Challenge: Right Place Wrong Time

..
It means he's not sure but he thinks you won; if you defer that leaves the next one back. Hiya Mr.

Curious, with your question marks....is it congrats or is it not? Or does that mean something else entirely? Text is so difficult to interpret at times.


In any case, I'll defer this round. Plsase choose another to lead off the next.

As Mrtenant differed, the task of choosing the next challenge now fall to cascadiabound.

Okay everybody. I accept the obligation to start the next challenge. Look for a new thread later today. (My time, after I leave work. :))

This last one was tough for me, Piscator .... but it drew in a new/ old contributor so that is an excellent result.

I hope folks are enjoying the holiday season. Baking....knitting and coffee all sounds pretty good to me. :heart:
 
Chestnuts on sidewalks
deciduous forest ablaze that fall
freight trains winding through the valley
so far below our rock wall
on belay! belay on!
fingers scrabbling for hold
stretching aching reaching

hands chalky, sweaty with effort
crowning the sheer face
arms and legs shaking
fueled with adrenaline
one of many afternoons
a forbidden love unspoken
he belongs to another, as do I...

turn around twice and it is winter
he walks me home in the crunchy snow
glistening in the streetlight
pipe tobacco swirls 'round me
his quiet voice, now familiar, is warm

and then his kiss steals my heart

A nice poem! And your vocabulary is impressive. But watch it, don't overdo it. The word belay is perfect, beautiful. But deciduous for this poem is too smart, doesn't fit the mood. Instead of

deciduous forest ablaze that fall

you could say, for instance, something like

leaves ablaze fall down to the ground

(I am sure you can do it better, I am only indicating certain direction). The same for too scientific fueled with adrenaline.

Finally, a forbidden love unspoken is an awful cliche, oh no!

And still, the text is very nice. Just get rid of the routine blemishes. Instead of a cliche, you could have something real, from life. You have

a forbidden love unspoken
he belongs to another, as do I...

possibly (another an ad hoc example) something like:

another woman's notebook stick's out of his pocket
and my guitar's asleep in another man's living room​

In short, real life and to the point observations are preferable (in poetry, not on politics) than general BS.

Best regards,
 
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deciduous for this poem is too smart, [...]

True. However, the image which you, cascadiabound, have created is still beautiful al the same:

deciduous forest ablaze that fall

You're good. This discussion is on a (much :)) more advanced level than we see it ordinarily. Thus let me mention that pronoun that in the line above is unfortunately just dead wood, it does not contribute to poetry.

Best,
 
A nice poem! And your vocabulary is impressive. But watch it, don't overdo it. The word belay is perfect, beautiful. But deciduous for this poem is too smart, doesn't fit the mood. Instead of

deciduous forest ablaze that fall

you could say, for instance, something like

leaves ablaze fall down to the ground

(I am sure you can do it better, I am only indicating certain direction). The same for too scientific fueled with adrenaline.

Finally, a forbidden love unspoken is an awful cliche, oh no!

And still, the text is very nice. Just get rid of the routine blemishes. Instead of a cliche, you could have something real, from life. You have

a forbidden love unspoken
he belongs to another, as do I...

possibly (another an ad hoc example) something like:

another woman's notebook stick's out of his pocket
and my guitar's asleep in another man's living room​

In short, real life and to the point observations are preferable (in poetry, not on politics) than general BS.

Best regards,

True. However, the image which you, cascadiabound, have created is still beautiful al the same:

deciduous forest ablaze that fall

You're good. This discussion is on a (much :)) more advanced level than we see it ordinarily. Thus let me mention that pronoun that in the line above is unfortunately just dead wood, it does not contribute to poetry.

Best,

Senna Jawa ~
thank you so much for taking the time to provide feedback on my efforts.
I was not sure at all where I was going on this poem when I started it and I wrote it pretty much all in one go, without much editing. I think the cliche' is evidence of that. :eek:
I particularly appreciate your suggestion and ad hoc example of a way out of that particular cliche'

the use of *smart* words relative to the rest of the poem is harder for me to reconcile.
I see what you are saying, however, the use of such words is actually how I talk, how I think... therefore they do not feel too smart or unusual to me when i am composing. And a blaze of Pennsylvania forest in the fall looks the way it looks because it is deciduous, as opposed to the Cascadia evergreen forest within which I currently reside, which never looks like that, even when the occasional maple and alder leaves do fall in autumn. I probably need to remember to let go of what is in my head and edit for what the words do one against each other in verse.

Also ~ can you say more about why "that" is dead wood? I used it to indicate a particular moment in time "that fall" as opposed to any other year or time... which was part of how I was trying to locate the poem in the theme - right place, wrong time....

I am just musing now and I thank you so much for your thoughts. Truly. :rose::rose::rose:

cascadia :heart:
 
[...] can you say more about why "that" is dead wood? I used it to indicate a particular moment in time "that fall" as opposed to any other year or time... which was part of how I was trying to locate the poem in the theme - right place, wrong time....

Hi Cascadia,

could we continue in a new thread, Poetry's finer points? (I feel uneasy about overloading the given one, Challenge: Right...).

I am just musing now and I thank you so much for your thoughts. Truly. :rose::rose::rose:

cascadia :heart:

Cascadia, I am so glad and grateful to you for your kind response. It's great that you and a couple of new poets joined PF&D.

Warm regards,
Włodek (Senna Jawa)
 
Hi Cascadia,

could we continue in a new thread, Poetry's finer points? (I feel uneasy about overloading the given one,
:snip:
..
Senna the challenge has moved on to another thread I think it is fine to critique/discus them here as we move further along. Good to see you here, reminds me of how much I miss Twelveone
 
Flat Tire Six

Time (a ghazal)

So many places where we could have been don't ask me how
so many times we should have met, even sooner than this now

I wonder where we would have loved, surely not Atlanta town
but that is where our first time hearts fell in, before this now

I wanted you when I was twenty, single and available, the fun
was deep within my bones, much stronger then than here this now

Then time took off and too soon I married, had babies with a man
I loved him truly, still, you were missed in my arms, before this now

My soul is gladdened that here I rest beside your loving heart
I hear it beating contented measure, we're together here in this now.
 
I bought a car
your dad made it possible
I got a job
and you went to school
we rented furniture
I made curtains
refinished the old table
giving it new life

I met your friends
smoking Dunhill's
playing queens corner
(not very well)

we both got our ears pierced
and split a pair of earrings

you had ideas. and plans
this was the first summer
of the rest of our lives
soon kids would come
and I'd play mom

the summer cicadas
whined deep into my heart
and the more you planned
the more I pulled away
until I ran
from Atlanta to Alaska

might has well have been
New Zealand
your love was not enough
maybe another life
it would be
 
You inside my heart will always
be right, but that very same heart
breaks daily and I get ratty and irascible
by what you can't provide
when I'm greedy with need, lonely.
The days when I can't settle and accept
far outweigh when I can wait and hope
for what grows fewer and further between
or so it seems when my heart is lonely.
A love out of place and out of time.
 
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