Pretty Boy

[nibbed]

Hi, Gretel. Your poem was easy to read. I was puzzled by the title, kept thinking of my old green pet parakeet named Pretty Boy. He used to peck at the plastic Smurf head I popped off from a tube of bubblegum. I tied it to the inside of his cage and he liked it better than his beak sharpening stone. He was lonely and I think he thought it was a living companion. YOUR POEM: I am imagining a black and white scene being written in color, if that makes any sense. I like couplets but am seeing this to fit better as prose. I hope you don't give up on this poem, you certainly have secured the basic scene.



Pretty Boy
 
We sit together on a log
Looking across the reservoir
 
Admiring the autumn colors                                    would like a different word than colors
Layered under the blue sky                                      I like the "layered under" but what sort of blue?
 
Yellow, orange, brown and evergreen                      repeats two lines up
Cast reflections serene
 
A quiet breeze sets the tone                                    
for what would be our last afternoon 
 
You’re more quiet than usual                                    repeat of quiet above
While I get up to search for bones                             bones was good
 
Fisherman in their boat                                               
Don’t pay us any note
 
A crow calls out overhead
His fortuitous cry piercing the silence                           calls &cry kind of repetitive
 
What was it you were thinking?
I now know with regret
 
I wish we had sat and held hands
and confessed our hearts’ discontent
 
Perhaps we could have saved ourselves from anguish
Perhaps we could have saved what was left
 
For that quiet afternoon this past October                          awkward ending
was our last meeting as lovers                                              loses its cadence




                                                                                             best wishes!