A problem with the overflow at my mother’s house has reminded me of a poem I have never managed to polish to my complete satisfaction. The first stanza seems to have potential, I think, though the line breaks still bother me. It’s probably ‘finished’ enough to post here, and I’ll be glad if anyone wants to criticise or comment:
A heavy storm has made the flat roof leak
and in the small hours, memories drip
from the bedroom ceiling. Unlike the rain
they cannot be absorbed
by piles of folded towels,
or mopped into a bucket, so
she paddles through them,
barefoot, towards dawn.
The poem was intended to be called something like All Hallows Anniversary and gets quite maudlin, but the fact I’ve thought about it now in August and under very different circumstances may, I hope, shake me out of my affection for the original idea.
All thoughts and commentary appreciated.
don't confuse the narrator 
I’d cut “unlike the rain” and leave it for the reader to work out that the puddles aren’t made of water.
There are a couple of adjectives that aren’t doing much work: “heavy” and “folded”.
I don’t see anything objectionable in the line breaks.
I like this one.
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Useful comments. I will think about them, and about where this can go if I ditch the trite and clichéd stanzas I am too embarrassed even to post on my blog as a ‘work in progress’.
Tnx.
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Paddling thru the memories doesn’t seem to work. It implies happy feelings.
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If I ever write ‘thru’ in a poem, you have my permission to shoot me. (Unless it’s ‘in voice’ for the narrator.)
Apart from that, in this poem there’s no reason to believe they aren’t happy memories, is there?
I’m not even sure they were bad in the original longer version. Vaguely ambivalent, I think.
But, ‘thanks for reading and commenting’.
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hello, I search original poems and found this one although I see it was posted a long time ago. I truly appreciated this poem and wonder if you ever posted the rest of it? I’m intrigued!
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I’m afraid I’d even forgotten that I’d posted the first part here. I think it must still be somewhere in my ‘work in progress’ file. Maybe 2012 will be the year I get my poetry organised and finish some of the pieces that have been hanging about for years. (A quick Google search tells me it was Paul Valery who said “A poem is never finished, only abandoned.”)
This link should take you to more of my poetry notes and drafts here on the blog. Comments are always appreciated – even negative ones.
Thanks for dropping by.
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