December 1999

This is my first poem in ages. Please have mercy. Not sure whether it needs another line at the end.
Feedback?

December 1999

Northbound on Hitler's motorway,
the thudding concrete slabs,
metronomes of a winter journey.
A rose on the dashboard -
"Where should I keep that?" you snapped.
"They'll find out."
But your eyes defied them, unusually soft.
Haydn's Symphony 45.
Flash of light.
"What if they send a photo?"
"They won't. My dad's just got a ticket."
I remember the feel of your thigh;
Black jeans and brogues, your delicate knee
and then the Baroque town in the rain.
You left me to see the sights,
the streets too wide, forlorn traffic lights.
We turned heads at the stuffy café.
Night fell early on the forest,
a rushed hour on the way back.

..many images..flows well..


..sp
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This flows very well, though I do agree it seems to cut off abruptly, perhaps another line or two?

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Originally Posted by Spiros Zafiris

..many images..flows well..


..sp
____________________

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Thanks!
Sorry, I only saw your reply now.

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Originally Posted by stephofthenight

This flows very well, though I do agree it seems to cut off abruptly, perhaps another line or two?

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Thanks. Yes, I need to come up with a better ending.

On the contrary, the last 8 lines are perfect. It's the rest that needs to go. What comes before is just a jumble of expressions and statements. These may have been useful in creating the mindset you needed to created the poem, but they do not help it once the voice and substance has coalesced into something quite beautiful. In fact the only thing I'd change about the last eight lines would be to exchange the full stop after 'thigh' for a semicolon.

Thanks for sharing. Live and be well. H

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Originally Posted by Hawkman

On the contrary, the last 8 lines are perfect. It's the rest that needs to go. What comes before is just a jumble of expressions and statements. These may have been useful in creating the mindset you needed to created the poem, but they do not help it once the voice and substance has coalesced into something quite beautiful. In fact the only thing I'd change about the last eight lines would be to exchange the full stop after 'thigh' for a semicolon.

Thanks for sharing. Live and be well. H

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Thanks, good point about the semicolon; I've changed that. But I'm not going to delete the other lines. They are fragments of memories, not just random phrases. I do understand that they wouldn't necessarily make as much sense to the reader as they make to me, but they are still necessary.
Thanks for your feedback :)

You're right up my street

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Originally Posted by SleepyWitch

Thanks, good point about the semicolon; I've changed that. But I'm not going to delete the other lines. They are fragments of memories, not just random phrases. I do understand that they wouldn't necessarily make as much sense to the reader as they make to me, but they are still necessary.
Thanks for your feedback :)

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For me the first lines create the context of the poem. For example:"Hitler's motorway" must be somewhere in Germany. There is the contrast between the personal details and the fleeting impressions that come up during the winter journey: the music, the lights, the rose. It´s like a scene in a film.

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Originally Posted by Danik 2016

For me the first lines create the context of the poem. For example:"Hitler's motorway" must be somewhere in Germany. There is the contrast between the personal details and the fleeting impressions that come up during the winter journey: the music, the lights, the rose. It´s like a scene in a film.

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Thanks :) Haha, I'm glad you said that. A person on another forum got it completely wrong. For some reason they thought the poem was about drug trafficking in Hitler's time or something crazy like that :) Haha, I know that the poem is vague, but it's not that vague.

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Originally Posted by Jerrybaldy

You're right up my street

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Thanks! Eh, was that a pun?

Lol. Can´t say if there was any drug trafficking going on at Hitler´s time. That seems to me a practice of later times when the world got more globalized.
What I like most about your poem is the "modernistic touch", the scene created aut of movement, references, sensations.
The dialogue about the photo is not quite clear to me, but I don´t know if that´s important. The poem suggests things, it doesn´t explain them.

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Originally Posted by Danik 2016

Lol. Can´t say if there was any drug trafficking going on at Hitler´s time. That seems to me a practice of later times when the world got more globalized.
What I like most about your poem is the "modernistic touch", the scene created aut of movement, references, sensations.
The dialogue about the photo is not quite clear to me, but I don´t know if that´s important. The poem suggests things, it doesn´t explain them.

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Thanks again :)

No pun intended. Meant it literally. I like the style of your writing

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Originally Posted by Jerrybaldy

No pun intended. Meant it literally. I like the style of your writing

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Thanks :)