Transition to Decaf

blowing smoke from my tongue
was the only thing that chased you away -
you were afraid of burning out like
coals and embers, you were afraid of
dancing in the winter squalls, the
ash and tinder were best remaining
inside your child heart.
Age had no place on your muffler chin,
it could not shrivel
your boyish tears.

I sipped coffee and spat the bitter
back out at your new playmate, scrunched
in a mess of limbs across the yard.
You scoffed, blood running to your brain -
Ironweeds have taken over our fortress, but
you are home amongst the crowsfeet.

And it flares the most when I spot the
slender candy cigarette,
perched between two smokestack lips.

[those whom never taste my candy lips]

Okay, I'll be real eccentric here. It is the words you used that first caught my attention, before reading it in standard form. For example; playground, candies, chocolate, tongue, burning. I can't quite explain why, for I am certaintly not a psychologist, but certain words just seem to appeal to the literary senses and you have nailed them.

A few little things. You have two "I"'s in the third stanza, first line. (Heh. I think that is poetry talk. Forgive me if I'm completely off base.)

This part doesn't sound right:

"I miss you terribly, lovely."

I would consider changing it.

And I'm not sure if this was intentional or no, since I can hardly guess the intentions of a poet, but the last line is seperated from the rest of the poem, which you can surely recognize.

Hope I've been of some significant assistance.

As always,

POKE

Sara,


You have some interesting material here, but to my ear S1 and the last half of S3 should be in a different poem. They seem to fall squarely into the "Let me illustrate my introspection and ability to string pretty words together" category, while the remainder of the poem has considerably more freedom.

I played with this and came up with:


The smoke from my tongue
is the only thing that chased you away -
you were afraid of burning like
shooting stars, of dancing
in the winter squalls, the
ash and tinder best
remaining inside you.

Age has no place on your muffler
chin, your boyish tears. I slurped
coffee and spat decaf
at your new playmate, scrunched
in a mess of limbs across the yard.
You scoffed at the ironweeds
around our fortress as you sat
amongst the crowsfeet with a
slender cigarette
[leaving you breathless in the night].


Of course, this may be substantially different than what you intended, and the added line at the end is actually from one of my older poems, but take it or leave it.

The way that the poem leads the reader to consider the nature of irony is effective, at least in my case. I enjoyed this.


Take care,
Brad

Well first of all I like the title, but was kind of dissapointed when it turned out that it turns out to be a little less about coffee as I expected, turned me down.

But no problem there, I think you still have your thing going.

blowing smoke from my tongue
was the only thing that chased you away -
you were afraid of burning like
shooting stars, you were afraid of
dancing in the winter squalls, the
ash and tinder were best remaining
inside your child heart.
Age had no place on your muffler chin,
it could not shrivel
your boyish tears.

The descriptions here all having to do with smoking are very well done I suppose but rather the "shooting stars" it does not suite that well as I imagine a shooting star as something looney, happy or something in that genre, the point; I don't think it fits the whole ambience which has been created here.

I sipped coffee and spat the bitter
back out at your new playmate, scrunched
in a mess of limbs across the yard.
You scoffed, blood running to your brain -
Ironweeds have taken over our fortress,
you sat amongst the crowsfeet
with a slender cigarette
-leaving you breathless in the night-

Erhmm well you had it going before but here it seemed to dim a little, the first 2 line's are amuzing (got back to the coffee I longed for) I don't like the whole fortress image created here, backs of the smokey dark image which was created before. (I saw Inca's version of this stanza and I'd recommend you do something or get an idea of his ending to this stanza)
Oh yes and "scoffed" I liked that alot fits well

Well I don't think you should cut off the third stanza as Inca did. But rather tweak it a little, something like this perhaps :

And it flares the most when I spot it,
perched between two smokestack lips.

[those whom never taste my candy lips]

Well hope you get alot of idea's out of this, I enjoyed this crit very much
And just for the record, I'd say it slightly above average if you'd just leave it the way it is

Cheerios, Chandni