The Underside of his Napkin

never try to eat your husband's coffee dregs.
keep your headache in the bottle,
keep your tongue in your mouth.
it's not uncommon to consider slitting
your wrists on the sharp edges of
his crushed beer cans,
no, it's not unusual to fall
in and out of love.

gummy,

not sure i understand the title. i adore the images in the first three lines, although the "slitting the wrists" thing is a bit extreme in a poem this short, not to mention cliche.

while the poem shows that you, indeed, can write -- the idea seems undeveloped and leaves the reader wanting. i'm not suggesting you add length, but more depth would be nice. i would suggest replacing lines 4-6 -- those were the ones that killed the poem for me. and while i do like the clincher, the damage was already done.

good luck,
lyndsey

I liked this

keep your headache in the bottle,

I really like this line here.

The ending was what made it best for me, it was nice and well wrapped up, it all sort of fell together. I'm sorry I really don't have more to say about it, the only complaint I could have is that no lines were capitalized, but sometimes that is an authors preference?

I liked how it was sort of narrative, we saw the husband, and the wife, though she was never mentioned. It's sort of like this is written for/by the wife. But not from her POV. Very enjoyable to read

Although slitting one's wrists is cliche, I felt that you did a great job with it here. The speaker isn't talking about slitting-wrists-and-wallowing-in-depression like most wrist-slitting poems do.

It was done so well with the beer cans and everything. It's not a cliche wrist-slitting poem because the speaker is addressing the subject about slitting the subject's wrists, so it's new and refreshing HURRAH. It might have been my favorite part.

One thing, though, a minor logic problem: Do crushed cans usually have sharp edges? I thought that crushed cans just sort of collapsed instead of rupturing to produce sharp edges. (I admit, I have cut myself on a pop can before, but that's because my friends at camp accidentally turned the temperature in their dorm fridge way down and a can of Coke semi-exploded.)

Also, the beer seems kind of a middle-aged-male stereotype that was a little too predictable here.

never try to eat your husband's coffee dregs.
keep your headache in the bottle,
keep your tongue in your mouth.

I felt that this didn't really tie in with the ending of "no, it's not unusual to fall/in and out of love." These three lines are given advice, not observations.

I got the feeling of a married woman talking to a younger woman, newly in love, about to get married and really excited about it...and the older woman is saying, "It's not so terrific. In fact, it sucks. You're going to fall out of love." (Or perhaps just a cynic addressing the infatuated woman of the world.) Wait, no, now that I've typed that all out I think I understand it better now. Is that something along the lines of what you intended?

But...eating coffee dregs? Is that done? I'm guessing it's some sort of metaphor, perhaps for understanding him, but...*confusion* Clarification?
Also: The first line is its own sentence, while the second and third lines are thrown into one. I think this would be better if each line was one sentence:
never try to eat your husband's coffee dregs.
keep your headache in the bottle.
keep your tongue in your mouth.


Why was nothing in the poem capitalized while the title was? I think that the lack of capping is perfectly acceptable, but it usually looks better uniform. Also, what exactly is the significance of the underside of his napkin? I have a few guesses, but each one is less plausible than the last...

Enjoyable work, great tone and "message"!
Colleen

what does this poem have to do with a napkin?

This was really nice. Nice analogies within the lines and descriptive words. I liked each line and found they had there own meaning separately. Good job!

Keep it up!
-Rieda

you're easily my favorite writer on this site and this is why.