Souvenirs

[67eager]

SOUVENIRS

Beyond my flat's double glazed glass,
I see a hazy midday scene:
Flocks of tourists napping in grass,
The slow and subtle spread of shade,
Tall men with their sub-legal trade,
And on trees the emerging green.

I look with greater focus now,
Upon this fading midday scene,
As I begin to notice how
The spring cement's obscurity
Heightens the plumb logs purity,
Showing a forest that had been.

When I am archaic yet wise,
I will still see this midday scene,
But never again through live eyes;
Never at all with the power
To sweeten a youth gone sour. 
Too much to take in at eighteen.

[The Four-Eyed Cat]

Just wrote a comment and then my browser crashed, damn you, technology!

I love the poem you've written here. The imagery is strong and the first stanza vividly reminds me of the Vondelpark in Amsterdam. 
Correct me if i'm wrong, but my personal interpretation of this poem is a man witnessing the urban expansion consuming remnants of nature. 
I also feel there's a deeper underlying notion (due to the last sentence).

SOUVENIRS

Beyond my flat's double glazed glass,
I see a hazy midday scene:                                                - Creates a strong and great image. Good choice of words;
Flocks of tourists napping in grass,                                    A 'hazy midday' and 'double glazed' is a brilliant match.
The slow and subtle spread of shade,                                - Gives me a great picture of how the angle of the sun just changes throughout the day
Tall men with their sub-legal trade,                                     - The 'sub-legal trade' is one of the reasons why it reminds me of the Vondelpark
And on trees the emerging green.

I look with greater focus now,                                           - it's as if the protagonist already knows that he will reminisce this moment, thus preparing us
Upon this fading midday scene,                                       for the final stanza
As I begin to notice how
The spring cement's purity                                                - Not too fond of you using 'purity' twice. Also, I personally think cement is rather 'impure' 
Heightens the plumb logs purity,
Showing a forest that had been.

When I am archaic yet wise,                                             - Something feels off with 'archaic yet wise', i feel that 'yet' gives it a negative connotation.
I will still see this midday scene,                                      perhaps that was your intention, but personally i'd go with and, or just change the whole line
But never again through live eyes;
Never at all with the power                  
To sweeten a youth gone sour.                                         - Fantastic line, I think this might be the strongest one in the poem
Too much to take in at eighteen.                                     

[Richard]

Hey 67eager,
I like the overall message of this poem. My main suggestions would be about some of your word choices throughout the poem. I'll go into greater detail below:

SOUVENIRS

Beyond my flat's double glazed glass,
I see a hazy midday scene: -Is "hazy" the right word here? I ask that because you then go on to describe the scene with quite a bit of detail.
Flocks of tourists napping in grass,
The slow and subtle spread of shade, -I like this line. It creates a wonderful image in my mind.
Tall men with their sub-legal trade, -What is sub-legal trade?
And on trees the emerging green.

I look with greater focus now,
Upon this fading midday scene,-I know that the "midday scene" is important, but does it warrant repetition?
As I begin to notice how
The spring cement's purity -Is "cement's" supposed to be "cements," and is it also supposed to be a verb or noun? I would suggest rewording this line because its meaning is a bit unclear.
Heightens the plumb logs obscurity, -I googled it, and still have no idea what "plumb logs" are.
Showing a forest that had been.

When I am archaic yet wise,
I will still see this midday scene,
But never again through live eyes; -This seems like an fancy way to say "remembering".
Never at all with the power
To sweeten a youth gone sour. -I like this line, but I think the rhyme of "power" and "sour" actually detracts from it. I actually find the line before this one a bit unclear. Why not just say: "I couldn't/ sweeten a youth gone sour."
Too much to take in at eighteen. -I like this line as an ending. It sums up the speaker's feelings well.

There are times here when it feels like you're wording your ideas a certain way just to make the meter work, and this hurts your overall meaning. When you do a revision of this poem, just say what you want to say. I think this because you do have a message in this poem worth sharing.

Keep writing,
Richard

[ellajam]

Hi, eager, this poem has interesting potential but I think it's fallen into a few pitfalls that you could climb out of with some work.

A search of your rhyme scheme led to some interesting reading, so thank you for that. It seems that it's often used with an eight syllable/line count, which is what, for the most part, you've done here. I'm a fan of syllable count as an invisible skeleton, when it pleases the reader without them not quite knowing why. I don't think you've achieved that here, more often I found myself wondering why a line was phrased the way it was, so that is something you could surely polish.

But if syllable count is a skeleton, meter can be the sexy undergarments, ideally still not quite visible but defining structure and adding allure. Your poem drifts in and out of steady meter and I don't think the choppiness of that and the almost constant end line punctuation aids the poem. Some notes below:

SOUVENIRS

Beyond my flat's double glazed glass, I don't think you need this comma
I see a hazy midday scene:
Flocks of tourists napping in grass,
The slow and subtle spread of shade,
Tall men with their sub-legal trade, While I can ponder sub-legal trade, I can't think of any limited to tall men or what height has to do with it.
And on trees the emerging green.
For me, the capitalization of each line kept me from seeing this as the list it is and at first it just came across as fragments.


I look with greater focus now, You might cut this comma, and if was mine I'd probably cut the one below as well.
Upon this fading midday scene,
As I begin to notice how
The spring cement's purity I'm trying here, winter's snow makes cement less pure? Summer's, um,got nothing, is less pure?
Heightens the plumb logs obscurity, Can't figure out plumb logs or why they're obscure.
Showing a forest that had been.
So now I'm thinking maybe these lines are about the boxed trees inserted into sidewalks but those are not usually remnants of a forest, so, dead end for me.


When I am archaic yet wise, Not a fan of this line, if one is archaic how wise could they be, having lost their relevance? I'm sure you could think of a better way to say old.
I will still see this midday scene,
But never again through live eyes; Is "live" what you mean?
Never at all with the power
To sweeten a youth gone sour.
Too much to take in at eighteen.

This type of poem can be difficult but fun to work on, I hope you enjoy it and that some of my notes help.

[makeshift]

SOUVENIRS

Beyond my flat's double glazed glass,  I like the opening. I can imagine this double glazed glass, the way it might abstract the world is interesting. 
I see a hazy midday scene:
Flocks of tourists napping in grass,
The slow and subtle spread of shade, This image is strong and feels very observant 
Tall men with their sub-legal trade, Totally weird haha, im guessing were talking about people conducting business? Sub-legal trade feels like an effort to rhyme shade? This stanza is my favorite, just cant get behind this line. 
And on trees the emerging green.

I look with greater focus now, Maybe the first stanza should be blurrier, if this stanza is greater focus? Its an efficient structure I think, slowly the camera focuses.. 
Upon this fading midday scene,
As I begin to notice how
The spring cement's obscurity
Heightens the plumb logs purity,
Showing a forest that had been. Not exactly following the logic of these three lines, but theres some colour here. 

When I am archaic yet wise, This thought/line feels really unnatural to me. 
I will still see this midday scene,
But never again through live eyes; Live makes me think your eyes are dead, I don't think its a literal dead, I think its just less imaginative eyes or something but i'm not sure.
Never at all with the power
To sweeten a youth gone sour. 
Too much to take in at eighteen. 

Yeah i'm not too sold on the rhymes, I think they might be taking more then they're giving. I read this as the narrator is taking in a scene and realizing they'll see it different when they're older, or something a little more specific then that exactly. I thought the first strophe was the strongest, I was more in the space. I could see this poem spending more time with the details, really letting things unfold. Enjoyed it, thanks for sharing.

[joecarey123]

Hiya 67eager,

Thanks for sharing - a vivid read! You've definitely been able to evoke images which are powerful - nice one. 

There are a couple of things which left me unsatisfied, though, as others have said. 

+ "Sub-legal trade" felt a bit messy and needs explaining.
+ "Plumb logs", can you explain this? 
+ I, again like others, am not loving the rhyme scheme - it's quite uneven and distracts me from the words. But then again, I never use rhyme myself and am probably biased. 

Just quibbles - the poem as a whole is great!

Joe

[Waneerie]

SOUVENIRS

Beyond my flat's double glazed glass,
I see a hazy midday scene:
Flocks of tourists napping in grass,       - To give off the same stillness vibe, what about "lain on grass", or is "in grass" intended in a way I
The slow and subtle spread of shade,    couldn't get?
Tall men with their sub-legal trade,       -  I'm among those who didn't get this!
And on trees the emerging green.         - To improve the rhythm what about "over the trees emerging green?" for some reason that "and"
                                                                      ruins the flow of images to me
I look with greater focus now,
Upon this fading midday scene,
As I begin to notice how
The spring cement's obscurity
Heightens the plumb logs purity,          - Couldn't get this one either
Showing a forest that had been.

When I am archaic yet wise,                   - I really like this for reasons I'll explain below
I will still see this midday scene,
But never again through live eyes;
Never at all with the power
To sweeten a youth gone sour.         - Brilliant juxtaposition and rhyme
Too much to take in at eighteen.       - As simple as poignant

I might be very much mistaken, but (also influenced by its title) I supposed the focus of the poem was on how one can remember vividly details, sometimes even trivial ones, yet it all wans compared to what young eyes (or senses more broadly) can perceive.
I thought the whole picture, but a photography of a random (lazy perhaps) afternoon, burnt into one's memory, along with its slow descent into evening, was to be given a meaning by the last sentence, where I might have imagined even more things: archaic yet wise seems to me as a mockery of old age, perhaps such sourness comes from regret? The last two verses also strengthened the feeling that it all was just a memory of a past day, impressed in one's memory and made to look much more precious, only because it's gone, and it had been seen with live, young eyes.

In light of this, I didn't think much of the cryptic plumb logs or the sub-legal trade men, since I thought they were part of a postcard (a city afternoon, with tourists laying down, businesspeople going about their, well, business and the rest of a city's layout) whose importance is what memory bestows, as long as prospective wistfulness.

My apologies in case I misinterpreted it, except for those small suggestions, very nicely done!