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Poetry / Leaving Jones (Analysis)
Love is Leaving Jones,
dark of a crisp December morning
slipping the leash on Olwyn’s neck, she’s
leaving the harbour of Jones still sleeping
behind this dawn steamer, urgently breathing
scattering frost like scarred dreams breaking,
tolling the quiet pavement, waking the light
and the ready to rise,
as street lamps are failing, a street at a time
switching to grey from bright concrete yellow
she crosses the road to the gate and goes in,
stands for a moment to study the grass
and the marks in the frost where someone has been,
while she listens for breath and hears only her own
and that of a dark December dawn,
Olwyn is restless, his nose sniffs the air
and his breath shouts a signal for others to see
she picks up her wrist and in the dim light
sees that the fingers have stopped on the hour
but knows in her heart that a moment has passed
like the footmarks she follows out over the grass,
Olwyn fresh at her heels,
picking up scents, lost in the dew
like her feet in the shoes
that Jones bought her, she slips off a shoe
to remember the grass and the way that it feels
when it slides through your toes like a sharp knife of glass,
she slips it back on to take home some of the dawn
trapped in her shoe, crushed underfoot,
pressed in a memory of Olwyn at play, nipping
the ear of a dog running free and watching his face
while Jones, lifting his hat, said I think we’ve both found a friend,
as if that would be all and the moment
too soon suddenly come to the brink
before he says, in response to her smile,
It’s warm, for the time of year, don’t you think,
Olwyn snuffles at left-over nettles
stewed in the sharp cut of winter and softened
by cats, and time finds her waiting
listening for the movement that she knows
life is making in the rusting of metals
in the dripping of taps,
in the clink and the rattle of coal in a scuttle
and the soft early click of heating clock triggers,
where the world of time is passing her by,
she turns a heel then turns again,
remembering things she calls her own,
changing the values, balanced precariously high
on the weight of a smile, she thinks once of Jones,
Olwyn is leaning the end of the leash,
night-black, this cruiser of territorial seas
swollen with concrete, placated by paving,
his steam grips the air, she holds him in check
like the hope in her heart and the feeling for change,
the sharp re-arrange of emotional furniture,
and Olwyn keeps pulling, remorseless and pure,
no mind to make up, no time to resent
or to question the hand on the bowl and the dish,
to be honest with Jones with a sharpness of eye,
no fire and no ice through his veins, like hers, rushing,
no staying, no leaving, no breaking of wish
while her feet keep on slipping, her mind in the park
and deep in the distance she hears Olwyn bark
to shatter the windows that watch her at dawn
putting back in the box a wish that was born out of
nothing perhaps, a gratuitous instant, a child born
of no-one that passed from the light but had kept her
and teased her awake all the night and she watches her feet
as they slip towards Jones and the future of maybes,
not certain, as Olwyn, not steeped in her bones
but held there on purpose, mended where torn with
the needles of thought that sew all conversation
and Olwyn is tugging, unaware of his station
as marker, timekeeper, reminder of place as he
leads her this dawn to the edge of disgrace,
Jones is still dreaming as she slides into bed,
Love left him this morning and he’s still unaware
that it’s waiting outside, where it tugs at her heart
like the world’s blackest dog as it steams up the air
and she tucks herself into him, to reach for the past
and remember the heat that once shivered her bones
How far did you go, you’re cold, says Jones
she holds her breath, then says, you’re awake at last,
It’s early, he looks at the clock, how was it today,
and the blade of grass between her toes
cuts through her sharp and clear, until
she turns her back and says, to herself,
It was warm, for the time of year.
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starblue reviewed Version 3 -
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I would like to see some breaks in this long poem. The pauses of verse breaks would give a chance to savor the content more; without breaks I felt rushed through. I did reread twice to get a better feel for this poem. I saw no errors in spelling or grammar. It flowed well from one line to the next. It held my interest as it told a small story between the first line and the last. It is a good bit of writing and would merit publishing. luck
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CharlesB reviewed Version 3 -
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This 103 word review has not been unlocked.
bfpruett reviewed Version 3 -
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This was actually a pretty good piece of work. I like the imagery. I love reading items where I can picture the scene(s) and see it/them with clarity without having to add my own “clips” for what I see to make sense.
richardlynn51 reviewed Version 3 -
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You paint a very exciting abstract picture, with the combining of colorful design to delight the observer’s “word”-mind…...but even though I like the rhythm and word vignettes, as “street lamps failing a street at a time…to gray from bright concret yellow” and also the use of “frost”( but somehow it did’nt make me “feel” cold as ice crystals should).. I became “lost” from the first and that destracted me the entire poem..sorta like being in a dream but not knowing where you are.As Eliot said,”Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets…. I feel that your poem is on the edge of “greatness” Onward!
Fresh_Fish reviewed Version 3 -
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I love the opening line, it was the perfect draw in for the reader. The walk that the narrator takes with her dog, letting him lead, unsure of where they will end up is an excellent metaphor, paralleling Love’s vacillation about returning to what is both familiar and confining. The line, “to remember the grass and the way that it feels/ when it slides through your toes like a sharp knife of glass,” was an awkward image for me, although it did fit the flow of the work. Other than that I’d consider breaking this work into stanzas and then get with a publisher. Great work!
Joel_Mitt reviewed Version 3 -
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Quite a story, with some focused editing I think you could have an interesting narrative.
Please insert some breaks in this run on of a piece! Some stanzas or something, I felt trapped in a block of words. It was distracting and it took away from the narrative. Also, I think if you broke this up into some sort of sections you would be able to see things that just aren’t necessary a lot easier. I think you could chisel this into a sharper image.
Some of the things that kept jumping out at me the most were how you use the same word to describe or tell of the same thing. The words become exhausted and it feels as if the reader is constantly starting back at some beginning. For example
L9 :”as [street] lamps are failing, a [street] at a time”
L24 and 29: You do this with the word shoe.
Also, the characters are not always clear. It goes back and forth so much with an emphasis on external images rather than internal motivations that some development seems to be missing.
themysticrose reviewed Version 3 -
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Very good and descriptive poem.
skyblue12 reviewed Version 3 -
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I really liked your use of rhyme the imagery was very vivid overall it was pretty good.
RhysTimson reviewed Version 3 -
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I liked this poem, though the form itself was complicated and not the easiesttoo read. I love the image of grass as being a ‘sharp knife of glass’ that’s an unusually hostile way to think about something which is so often referred to in the opposite way in poetry. The lines “behind this dawn steamer, urgently breathing /scattering frost like scarred dreams breaking,” also appeal to me because as I was reading them I was sensitive to the fact the rhyme was only going to be partial and thought as the line ended it wouldn’t work, but it did. The abrupt ending is also great and I don’t think I could suggest anything to improve this.
CREEPSHOW reviewed Version 3 -
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THIS STYLE OF POETRY DID NOT WORK FOR ME… I THOUGHT THE THE STORY AND THE THINGS THAT WERE SAID MADE SENSE BUT THE LACK OF PUNCTUATION MADE IT HARD TO FOLLOW FOR ME… THE PARTS ABOUT TAKING OFF HER SHOES AND PUTTING HER FOOT ON THE GRASS AND FEELING LIKE GLASS CUTTING HER WAS GOOD… BUT IT FELT LIKE ONE BIG LONG SENTENCE..
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