[brigits_flame entry] // Richard's Empty Placemat

[chatham_rivers]

Comments

editor!

[renga_atama]

This is truely a beautiful and very real piece. I love the use of enjambment in this poetic style.

Not much critique for this piece, but one stylistic thing to think about: what if you put a line before the spoken "Mon, what haven't we set---"? Just a stylistic thing.

Keep up the great writing!

[triplescorpio]

I'm your second "editor" of the week. I thought this poem was beautiful, and can really not think of any way to perfect it. Your imagery is striking and I like the way you juxtapositioned the heritage of the grandfather. I also liked the line: "yin yang token of pain and reward." It's simple imagery conveys a multitude of meaning, and links to the lines in the 2nd last stanza. Great job!

[illiana_galean]

Beautifully written, and I fully understand. From the Army perspective. Personally though? I think it's bull your mom says you can't tell him you miss him. Sometimes they need to know they're missed, or they start thinking otherwise. Dangerous ground and a double edged sword. He'll be home for dinner some day. Training's not forever, and there's always leave.

[attentionhoard]

I've just finished quite a lengthy study of poetry, and I have to tell you that this is a beautiful, beautiful poem.

This stanza in particular is beautiful:

It’s warmth that the HP DeskJet screen tone lacks while I watch him
break bread with his fingers, eyelashes lowered. He’s one of them now -
cropped, starch-white, voluntarily suffering
the barks and swears of a drill sergeant, the sweat and blood shed
by barbed-wire fences, by ten-foot high brick walls..

You really seem to master the line breaks and I absolutely enjoyed this.

Great work!!

Editing

[cedarwolfsinger]

This is so incredibly personal and painful and open and honest. WOW! I am impressed. The only "correction" I have, per se, is that in the third stanza, the line that now reads "the warmth of his shirt as fisted it in my hands and said," should read "the warmth of his shirt as I fisted it in my hands and said,". I like the connection you make with your brother and your grandfather -- that ancestral honor, the extended family, that connection. I also like the lines "this dream at once a yin-yang token of pain and reward he'd trade/to soar above the skies" -- it is very visual and very evocative.

I hope you find ways to be OK with this. BTW -- my big brother's name is Richard (as is his son). Take care and thank you for sharing this.