Short Poem Derived From a Haiku Attempt

[ajcohen613]

ajcohen613,,

I think there are some extraneous lines/phrases/ words, that are either not needed as they point is implied, or distract from the point of the poem.

"Like a worried dog, he sits.
Alone, he eats his stew
neglecting to warm it up."

to

"Like a worried dog he sits,
and eats his cold stew."
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One might get away with this in Haiku but in a longer poem it really makes little sense:

"to cold stew longing at the dining table."

The insertion of the word "longing" looses it's meaning/impact in a longer sentence. In the haiku it is passable because of it's proximity to her. However its use here, makes it seem that the stew is longing, without any connection to her or their relationship.

I do like the last two lines (the two before them could be paired down)

"is scribbled on a bar receipt in his back pocket, (best line in the poem, succinct and very meaningful)
the smell on his neck - not his own."

I think I might try playing with "scent" instead of "smell". I'm not sure about the hyphen, I found it visually disrupted to the reading.

All in all a decent poem with a small need of trimming and tightening.

Dale

Duly noted. I'm on break at the pizza place I work at but I'll be editing this later on. We'll see how it goes!