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.


2 posters

    I am being tenacious, I suppose. . . .oh well, here it is again:

    avatar
    Pat


    Posts : 1162
    Join date : 2011-09-12

    I am being tenacious, I suppose. . . .oh well,  here it is again: Empty I am being tenacious, I suppose. . . .oh well, here it is again:

    Post  Pat Tue Mar 05, 2013 2:53 pm

    Two Years After You

    Committed Suicide



    Your rooted family

    came together and planted a river birch

    down the lane by my mailbox shaped

    like a monument. When the wind blows,

    tentative branches tremble. On visiting,

    siblings are greeted by a red bandanna

    blazing like a red sun hanging on a bony arm

    of a stripped tree. Memories then flood them.

    None flinch, but none outrun the years.



    Your rooted family

    takes the time in the evening hours

    to unreel the hippie days, to relive the effect

    of your hearty laugh, how you’d drink sunlight,

    and we smile at the way you could ripple

    any conversation. And yet, we also recall

    the long night of weeping

    after you’d filled yourself with bullets—

    first, from a medicine bottle

    and then, from an innocent gun.



    Your rooted family,

    as you know, is no stranger to storms

    or picking up broken limbs after weather passes,

    but now some of us carry fear in our hearts

    that a child’s child may one day

    startle us once again

    by crashing to the ground

    and uprooting an entire tree,

    by leaving us just as you did

    shriveling everything.
    tsukany
    tsukany


    Posts : 924
    Join date : 2011-05-21

    I am being tenacious, I suppose. . . .oh well,  here it is again: Empty at the risk of cutting wonderful material--

    Post  tsukany Tue Mar 05, 2013 3:44 pm

    Committed Suicide

    Family came together,
    planted a river birch
    down the lane
    like a monument.

    Each day a red bandana
    blazes on a bony arm.
    None flinch, but
    none outrun the years.

    We’re no strangers to storms
    or picking up broken limbs,
    but now some of us fear
    that a child’s child may

    crash to the ground,
    uproot an entire tree,
    leaving us just as you did
    shriveling.
    avatar
    Pat


    Posts : 1162
    Join date : 2011-09-12

    I am being tenacious, I suppose. . . .oh well,  here it is again: Empty Aaaaahhhh.

    Post  Pat Tue Mar 05, 2013 3:49 pm

    You made it so simple.

    I think I complicate stuff. Maybe because it's my material? my life? This was therapy for me. Thank you so much. I needed the nudging. And I appreciate the rewrite. Helpful. So helpful.

    What else, guys? Pat
    avatar
    dennis20
    Guest


    I am being tenacious, I suppose. . . .oh well,  here it is again: Empty back at you with a thought

    Post  dennis20 Tue Mar 05, 2013 6:46 pm

    Pat,   I think Todd has a straight line from title through family, landmarks, emotions and ends with possibilities of a future child.  You said all that in your poem but you and I have the subconscience prodding from entering contests where it gives us line limits and we've heard people (judges) make comments like " I won't consider anything less than 30 or 35 or more lines in any 40 line contest I judge."  It looms in the back of our minds (I'm guilty here, too) causing us to add fluff in our writing.  Todd cuts through the fluff and leaves our poetry with the extra cut away.  I wish I could do that but I fail.  I' m hoping to get better at it by listening to Todd. Dewell is good at that too.  This is why these critiques are helpful to us.  Dennis

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