Lazy Kate

[Danté]

Lazy Kate


He laid out his tastiest delicacies
for her perusal with sweet candied fruits
on a cloth woven from various skeins
of fine silk mixed with rough strands of jute.

Bright jewels on her neat belly piercing
drew his eye to her midriff stripped bare
while the tips of his ring and small finger
both confirmed she had not shaved her hair.

So he looked for a set of sheep clippers
he’d been left in his grandfather's will,
she insisted he vow not to nip her
he said “I won’t if you keep very still.”
When he'd finished cutting he gathered her hair
for plying twine on his old spinning wheel.


.
edit, removed break seaprating last two lines and replaced full stop after "will" with comma.Fixed typo "grandfather's"

[Sharra]

Ouchie!
This made me chuckle. But I'm wondering if you somehow managed to miss pasting the end on? It seems to end rather abruptly.
Sharra
x

[Danté]

Thanks Sharra, I think I would do better by having the last six lines together, there wasn't anything else I needed to say and I was working with a fourteen line constraint which had alluded to the source of the jute and drawn a parallel with the contrasting textures in the opening verse and served my other aims in the last six. I'll think on it and see if a better way of punctuating those lines helps, or adjusting the meter. I'll clump them together for now and come back to it.

thanks for the useful crit

Tim

[Pauline]

Lol,
Lazy Kate. What a great title.
This really made me laugh.
I agree with Sharra, it seems unfinished.
You have left me wanting/expecting more.
Add a couple of more lines, and this will be a corker.

[dogofdiogenes]

D,

I used to work on a farm. This poem reminds me of the time I nearly shaved off a very important part of a sheep's anatomy whilst waving around a pair of clippers and unfortunately I simply cannot see past that memory right now.

Apologies!

jacq

[Danté]

Thanks Pauline, I can see there is a real possibility I'm going to have to abandon the form and extend my offering by a line or two.

I'll see what I come up with, I'm not sure I'll get chance tonight as I'm whacked, but I will try it and see how a longer version looks.

Thanks for reading jacq, sounds like a memory that is embedded, just as well it was a nearly moment.

Many thanks

Tim

[Sharra]

Tim I'm crap with meter stuff, but it felt to me like there was a change in the rhythm in the last 2 lines which adds to the 'unfinished' effect we're picking up on. Could just be me tho
Maybe just a rethink of those last lines would mean you could keep the sonnet form.
sharra
x

[Danté]

Sharra, I'll shift the meter along by one syllable in the penultimate line, that'll give it the pull of the preceding lines and worry more about the feet placement in that line while I sleep on it lol.

many thanks

Tim

[brianedwards]

Typo: grandfathers = grandfather's

Tim, I am confused by these lines:

while the tips of his ring and small finger
both confirmed she had not shaved her hair.

I can't reconcile the plural "tips" and nor can I actually visualise the action. Could well be my issue.
Overall I find the language a little too arch for the scene it describes. Metrically the poem would benefit from either having a strict pattern or not; at the moment it seems to awkwardly straddle both ideas. The following line is a bump:

of fine silk mixed with rough strands of jute

fine silk mixed --- that's three stressed syllables in a row, which is not only a tough scan, but also at odds with what it describes?

Again though, good to see your work where it belongs

B.

[Danté]

Thanks Brian, You're right, it either needs to be one thing or the other in respect of the meter.

I wasn't being lazy, but to be totally honest I am guilty of not having a clue what I was going to write using the pattern beyond the opening line and might have ended up with content better suited to a more open form. However I do think that now I have the content I can either work on it in a more disciplined manner and develop the better ideas and possibly end up with a more serious piece or just iron out the bumps and move on to the next. I might do better by actually planning my content when working with forms as my normal approach is pluck a line out of the air and let the next be inspired by it and so on.

I appreciate the nod re: posting here. It is my intention to continue that trend but I am always going to be between boards depending on which kind of vibe floats my boat at the time.

all the best and thanks

Tim