Postcard

[hallaig]

Postcard

This is not a poem
its a postcard where
the picture is yellow leaves
lit by the sun
and a bird circling lazily
in the zip between.
Its colder than it looks
I would write,
hope you’re wrapped up warm
today if you’re travelling,
which I know for a fact you are.
That isn’t much to say:
in a postcard like a poem I think
its the thought that counts,
that wish you were here.

[vagantes]

The contraction for "it is" usually takes the apostrophe.

[Hawkman]

Hello hallaig. I really like this poem, it has a casualness bordering on detachment. A very thoughtful piece.

However, it does have a couple of issues. As V points out, you need an apostrophe in its, L2 and, assuming your use of zip indicates "nothing" I wonder if a comma before "between" wouldn't be in order to give it a little caesura.

I also feel you need a comma after "looks" to denote the break before the subordinate clause, "I would write,"

I've edited my original comment on the last line because having thought about it, I don't think it was valid. I initially had reservations, but it's almost perfect. I do just wonder if a comma before, and perhaps, quotation marks around, "wish you were here," wouldn't be appropriate.

But as I said, still a very pleasing read.

Live and be well - H

[PrinceMyshkin]

I can see why the various editorial changes have been proposed except that I think they miss the point of the hasty, sometimes sloppy way postcards are dashed off. One's concern in writing & sending postcards is often immediacy rather than felicity or correctness of expression

[Delta40]

I like the message you've sent Hallaig. I wish I was there too. It is simple and visual and quite witty actually, despite the catastrophe of the apostrophe!

[Jack of Hearts]

The contraction for "it is" usually takes the apostrophe.

Wow what ****ty feedback.

Anyways, a fine poem hallaig. Its gentle and doesn't overstay its welcome. If only more things around here were like it.




J

[Hawkman]

I can see why the various editorial changes have been proposed except that I think they miss the point of the hasty, sometimes sloppy way postcards are dashed off. One's concern in writing & sending postcards is often immediacy rather than felicity or correctness of expression

You know, for that argument to be truly convincing, it ought to be hand-written :D A Jpeg of the poem scrawled on the back of a postcard would really sell it.

[miyako73]

If "Its" is intentional, it is brilliant as far as imaginative creativity and play of words, emotion, and images are concerned. All he has are its-yellow leaves, the sun, a bird, the weather, a postcard-not a she, a person, he longs to be with.

[Silas Thorne]

A wonderful little poem, which seems to me to comment on the redundancy of commonplace postcard phrases. I like 'the zip between', since I don't think it only means nothing here, but perhaps travel, as in 'she zips from place to place', or black dotted lines, perhaps of stamped ink on a postcard.
I love those last two lines.

[qimissung]

It reminds me of the plum poem, and it's really kind of hard to pull of that causal immediacy in a poem. Well done, hallaig!

[Bar22do]

Perfect, Hallaig! as if casual, witty but heart melting! and I LOVE the rhythm and the sounds it offers in staccato!