the house breathing. Maybe child-parent-house or something like that.

I also think it may behoove you to strike a little more on the smell/taste sensory details in here, since you have some strong ones: the inhaler, the ice cream, and the cigarettes. I think this is especially true of poems with such distinct memory. It could really help strengthen the reader's connection. (Smells calling up instantaneous memories and powerful responses blah blah Science Daily.) Just something about childhood and smells, right? The part about the ice cream van really struck a chord for me. Also, I was on the fence at first, but I like where the lines get a little short, like S2L5,6,7,8 because it reads like it's short of breath.

Carry on! I like this poem. The more I read it the more I find.

[Keith]

71 degrees, Dale and jkprry, Thank you very much for all your considered feedback and please forgive my lack of reply, You have all made some excellent points that will be very helpful in the edit. I have just come back to this to try and improve this one so your comments will give me the direction I needed, many thanks Keith