Anne at Number Six (Edited)

[keekee107]

Edited

I noticed your absence in the Autumn,
as I watched your rockery drown in leaves.

In the Summer, your alcoves turned orange,
and your musty scent was freshly Febrezed.

As Winter fell, they paved your rockery,
burying your bones with rootless fir trees.

Original

I noticed your absence in the Autumn,
as I watched your rockery drown in leaves.

In the summer, your alcoves turned orange,
and your musty scent was freshly Febreezed.

As winter drew, they paved your rockery,
burying your bones within the skip-full.

[Elphin]

kk

Like this a lot - short of time now. will come back later

elphin

[arunansu]

Dear Keekee,

The piece is extremely good. Only I can't get the "Number Six" part of the title, why "six"?
I really like:
"In the summer, your alcoves turned orange,
and your musty scent was freshly Febreezed." Beautiful.

[TDF]

Really like this KeeKee,

Gotta keep my crit short because I'm at work, but it's because I'm at work that I wanted to post.

I'm currently working as a care planning manager for domicilary care for the elderly, so this poem immediately struck a chord with me. Very clear image of a neglected house after some old dear or other has passed away.

I get a fair dose of sadness mixed with practical reality in my job, and thought this was reflected well in the poem. Grats.

I'm guessing the number six is just an arbitary number of her house. Although maybe a hint at being six feet under?

enjoyed this,
Tom

[Richard WH]

Yep. I thought this was lovely too.
The only slight gripe was that I didnt particularly like the phrase Skip-full, and thought it didnt work so well rhythm-wise as the rest of it. Plus, because the poem was quite beautiful I thought it could have finished with a more poignant or or pleasant sounding word.

[barrie]

I think this is good - the last verse is really good. One thing I would change - remove full from skip.

good one

Barrie

[David]

Beautiful, really. I might say "Winter drew on", but that's just your choice of idiom, I suppose.

I don't get why musty is italicised, but that may be because I don't understand "Febreezed" yet either. I'm off to look it up now.

But, really good one keekee.

Cheers

David

[TDF]

my guess was that Febreeze meant http://www.febreze.co.uk

get rid of that old woman smell

[Elphin]

kk

This is a good one. Im finding it hard to crit really.

At first I thought the autumn summer winter sequence was out then realised it lengthened the time very effectively. Freshly febreezed and the rockery image were stand out parts for me.

you also achieved even metre across every line - for me that made the whole piece controlled and thoughtful.

Like David I wondered about drew and thought maybe its a dialect thing but I too would say drew in/on/close/near but that extra word would disrupt the rhythm maybe.

This is your best yet in my book and if you are in agreement I would like to move it into Experienced. Let me know.

elphin

[John G]

Very sad and too often true, the old being neglected and over looked, left to die and rot while the neighbours worry about their new wide screen TV.
Only crit, i would remove the word full at the end.

Great read.

[dl04]

For the most part absolutely exquisite Just a superbly poised piece of writing that highlights a very melancholic subject with nice subtlety.

I just think it's wonderful:

and your musty scent was freshly Febreezed- Stunning line. Just a basic item such as Febreeze can phase someone out who's lived there for years. Very sad.

Job extremely well done

dl04.

[keekee107]

Ah, thank you all for the lovely comments and your insight. I loved TDF's take on 'Number 6'. The six feet under hint was purely coincidental (she just lived at number 6, like you said) but what a lovely coincidence! I agree about the last stanza... there are a few problems there - with the last word and the 'drew'. I'll probably try and iron that out in a few minutes.

If you feel it worthy, of course this can be moved to Experienced Elphin.

Thanks everyone!

[Elphin]

Tis done

[Oskar]

keekee

Let me add another bouquet to the floral inundation. This is a beaut. It's a well balanced and rather moving piece of writing that displays not only your skill as a writer but also your own humanity. This is more than worthy of it's place upstairs.

Cheers

[beautifulloser]

There's not a lot a more to add, aside a further thumbs up over here. Good stuff.

xx

[Brotherfergus]

I liked this but struggle to understand everybody's reaction to it. A pleasant ditty possibly, I don't have a problem with the piece, and, as I have said, I like it, but reading everybody's replies makes me think I am certainly missing something here.

[oranggunung]

keekee

Congratulations and welcome upstairs.

I enjoyed the simple structure and the powerful images of this poem.

There are so few words it feels a little harsh to tinker with them, so I wondered instead about punctuation. Can it be tweaked a little to gain more impact?

The more I look at it, the less certain I am that any of the commas are necessary. The line breaks do a lot of the work for you. I think the pause after rockery needs a little accentuation, but am not sure a comma is the best way of doing this. Perhaps someone more well-versed might suggest if a semi-colon or a hyphen could work better.

On further consideration, perhaps I do have one word change. It’s a subtle one, but one that might benefit the reading and possibly even the telling. Instead of “your rockery”, could it be “the rockery”. This does two things; it removes the repetition of ‘your’ (a minor irritation, perhaps) and it releases the possessive aspect of the rockery (potentially accentuating the death of Anne).

One small confusion – why is musty in italics?

A good read

og