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.)

Absolutely Excellent!

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.