Edited again. . . I don't want it to be preachy and yet,. . .

I hope this comes out as couplets:  except for stanza 9.  I want it to stand alone, you know like the cheese stands alone.  I thought about where I would be on the stage.  In the shadows or off stage.  Clearly, I am not center stage.  That's how I'm beginning to see Free Verse Poetry.  Where am I on the stage?  What needs to be center stage?  I have tried to take me totally off stage and I didn't like how it came out.   So, here I am in the shadows.  And I've been reading POETRY lately, edgy.  : )   It probably gave me permission to break a set stanza of couplets and location of narrator.  Just sayin'.  The ending has been hard to come up with. . . .  this is the best I can do on my own.  Open to any suggestions.  I have worked hard to make it NOT preachy.  All thoughts, welcome.



 Hay Shortage   (edited yet again)
 
“Be anxious for nothing. . . .” 
                              Philippians 4: 6
                          
Newspapers state what spiny hearts see: 
every rancher in the south is losing
 
money on horses, every day of every month. 
Imagine, waking up to a favorite horse,
 
a bit of holiness, but not able to pay
for hay, prices climbing day after day. 
 
Selling horses, unbearable.
Holding on, undescribable.
   
I know one cowboy who shovels stalls,
thinks hard, calls to a horse
 
for whom he has the utmost respect.
He carries torment in his gut
 
as he looks on this beautiful
warrior of time.
 
He worries a rope like a boy holds
prayer beads until he remembers
 
a sliver from childhood. 
 
Fingers grow still. Something tender,
how even birds of the air
 
are highly cared for.
Lifting his head toward the sky,
 
patience covers him
as he squints silently into the sun
 
where clouds form
in the shape of hooves. 

This version is getting down to the marrow. 

... spiny hearts ... worries a rope ... a sliver from childhood ...

I don't want "favorite" horse (all horses holy). 

I want something other than "I know" a cowboy.

A perhaps radical idea for the ending.  What if it ended at "birds of the air"?  The reader will know how to finish.

Pat

It seems to me the poem doesn't know what it wants to be yet.

What if you sit and tell the paper what you are thinking and then read that?  Is this a story? a rant? a challenge? a picture into the mind of a cowboy?

If you are going to use this version, I would find an article (for an epigraph I can never remember what that's called) to replace the scripture and first four stanzas  (ouch)

The third person narrator seems omniscient and that doesn't "feel" as honest.  It might be that the commentary is "telling" not showing (i.e. He carries torment in his gut . . . .)

I sense great passion behind the poem.  Perhaps if you write prose for a while, the poem's nugget will emerge.

Poem opens with some wandering is a global sense.  I'm not sure where it is going.  Perhaps squeeze first stanzas and get to your cowboy sooner.  When poem gets down to him-and-his-horse you really have my attention... here's where the drama and passion begin.  Warrior of time... worries a rope... clouds in shape of hooves...  Very Nice!

Dewell

Pat,  

I like the pictures you are painting here with the modern and the ancient (old west) scenario.

Maybe better told from the cowboy point of view.  Seems like too much talk before you get to the one who is worried about the horses.  Maybe if you could leap into it at the cowboy.  

It seems like you go a little too far at the ending, but I don't know just where I would stop.  

The element left out was the old pickup truck.  Keep working.

For some reason I can't get in under my Name so I am using this one.


Pat,  I like the pictures you are painting here with the modern and the ancient (old west) scenario. Maybe better told from the cowboy point of view.  Seems like too much talk before you get to the one who is worried about the horses.  Maybe if you could leap into it at the cowboy.  It seems like you go a little too far at the ending, but I don't know just where I would stop.  The element left out was the old pickup truck.  Keep working.

Based on your comments, this is where I wound up:  : )  



a bit of holiness
 
I would like for spiny hearts
to stop worrying
about hay shortage
to see what I see
 
a horse as a bit of holiness
 
snorting sounds
stable smells
hoof stomps
mounting thunder
 
nothing mediocre
 
a warrior of time
my utmost respect
even if
he must be sold
 
heart finally calm

another option rises
ride off into the sunset
on thunder
leave the girl behind

Pat

If the title is "a horse as a bit of holiness," then everything can center there.  I would follow that title with an epigraph (2016 hay shortage A.P.).  Then I'd make sure that each stanza was about the horse.  The poem loses that horse focus after "a warrior of time" and, I think, starts to focus on a person.

I will check but I think each one of us checks a box for notification.

I just remembered, I'd cut "for" out of "like for" should you keep the first stanza.

Pat.  I know you were only playing, but hang on to the leave-the-girl-behind version.

I want to go back and rewrite a number of my problem children with the eyes (and pen) you used here.

Thanks for the feedback.  Helpful.  I may look at my problem-children poems too, Karen.  This was not hard to do.  Not there yet, of course, but I have more direction, thanks to everyone and their comments.  Sometimes it feels global and I need help nailing it down to a house on the block or in this case, a stable.  Todd, I don't see the notification thingy to check?????

Pat

The box is at the bottom of the "Post a Reply" page.  The last option is "Notify me when a reply is posted."

Let me know if you can't find it.

Todd