Alzheimer's

[Merrikay]

Edit #1

Nostalgia perches on fragile limb
Warbling wearish notes of mother's hymn.
He'll cross the sea, wooden mast tight grasped
While wrinkles crinkle present and past.
Admiration and merit surround
But he's unaware of his renown.
A flash of white, then a bitter taste
Transports him to yet another place.
His body strikes and his heart still roams-
His last days are spent; sailing alone.

It seems so blah to me, not quite sure how to fix it.

Nostalgia perched on frail limb,
Fading notes of mother's hymn.
Across the sea, a wooden mast,
Rips and creases mar his past.
Love surrounds, he's unaware,
Family grieves, he only stares.
A flash of white, a bitter taste,
Once again, another place.
A blink, a cry, he's so alone,
His body strikes, his heart still roams.
That fickle fate, trapped his mind,
A stranger, all it left behind.

[71degrees]

It seems so blah to me, not quite sure how to fix it.

Nostalgia perched on frail limb,
Fading notes of mother's hymn.
Across the sea, a wooden mast,
Rips and creases mar his past.
Love surrounds, he's unaware,
Family grieves, he only stares.
A flash of white, a bitter taste,
Once again, another place.
A blink, a cry, he's so alone,
His body strikes, his heart still roams.
That fickle fate, trapped his mind,
A stranger, all it left behind.

Where's the love? The POV is detached (e.g. family grieves). Wordage is not "grim" enough to sustain an affliction like Alzheimer's (e.g. nostalgia perched….sounds like a bird. hymn; sea…the language is almost pastoral. The rhyme scheme also is contrived and I sense you care more about that than you do the person. If you sense the "blah" in the poem, imagine the reader Bring the poem down to the level of the patient. Do it through images, word choice, mood…whatever it takes. How you "really" feel about the hell this man is now a part of?

[Merrikay]

Wow, hadn't even considered any of that, I can see how it went so...superficial. Thanks for the truly helpful criticism!

[Julia.rose.q]

I like the detached point of view--it's like you're a voyeur in someone else's painful world. Perhaps you're witnessing this all-too-common scene play out in public, or you've heard someone described too many times by too many different people.

If you want to work from that perspective and cultivate an omniscient or commentary sort positions I think it could work. Maybe with a line to conclude that makes some sort of broader implications about the condition?

In addition to the critiques about the pastoral metaphors, I'd say that switching up metaphors back to back can make them lose their punch. Maybe choose one, strong metaphor, or delve into an extended metaphor?

The lines that elicited me the most emotional reaction were "a blink, a cry, he's so alone" and "love surrounds, he's unaware." These lines were the most successful (to me) at creating an emotional connection with the man and his condition, so even if you change the lines, I hope you'll keep the messaging about loneliness/isolation.

[Forestdawn]

  Nice poem Queen,
  I can sense the emptiness in this mans mind. However it does need a bit more details, like "empty eyes that see into nothing" and then a quick moment of a past thought, disappearing as quickly as it came.
 An overall good visual piece, yet lacks deeper "emotions" from the patient, who sometimes remembers what love once was, and then somehow becomes quickly forgotten.  
 I really enjoyed this poem. Thanks for sharing.




Forestdawn (Goddess of the Green Grove)

[Merrikay]

I like the detached point of view--it's like you're a voyeur in someone else's painful world. Perhaps you're witnessing this all-too-common scene play out in public, or you've heard someone described too many times by too many different people.

If you want to work from that perspective and cultivate an omniscient or commentary sort positions I think it could work. Maybe with a line to conclude that makes some sort of broader implications about the condition?

In addition to the critiques about the pastoral metaphors, I'd say that switching up metaphors back to back can make them lose their punch. Maybe choose one, strong metaphor, or delve into an extended metaphor?

The lines that elicited me the most emotional reaction were "a blink, a cry, he's so alone" and "love surrounds, he's unaware." These lines were the most successful (to me) at creating an emotional connection with the man and his condition, so even if you change the lines, I hope you'll keep the messaging about loneliness/isolation.

That's a brilliant idea, to add something that makes a broader implication of Alzheimer's, I had been trying to figure out how to make it more personal, but now I realize I can also go the other way.. I hadn't noticed how my metaphors weakened each other, but after your pointing it out, I do see it. I'm going to rewrite this one, hopefully it'll show some improvement. Thanks for your kind critique.

---

  Nice poem Queen,
  I can sense the emptiness in this mans mind. However it does need a bit more details, like "empty eyes that see into nothing" and then a quick moment of a past thought, disappearing as quickly as it came.
 An overall good visual piece, yet lacks deeper "emotions" from the patient, who sometimes remembers what love once was, and then somehow becomes quickly forgotten.  
 I really enjoyed this poem. Thanks for sharing.




Forestdawn (Goddess of the Green Grove)

Thank you! Yea, I felt it was lacking actual poetic-ness, I suppose that's what more detail would help? Thank you for the kind words, makes me feel there is hope for me yet!

[micaskylar]

I really like this poem so far. I think that the detached point of view really suits the topic and poem very nicely. However, the entirety of the poem is very vague. It could use more detail to allow the reader to feel more emotion. A poem like this could really evoke a lot of emotion, as Alzheimer's disease is tragic. Maybe create a dynamic where you reveal some of the feelings of the family but also those of the patient. That could give you an opportunity for more details and help put more emotion into the poem.

[ThePen]

It seems so blah to me, not quite sure how to fix it.

Nostalgia perched on frail limb,
Fading notes of mother's hymn.
Across the sea, a wooden mast,
Rips and creases mar his past.
Love surrounds, he's unaware,
Family grieves, he only stares.
A flash of white, a bitter taste,
Once again, another place.
A blink, a cry, he's so alone,
His body strikes, his heart still roams.
That fickle fate, trapped his mind,
A stranger, all it left behind.

This poem has a good progression. It starts with the frailness of the person and seems to end with the person's death. I like that you used a rhyming scheme of A/A B/B. I think that his poem has potential. Perhaps you could make a better use of punctuation. There are too many commas here and there, and they seem to arrange only to add pause and end verses.

All in all, a good poem.

[Achebe]

It might help if you wrote out full sentences.
Good poems, even those written in a 'poetic' style, are readable as prose should one choose to read them as such.
Your poem, on the other hand, is a set of unrelated statements. For instance, if nostalgia is personified by a bird perching on a frail limb, then it cannot subsequently become the fading note of a hymn.

[dukealien]

It seems so blah to me, not quite sure how to fix it.

1. Nostalgia perched on frail limb,
   
2. Fading notes of mother's hymn.
   
3. Across the sea, a wooden mast,
   
4. Rips and creases mar his past.
   
5. Love surrounds, he's unaware,
   
6. Family grieves, he only stares.
   
7. A flash of white, a bitter taste,
   
8. Once again, another place.
   
9. A blink, a cry, he's so alone,
   
10. His body strikes, his heart still roams.
    
11. That fickle fate, trapped his mind,
    
12. A stranger, all it left behind.
    

Interesting poem.  Composed of rhymed and near-rhymed couplets, basically tetrameter.  Rearranging words and tenses could make most or all of the rhymes exact,  but the near-rhyme suggests disorder without becoming actually incomprehensible.

There are cliches, particularly in the later part of the poem - "fickle fate" in L11, notably.  A more inventive word for one of the two (random fate, fickle chance) might be substituted to advantage.  "So alone" in L9 is another.

In some of the couplets, the line breaks seem to call for more decisive punctuation than a comma - to me, L5 calls for a colon or semicolon, for example.

Don't want to rewrite it, but there are some nice, original lines that seem short a metric foot:   reading L1 - a good image - I'm tempted to give either "perched" or "frail" two syllables.  Similarly in L11, I itch for an added word, perhaps between "fate" and "trapped."

"Strikes" in L10 may be an intended ambivalence.  In addition to the idea of the the body on strike (like a labor union), I see two traditional naval usages - "strikes" as in, to strike the flag (surrender), and "strikes" as in, "she [the ship] struck hard," used intransitively, meaning she ship grounded or hit a reef.  All those definitions of "strike" fit, making it a very rich line since all are appropriate (even additive).

It might be useful to re-punctuate as free verse (capitals only at the beginning of sentences, perhaps no line-end punctuation except periods) to see how it reads.  It's choppy now, but this mimics the abrupt movements of a person suffering dementia.

Stick with this subject - it's well worth an edit cycle or two.

[Merrikay]

Bumpity bump.