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where went the dandelion? I think you're beginning to beat the broth metaphor to death. This is 'trust your reader to get it" time, and most of them will. The ones that don't, never will. If you're going for humor, two pigeons in the same loft is good. Otherwise, no. Im sorry (maybe im a bit giddy, ...

Beginning's better. However, you've used 'strangers" three times consecutively. Two, max, and you really don't need a 'heart paddle' metaphor to follow the blown dandelion one. The first is terrific, the second is cringey. try the poem with out this: "I pray this steaming bowl can revive me, like he...

It's a good revision. Don't be afraid to tinker, Bob. I have poems I could have sworn were totally finished,
and years later think, oh, look. I can take that line out. Much better for the deletion.
But this reads well, definitely.

I'd leave off the first stanza. Make 'em hunt for it. You're really giving away the ending at the beginning.

I love the stripped dandelion stanza, that would make a great first section, but you've mentioned
chicken soup three times. Could you pare it back to one?

final suggestion, not critical but possibly an improvement: change "The black and white footage of Neil’s shadow on the lunar landscape is as grainy as the ultra sound images" to ""Neil's shadow on the landscape is as grainy as the ultra sound images" Do you really need 'black and white footage"? It...

I agree with Bob, those are the places I was seeing, too. (great minds, after all)
this is much better.

Works, doesn't it. You can hear the bumps in the language that way.
and the best part is, when you hit the good lines, you know it. =)

oh, you spoil me, but thank you.
Anytime you write a poem, once you head into revision, read it out loud.
Slowly, hearing the words. Your eyes can fool you, your ears, never.

This one moves, now, right down the page.

I like the way the beginining seques into the ending. Couple of suggestions: "jumped with springs in their legs" could be reduced to one word: "bounced", which conveys the same meaning but more neatly. Do you need "fine grained" when you also have "powdery" ? "--as the ultra sound images of our son,...

I second the other two choices, as well. And thank you.

Judy Thompson thompson_wp@tds.net the poem is mine, it's unpublished and not on any other board When They Make The Movie of Your Life You open the mailbox with a gesture so commonplace that only the sound of high-pitched violins would alert the audience that a pivotal, life-changing scene is about t...

good points. I used 'cruel" twice for the rhythm. Even free verse needs a certain rhythm that I don't hear unless I read it aloud. I've already done the specific imagery in the previous stanza, so in a way it's redundant and not really necessary at all. Untitled (revision) And when he went away she ...

thanks, Bob.

goodness. will do, and ty.

And when he went away she learned to be content with nothing where something had been; the afternoons were fine, the evenings could be endured; but mornings, when the sky was deep with promise and cloud, when the sun rose over everything and wind carried the scent of fresh cut grass and lilacs begin...

This one, capricorn, made me smile. Sometimes, less is more, and this is definitely more. And the ending lets us enter the poem and think, ohhh. of course.

It's better, could be better still. Don't be afraid to hack and slash, either. You've always got your first (and second and third...) draft to go back to. I've written poems that went through twenty or thirty serious revisions, over a month of steady work... Again, I'll drag out Frost's "Stopping by...

Sometimes there can be too much detail, forcing a reader to skim (as I did) and then lose the thread of why the two parts are connected. And sometimes too much attempt at drama, too much explanation, can spoil the actual punch line. Your poignant remembrance gets lost in the details, like losing the...

Nice to meet you, Elra. I used to have a clockwork schedule, bizarre but accurate: 12 years off, 5 years on, where I would write like one possessed, on a daily basis. And when the writing slowed, I knew I was, like the cicada, going back 'underground" for 12 years. This last time, however, the writi...

I think, if you enjoy being here (or anywhere, actually) and contribute as you see fit, then you are indeed making good use of what's here. and from experience on this board and others, there is no "have to" going on. Just suggestion, nudges in the right direction, and an acceptance of each other. M...

thank you both for those words. It helps to read what you write aloud, and listen to the rhythms, hear the way the words connect. And I understand how hard it is, sometimes, to let go of phrases you love. But once you realize that love don't work on a cliche, it's a lot easier to let it go. And ther...

sometimes a poem like this needs air, and space, and time. come back to it after you've forgotten about it, and
see how it looks then. Better, now, I agree.

Oh, hell, all of them can be improved, sometimes we improve them right out of existence. =)

I'd be inclined to change first person to third, to give it a more realistic tone Less personal description. Less detail. Make a reader work for this one. =) "it has become legend how thunder" could be shortened to 'legend has it that..." skip "and that was it" --way way too slangy... skip "all I kn...

'sokay. I'm not writing these days anyway, just revising. I suspect my writing days are long gone.

Good luck with the work, though

np. and good luck with it.