slow days inch along
toward the lazy hazy tumbling days
of summer
stare out the window
at rain hitting the stones
and race the raindrops as they rush
towards the windowsill.
engraving names on the woodwork
my hands are stained with blue ink
that leaves marks on everything i touch
the sound of the teacher's voice-
like syrup snaking through gravel-
lulls me into a gentle trance
where my three failing grades are forgotten
and my three half-finished projects
are just vague memories.
close my eyes
i can taste
blackberries soaking my tongues
ice cream flooding the soft pink concaves
of my mouth and sinking my teeth into
sugary sweet strawberries.
the smell of peaches and violets
drapes itself across the summer air
and the sound of ice-cream vans
and children crying in a sandpit,
of water splashing on tiles,
floods the ears like a carefully planned
symphony.
hot sun beats it brown-red trademark
across my bare back
and the heat is all embracing
all consuming
then, just when it is almost unbearable
a breeze slithers through my hair
glides across my skin.
one of those days that sink into the soul
and becomes one of the memories that make youth
one long summer afternoon of
dreams.
open my eyes
a page of notes sprawls across the blackboard
someone is whispering a story in my right ear
the ink has dyed my white t-shirt
a summer sky blue.
and there is nothing left to do
but close my eyes again
and taste the summer dreams.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,804 Reviews
Hey there.
So there's a couple of things formatting wise that I'm really digging in this poem, mainly the stanza structure. You've got a nice mixture of uniform line length and variety stanza length, so creativity in regulation. That's one of my favorite things to talk about in poetry and how it gets all wrapped up in everything, including flow.
Flow.
Now the flow is a little lacking within this poem because you use very little punctuation, bringing us to an issue of how quickly it's flowing by the reader. It all works into the creative spacing which will sometimes control the flow but it doesn't always work out, leaving us with a deficit of commas and periods. Based on what I've seen in this poem, you don't need to do much to fix the punctuation, it just takes some serious sounding out the poem.
One thing about your imagery choices and concept idea, is that every stanza except for the last 3 partials, are sounding exactly the same to me. It's something I see happen a lot in poetry when someone is like "let's make it pretty" and that's all that happens. We don't see the story progress further than the pretty colors because the focus is not where it should be.
I didn't feel impacted by the poem until I hit the very end. And that's nice that it does have an impact but it's very bad timing on the part of the poem. This brings us to the issue of where your focus needs to shift, more on the emotion and less on the imagery.
I think that's about all.
Good luck.
Happy revmo.
- lizz
I rather enjoyed this, nice use of imagery.
I really enjoyed reading this piece. It holds so much great imagery. Bravo! reminds me of me...which I think is a good thing. Couldn't think of much more than a great job but if I do I'll send you a line. Keep up writing.
Peace
CL