03-23-2016, 11:41 AM
I miss the scent of city girls: cold nights,
dark streets, fast food, gas lights.
I like the girl who wraps herself
in a thick-cloth coat and a woolly hat,
It loses the cadence for me with 'thick-cloth coat'
that hints of coffee and polluted air
and if you kiss and draw her in
You switch from 'I' in the first sentence to 'you' here, why? Thsi poem is about the N not the reader.
her whole day lingers on her breath;
This is unfortunate, suggests bad breath.
exposed to chill night wind.
Repeats the cold nights of line 1 and is redundant.
from one shared cigarette.
You light two, she takes one…
but she does not inhale.
This is a film cliche Cluade Rains and Bett Davis if I remember rightly.
Her hair is in your face and you suck deep,
suck deep is too close to a sexaul cliche.
through her outer fabric shield.
You mean her bra don't you?
Soft buttons pop,
I like this.
That's all I want to say, it would be much more effective if the N remained 'I' not the traditional 'you' since, the poem is so obviously about the N, I would keep it all in the first person. I would think about cutting it down and looking for the best lines in the poem, lines that are emblematic of the scene, rather than circling round the subject with more and more detail.
dark streets, fast food, gas lights.
I like the girl who wraps herself
in a thick-cloth coat and a woolly hat,
It loses the cadence for me with 'thick-cloth coat'
that hints of coffee and polluted air
and if you kiss and draw her in
You switch from 'I' in the first sentence to 'you' here, why? Thsi poem is about the N not the reader.
her whole day lingers on her breath;
This is unfortunate, suggests bad breath.
exposed to chill night wind.
Repeats the cold nights of line 1 and is redundant.
from one shared cigarette.
You light two, she takes one…
but she does not inhale.
This is a film cliche Cluade Rains and Bett Davis if I remember rightly.
Her hair is in your face and you suck deep,
suck deep is too close to a sexaul cliche.
through her outer fabric shield.
You mean her bra don't you?
Soft buttons pop,
I like this.
That's all I want to say, it would be much more effective if the N remained 'I' not the traditional 'you' since, the poem is so obviously about the N, I would keep it all in the first person. I would think about cutting it down and looking for the best lines in the poem, lines that are emblematic of the scene, rather than circling round the subject with more and more detail.