Cycles

[TrevorConway]

She sniffs fabric
for the faintly sour scent of sweat,
determines the chosen
and shrugs them off hangers,
pressing under her arm
a mass that twists and hardens
to a lump like gathered dough.

Powder seems to avalanche
from cardboard box to drawer,
and as the slow beast grunts into its labour,
she imagines thick conditioner
working a kind of massage
on cotton, linen,
wool and denim.

Foam blizzards
all that manic churning
until – having filled an hour
with tedious tasks and milky tea –
she returns to the rumble
that spins all colour to soup.

Wet and ashamed, it seems to her,
the heavy haul comes out rich with the smell of detergent,
caged in a basket, dragged outside.
With arms stretched to the pinch of a peg,
they give their weight to the sky,
and sudden gusts
synchronise their dance.

She curses the hours that bring on night
and leave her pegs
still as moths wrapped in silk.
Only when she goes to bed
does she pull it all from the basket.
Folding clothes away in a drawer
is too much like a burial.


Any particularly weak parts? Better title ideas? Thanks.

[NotQuiteSure]

.
Hi Trev,
this only comes alive for me in the last verse. There's nothing in the preceding that engaged or told me anything about her.
That the wash might be 'ashamed' was interesting, but you don't explore (or hint, as far as I can tell) as to why.
As to a title, (for those of an etymological bent), Lavender

Regards, Not


.

[Macavity]

and leave her pegs
still as moths wrapped in silk.

A terrific image Trevor. The emotional punch is delivered in the concluding strophe. The weight of descriptions in the preceding strophes rather muffles that emotion. A leaner write would convey more tension. However, I like the domestic territory you're exploring,it does engage, and perhaps it is the excellence of the ending that unbalances the poem

best

mac

[ray miller]

I did wonder where it was going, and sometimes poems don't go anywhere much, but the last stanza makes it memorable.
I noticed the use of "like" "seems to" "a kind of". "Powder avalanches", "working a massage", "of a burial" would be stronger, I think.
"Foam blizzards" is great but "all that manic churning" not so good, I'd omit that line.

[TrevorConway]

Thanks very much for yere time and input, Not, Mac and Ray. Seems to be a consensus: I need to focus on the last verse and build from there or make the others more like it.

Much obliged, folks.

T

[Jackie]

Trevor,

For whatever reason I fastened on a lump (of clothes) growing increasingly hard under her arm (S1), and equating loss of the clothes to a burial (S5). You seem to continue the idea that the clothes and she are one as she feels massaged in S2. I like S4 a lot. S5 leaves me with a lot of questions: Why does she curse the hours? Why and where does she leave her pegs? When she pulls it all from the basket, what does she do with it? Does she never fold clothes and put them away at all? And what does all this mean?

Does S3 need to be there? It seems to only get us from here to there, and it’s odd she is so bored.

I do get a little dizzy going from bread dough to mechanical beasts to avalanches to blizzards to soup. I think one reason S4 works so well for me is it carries one comparison all the way through, but it’s also rich in word choice.

In my humble opinion.
Jackie

[TrevorConway]

A Jackie,

Thanks very much for giving your input and picking out specifics for me to consider.

All the best,

T