Flowers on Grave
for Father
I walked through steaming graveyards,
my hands feeling the black flowers
as I passed by--there was no sanctuary
between me and the spreading fog.
There were only sagging willows
that fell from the clouds that enveloped me;
only the damp smell of motionless sod
and the clinging of my coat weighed
down by the wetness of the morning.
I tripped over the headstone,
as if in some filthy joke of God,
and came to rest on the oppressed
grass of my father's grave.
The flowers I brought to him
one year ago still lay where I left them--
as dead as he.
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
You have some nice descriptions and present the emotions that you want to clearly, however this poem comes across as something that has sacrificed meaning for description.
You haven't gone for an over the top display of debilitating emotions or something with a little as possible - yours falls somewhere midway in that spectrum - and so it comes across rather dull. Sure you have nice descriptions and there is emotion which your reader is able to identify with but it doesn't offer anything life changing.
Take your final stanza for example. It doesn't have the revelatory quality I imagine you are going for mainly because it is an overused description. I believe some writer, Orwell I think, said that you should avoid ever using something metaphorical you'd seen written somewhere. You need some stronger ending because at the moment you don't have a direction - you don't seem to be adding much new. And so this doesn't interest me as much as it could.
This had wonderful emotion.
There were only sagging willows
that fell from the clouds that enveloped me; I think this should be "... clouds enveloping me;"
only the damp smell of motionless sod
and the clinging of my coat weighed If you move weighed down to the next line, I think your rhythm will even out a bit more in this stanza.
down by the wetness of the morning.
Great job on this. I love the imagery you use in stanza one, especially.
This had really deep emotions running throughout the poem. I loved the way the atmosphere of the setting reflected on your inner emotion.
ooooh, shivers.
I agree with Xan on that line, perhaps: that fell from the clouds enveloping me;
I especially like the first two lines and the first line in stanza 2.
Ciao, CL.
that fell from the clouds and enveloped me. or something without two "that's"