< like leaves >

[rayheinrich]

And 2 months later he said:

Moving, poignant tone to your poem. Imbued with the feeling
of autumn, the turn of the earth away from the sun, presaging
the closing of a cycle.

I tried hard for poignant; I'm happy (pathetically) that it made it there.
(It was either that or write yet another < death sucks >. )

Hi ray,
you may think that you are bear-bating me with this....but it won't work, I tell you. It won't work.
OK...I love the enjambments. They are reasonable, sensible, predictive, sensitive...I could go on. The sans capitals force me to make decisions based solely on the clues and consequences in the text....and it works beautifully. Perhaps a comma after "promises" but there are alternative, and very slightly different, meanings...nuances even...made by any such changes.
Overviewing work like this is a minefield of good intentions. I enjoy the certainty in wistfulness so perfectly portrayed. It is rare to be able to make such certain judgement on the inner machinations of someone else's mind...there is a risk that by eulogy you think that I am condoning the lack of common practice, and BOOM, up it all goes in an explosion of acceptability. You may try to write like this often. It often fails. This one doesn't and that makes it rare.
Very best.
tectak  

I'm going to frame the entirety of your response in gold.

Is my lack of common practice so practiced I've become my own cliché?
No chance in hell: Clichés require wide exposure, audiences of 17 render it immune.

I liked it the first time you posted it and I like it this time as well.
I like pat, too.
It deserved another read.

Scratch the below, milo is correct, I am WRONG (as well as a sloth)

For the record, the only lines ever posted here were the last two.
They came from my poem: < remedial measures for diseased poultry >
I liked them so much I decided they needed a poem all their own.
But I'm flattered you remember them. Thanks.

Scratch the above, milo is correct, I am WRONG (as well as a sloth)

                                I apologize

Hey Ray-

" and we pretend they are not us"   For me, the entire poem swirls around this brilliant line.  

This one very much reminds me of Stanley Kunitz, that master of the sublime.  Please see this one:

TOUCH ME ( by Stanley Kunitz )
Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago...

Thanks for the great read,
... Mark

I really love being mentioned anywhere near Kunitz.
Once you mentioned his poem, I remembered it.
My subconscious (muse) probably had to pound away for years
before it managed a half-decent paraphrase.
It hates you for reminding me; I, on the other hand, am elated.

Stanley Kunitz's TOUCH ME :

        TOUCH ME – Stanley Kunitz

Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that’s late,
it is my song that’s flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
and it’s done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.

I really like this one. There are some places where I *think* it could be
smoothed out a tad, though I'm too many drinks into as to where now.
But it moved me.

Love,

Me

(You're interesting)

I've been drinking as well (but, I want you to believe,
not for the entire two months since you wrote this).
And, being in that state, I hereby offer myself a toast
for each of your several compliments. Three? Or was it
double? Half?  Whatever's left in the bottle?
Yes, it's that last one.

        Cheers![/size]