-
Losing My Place (Encore)
This piece o verse dates back to circa January 2008. I thought ‘d repost since one of our fellow NitLetters informed me that he was experiencing the real estate siege described here. Apart from a couple of trochees and the occasional anapest imbedded in prepositional phrases, the meter more-or-less attempts to follow a 4-stress, iambic pattern. The rhyme scheme may appear bizarre, but the irregular appearance of end rhymes were intentionally designed to depict a sense of dislocation.
Losing My Place
Mere rent receipts belonged to me,
in my own home a refugee,
though no force occupied our town.
The agent stated real command;
she clicked her heels on hardwood floors
while rifling closets, slamming doors.
A warm salute, an offered hand
for live ones, not the tenant --
not trespassing, but still present --
so very inconveniently,
as that front elm’s effrontery
defies its peeling bark to stand.
I loved the thickness of its trunk
and how its leaves held back the wind
that felt the touch of hope in its crown.
Oh, how I wish I still lived there,
back in that old and scruffy chair,
its angle bent like no man’s land.
(Evicting rage, despair would flee.)
With books, I used to mark the page
with flowers that I pressed and saved
from gardens I recall and crave --
no doubt by now they’re plowed and paved,
or like an unkempt lawn, mowed down.
-
An interesting idea to mark a page with dried flowers.
I liked the last stanza the best with the gardens "plowed or paved" or simply "mowed down". Of course, it is possible that a gardener moved in and planted more flowers, but gardeners are hard to come by.
-
..overall, I enjoyed..but,myself, I found the last 2 stanzas kinda weak..best of luck should you rewrite..sp
-
Brilliant as always, Auntie.
-
Thank you very much, YesNo, Spiros Zafiris, and Pompey Bum for your comments. Almost makes me what to start composing some new verses (instead of "composting" them.)
-
-
I liked it very much aunty
-
Yes, that's magnificent, Auntie. You have captured the mood and experience perfectly. I love the way the metre trips along and then clunks, shutting down like a tripped breaker, stalling the flow and leaving one with a sense of insecurity. And the imagery of conjured memory and loss—they don't come much better than this.
Live long and prosper - H
-
I still yearn for my boyhood home in NW Seattle; my parents uprooting the family so often after, my head still spins. I have only been evicted once due to the arrival of my daughter into the family (no children allowed) - a cold sterile place in Fremont, California during a contentious and trial driven time; with a memory of baby hamsters getting loose, a force majore, upon the premises (maybe that was the tipping point?).
Your detail to poetics is amazing. Yes, please, more poetry.
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
-
Thank you MystyrMystyry, Delta, Hawkman, and tailor STATELY for your comments.