Poetry Forum

I never really knew anything about Clive.
He was slightly shorter than me, with a stance
broad and happy, I suppose. We'd skive
off lectures and head for the vast expanse

of the local, and he'd play the fruit machines.
I never played. It's a mug's game of course,
a fool's pursuit, I used to say. The screens
for him though, seemed to be a source

of validation. He'd play six hours and buy
me two pints an hour, which was OK by me.
He'd barely speak and I'd never reply.
We were comfortable in each other's company:

for in the end there's hardly a thing as nice as
mutual absolution of the vices.

Hi k-j,

Sonnets seem well designed for analyzing relationships. I think this is a rich one and I suspect you'd have the room to tell us much more about it if you dropped the end rhyme. You seem to be using a lot of filler phrases to land at the end of the line with the right word--I suppose, of course, I used to say, though--and they deprive you of the chance to add more substance.

Please, please could you replace nice? I guess I have an allergy to that word--I can never figure out what it means.

Thanks for the read--the title really intrigued me.

Jackie

Well I like it. At least you've made some attempt at Rhyme. and it's a compelling tale of friendship.

Well I liked it too....in the end. At first the joylessness of the recollection rather put me off. What elevated it for me was (nice unobtrusive rhymes aside and particular lines) was the ending which carried the misery of the past into the present.. for of course if N thinks that there is "hardly anything" as nice as that, well, they may still be hugging the pints. The same thing rather comes across in the "I suppose", which reads as current a rather begrudging acknowledgement of a happy stance.

Seth