The Last Friday

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The Last Friday

The Last Friday is a poetry editing group. Once a month, we post a poem and then offer feedback to the other poems on the Forum. We're a friendly but honest group. We value each other deeply and desire for every poet to be published or become famous.


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    This is an old memory. . . coping skill actually. How does it work in a poem?

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    Pat


    Posts : 1162
    Join date : 2011-09-12

    This is an old memory. . .  coping skill actually.  How does it work in a poem?   Empty This is an old memory. . . coping skill actually. How does it work in a poem?

    Post  Pat Thu Jul 26, 2012 5:32 pm

    I tried to stay with some repetition and showing bits and pieces of a dysfunctional family. Mine, of course. : )

    Stirring the Gravy



    From a room familiar as a nursery rhyme

    an image holds: my Mother as she calls

    to me, “Come on now. . .get up. . .

    come stir the gravy. . . .”



    Stirring the gravy distracts me

    from the elephant in the living room

    who drinks off and on during hard nights.

    Stirring soothes and swirls away

    the unpredictable yard apes I’d monkeyed

    around with the evening before.



    Angels guide me to stir gravy

    and make no grand judgments

    of the zoo keeper who comes and goes.

    Stirring the gravy means one more chance

    to set yesterday right. After all, when you

    live inside a zoo, birdy words and scuffles

    and tussels happen.



    The gravy is a muddy lake

    inside an iron skillet, a place to swim, ski,

    stir, be more than an ordinary girl

    holding tight to a jon-boat

    heading for shore.



    All is dream-like when I stir the gravy.

    It is then and there that dysfunction

    and love get lost and found—

    in a sister’s talk, a mother’s face,

    a brother’s grin, a father’s walk.
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    Dewell H. Byrd


    Posts : 385
    Join date : 2012-01-05
    Age : 93
    Location : Central Point, OR

    This is an old memory. . .  coping skill actually.  How does it work in a poem?   Empty Pat's GRAVY poem

    Post  Dewell H. Byrd Thu Jul 26, 2012 10:07 pm

    Pat, you got me with that last stanza... indeed, the last TWO stanzas. Very nice....

    I like the birdy words line yet that stanza seems to muddy the (chocolate?) gravy. Can you tighten it up a bit and give more definition to the elephant, the drinker, etc? Is the drinker the father? I get the dysfunctional aspect of a young girl's life and the escape. Can you give us more about that stirrrr feeling?

    I can't quite smell it. Wood stove?

    Just a little more work... you certainally touched on a part of our secret lives. Dewell (When I was in grade eight I won the Virginia state spelling bee... you would never know it now!)
    tsukany
    tsukany


    Posts : 924
    Join date : 2011-05-21

    This is an old memory. . .  coping skill actually.  How does it work in a poem?   Empty Strong image

    Post  tsukany Fri Jul 27, 2012 8:07 am

    Pat...you have two strong (competing) images in the poem: nursery rhyme (which you abandon for the "zoo") and gravy. For me, gravy seems stronger. "My family is like gravy"...never heard THAT one before. What if you trim (pun intended) off all the zoo images and stir the gravy image?
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    Pat


    Posts : 1162
    Join date : 2011-09-12

    This is an old memory. . .  coping skill actually.  How does it work in a poem?   Empty Thank you! I'm struggling to figure out what white gravy smells like. . .

    Post  Pat Sat Jul 28, 2012 1:04 pm

    other than white gravy, but a wood stove is not so hard. . . . : ) And I needed to hear what you said about the zoo image. Helpful. Thank you, Pat

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