Poetry Forum

Filled

Milk-tooth gaps whistled
while I caught newts
where traffic now flows;
the rumble of lorries
shudders windows
each morning I brush my teeth.

.

Hi Tim. You have caught a lifetime in your precise words - well from gap-toothed boy to a responsible teeth cleaning adult, anyway. I like the way you have moved through time and still managed an impactful piece; do I detect some implied criticism of how things have moved?
Liked it and would only suggest dropping 'while' in L2 as it serves no purpose because without it the lines still read as you intend.

Jimmy

Marvellous - I loved the sudden shift from child to adult. I did wonder whether it should have been 'there' instead of 'where' in L3, but I've not managed to convince myself even.

Cheers,

Jon

Thanks Jimmy,

I appreciate your replying to this and yes, you picked up on my feelings in respect of the pool now being a memory that I am unable to share with the next generation of creepy crawly catchers.
I agree that "while" is perhaps a slight filler, the poem is an informal 31 syllable tanka which is a form I am playing with at the moment to prevent me dumping all the good stuff in a more complex peice that then becomes confused. I'll try to be even sharper going forwards as I am going to write a few of these.

Jon

I appreciate your reading and replying too. I can almost see where you are coming from with "there"
When you are convinced let me know and I will take another look.

Many thanks to you both

Tim

Hi,

First response from a newbie so bare with me...

I love the short format and need to learn how to say a lot with very little. It gave me inspiration to try it for myslef... Hope you dont mind?


Gone

Milk-teeth grew
beneath gums then bruzed
guns meet news
while we eat junk food
War looms
Teeth decay as the bullets spray
Nothing new
to replace the days that we lay in wake

Dante,

Thanks for the great image!

Mick

Fantastic. No other words.
Smiles.

An interesting piece Tim.

As RB says it contains a lifetime - I like the milk tooth whistles.

I know you are working on the grammer and punctuation thing just now but I cant help wondering if this would work with no punctuation so that

where traffic now flows

could be the end of the previous line and the beginning of the next. Just a thought - your short pieces are working.

elph

writedis

Thanks for the reply, I enjoyed your example of the short form. Thank you.

Aru, glad you enjoyed, as you can see I´m having a go at the short stuff while hopefully taking on board some new tools to move forwards with. thank you.

Thanks for the reply Mick, glad you liked the peice.

Elphin,

It´s great to see you around the place, I like your thoughts re the puctuation and think you have a good point.
Hopefully I will have a little more time to write soon, and try out a few ideas.

Many thanks

Tim

oh this could have gone on and on...i was into this...yes

El

I loved this!
You captured a great moment! Sweet!

Suzanne

There seems a dead type of movement in it, the "flowing trafick", a gohstly mist around the newt catching boy. So compact, it is happening all at once.