Plastic bricks

[Chaotic Body]

v.26 (first line edit)

A quiet small girl, she won't tell me
What it is, that's such a worry.


Playing, she unfolds a scene:
Mother and child in their house.


Egg, sausage & chips for dinner.
The father's quite a way from home...
"-Go play with your toys!!"


Mommy, now on the phone: wails, curses.
Little girl, from the doorway, walks to,
Comforts Mommy. Standing on plastic tiles


Daddy's had his face scribbled-on,
Laying with other plastic; rubble.


(end)

v2.5 (wanted to do more with it, but it's difficult,
S5L1 punctuation??)

A quiet small girl, she won't tell me
What it is, that's such a worry.


Playing, she unfolds a scene:
Mother and child in their house.


Egg, sausage & chips for dinner.
The father's quite a way from home...
"-Go play with your toys!!"


Mommy, now on the phone: wails, curses.
Little girl, from the doorway, walks to,
Comforts Mommy. Standing on plastic tiles


Daddy's had his face scribbled-on,
Laying with other plastic; rubble.


(end)


v2.0 (rearranged for more appropriate grouping of stanzas, not much else)

Quiet small girl, she won't tell me
What it is that's such a worry.


Playing, she unfolds a story:
The mother and child in house.


Egg, sausage & chips for dinner.
The father's a few feet away from home...
"-Go play with your toys!!"


Mommy, later on the phone, starts to cry
Little girl, from the doorway, walks to,
Comforts Mommy. Standing on plastic tiles


Daddy's had his face scribbled on,
Laying with other plastic; rubble.


(end)


v1.0 Original

Quiet small girl, she won't tell me
What it is that's such a worry.


Playing, she unfolds a story:
The mommy and child in house.


Daddy is a few feet away from home
Egg, sausage & chips for dinner today.


"-Go play with your toys!!"
Mommy later on the phone, starts to cry


Little girl, from the doorway, walks to,
Comforts Mommy. Standing on plastic tiles


Daddy's had his face scribbled on,
Laying with other plastic; rubble.


(end)


(all comments & criticism welcome)

[jmnical]

I really liked this. However, I found the punctuation jarring in s1 l2 and s2 l2 (thought that's a personal bias).

S4: "Mommy, later on the phone" this might be more clear if the words were switched around? I think it would work to say "later on the phone, mommy"

The last stanza is great.

[Chaotic Body]

I really liked this. However, I found the punctuation jarring in s1 l2 and s2 l2 (thought that's a personal bias).

S4: "Mommy, later on the phone" this might be more clear if the words were switched around? I think it would work to say "later on the phone, mommy"

The last stanza is great.

Thanks for the input!

Is the jarring such a huge concern with poetry in general? (I'm thinking it is)

I think I'm taking too long to get to the meat of the story.. could also do with more imagery, I really love how I fitted in 'standing on plastic tiles' just because there wasn't really much else to say. I thought it's not good using a whole line of the poem for something that's meant to be uncovered by the reader, but the 'standing on plastic tiles' adds something of value.. maybe not enough. What do you think about that?

[billy]

Just a couple of points;

As novice poets it is often better to be less mean than this when telling t he story
Make it as clear as you can, don't go for poetryjust yet. The main thing is to get it down on the paper in a way that can read and understood with clarity.
Try to make it read smoothly. As it is, i feel like i'm stopping to much in order to try and work things out

[Erthona]

I have to agree with Billy, I would call it disjointed. Although there are punctuation problems, such as "-Go play with your toys!!"
(no hyphen right inside a quote mark as you are already setting it off with the quotes) is also problematic, clarity is the primary concern. To me it reads as being contrived, as though it were an exercise you had for school.

Dale