Poemranker [Replying] Thu Nov 21 10:58:38 PST 2024

Replying to a comment on:

Bags upon the bed and opened, speaking volumes of a traveler's wear. The tacky, flowered curtains sway with the cold, blowing air and blend with the matching bedcloth. Arranging things neatly and swiftly, like a drifter bedding down for the night. The book inside the nightstand drawer, stored alone and out of sight, hasn't been opened in years. I lay flat on my back, smiling slightly, and dreaming of the day that I return. The picture on the sill seems out of place, but the truth is, it just makes it feel more like home.

zodiac

8-May-04/4:47 PM

I find myself inclined to critique this seriously, who knows why, so here goes:

1) Drop the comma after "sway" in the first stanza.
2) Change "swiftly moving" to something else.
3) Say what color, pattern, etc. the bedcloth is, rather than simply saying it's tacky.
4) "as" in line 2 of stanza 2 should be "like" or nothing.
5) "nightstand new" is awkward; why didn't you say it in a way that made sense?
6) "it's" should be "its", and that whole clause is worded completely awfully.
7) "upward" is bad; stare at a water-stain in the shape of a beautiful woman, a light-fixture, or almost anything else.
8) The ellipses in the penultimate line are terrible. When people do that, it makes me feel like the last line is supposed to be a punchline, which is a ridiculous thing to put in a poem and a ridiculous way to set it up. I find that a comma, appositive or some interjection works a lot better to pause the poem a bit before the end; something like:
but the truth, I think now, is that
it just etc etc.
That's awful, I know, but you get the idea.
9) I wish you'd kept up the soft rhyme from the first stanza; it was nice.

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