011110

[hank]

Abandon
Give it up
In Mexico in Cuernavaca
After a day of peddling his rainbow cargo of pretty globos—
Children’s balloons—
The tired old vendor lets them go
Gives the remnants up to the winds
Abandons his balloons to the dying breath of the day
Purple yellow blue smiling faces in the sky
Peddler’s failures
A day’s history
Hope and pretty memories fading

Walk everyday into the streets
Offer your balloons for sale
Risk it
Some will reject you
So what
Your balloons are not for everyone
But they are
At the end of the day
You let them go
With sky smiles for everyone
You abandon the day lived

My friend has died
A beautiful death
He gave up his glorious balloons with grace
As he would with a smile with a song
Everyday
He showed the way

[brianedwards]

This time the title annoys . . . Potentially interesting idea here involving the balloon, but the overall smacks of pretentiousness . . .

B.

~

[Ros]

Hi hank,

I'm not sure that the short lines and the overall lack of punctuation works. You're giving an over-emphasis to lines that aren't anything special - risk it, give it up, so what, with a smile with a song, at the end of the day - it's full of cliches and the language is rather tired. I'd suggest telling the same story but making the metaphors much stronger, bringing the whole thing to life.

Ros

[twoleftfeet]

Hank,

This one isn't doing it for me.

S2 is too preachy IMHO and "sky smiles" too twee, as is the ending "Every day he showed the way".

Does the analogy really work? - The old man is only letting go of the balloons because he couldn't sell them.
Would he really do that?

Sorry - I'm just saying how I see it.

Geoff

Peddler/ Peddlar ?

[Arian]

Hi Hank

I'm afraid there's neither music nor message in this for me. The language - to my ear - lacks freshness, there's very little, if any, rhythm, and the narrative has an overtly sentimental feel. The gnomic title didn't help.

Sorry. Look forward to 011111.

All the best
peter

[John G]

Alas, I am generally of the same view as the others.

My main issue comes with starting every sentence with a capital.- kind of ruins the how it reads when read out aloud as more stress is place on the capitalised letter.

There are some really strong images in here though, really like the following’s

Abandon
Give it up
In Mexico in Cuernavaca

And

My friend has died
A beautiful death

But as said not a massive fan of every line starting with a capital.

And the title? Binary?

[hank]

" not a massive fan of every line starting with a capital."

A tough call…Hopkins, Yeats, Jeffers, all began their lines with a capital.

[John G]

Well having never read any of them I can not comment.

It's just a personal preference.

[rushme]

like the underlying philosophy:

the giving up of everything with a smile, a song - very Tao
& the fact that you've chosen a balloon seller
many artists have painted the balloon seller - i think picaso did too - for the very same reason.

but perhaps it is too telling - what if you juggled the words around & tightened:

Abandon
Give it up
In Mexico in Cuernavaca
The tired old vendor lets them go:
his rainbow cargo
of pretty globos—
Children’s balloons—
Gives the remnants
up to the winds -
to the dying breath of day.

Purple yellow blue
smiling faces in the sky
Peddler’s failures.
A day’s history
Hope & memory fading

He shows the way

perhaps this is very drastic - but i hope it gives you some fresh ideas.

[rushme]

0000000 - would be a good title!

or if you could stick the 0's with 1's:

00000000
11111111 -

0r:

iiiiiiiiiii

that was fun!