[Kate Benedict]

Well, I love line break at day-light -- such bold enjambments make the sonnet, and other closed forms, new.

There may be a Cane Creek in the Dakotas, though the nontraditional line break would be a new one for Tim! As the poem ends, the reader realizes that this is all memory, and loss. The last line is very fine.

[Manny Blacksher]

I like this one a lot.

There's a traditional folk song, "Old Dog Blue," most famously sung by Roger McGuinn in The Byrds. Blue's not just a "good old hound" but also a spirit guide and totem. He's Enkidu to some coon hunter's Gilgamesh.

"Old Blue" (trad.)

[D] Well I had an old dog and his name was Blue
Yes I had an old dog and his [A] name was [D] Blue
Well I had an old dog and his name was Blue
I bet you five dollars he’s a [A] good dog [D] too

Old Blue chased a possum up a holler limb
Blue chased a possum up a holler limb
Blue chased a possum up a holler limb
The possum growled, Blue whined at him

[D] Bye Bye [Bm] Blue, [G] you good dog [D] you
Bye Bye [Bm] Blue, you [G] good dog [D] you

When old Blue died he died so hard
He shook the ground in my back yard
We lowered him down with a golden chain
and every link we called his name

My old Blue was a good old hound
You’d hear him holler miles around
When I get to heaven first thing I’ll do
is grab my horn and call for Blue

The Byrds “Dr.Byrds And Mr.Hyde”
Columbia Records 1968

<http://www.ibiblio.org/jimmy/folkden-wp/?p=7093>

[Mary Meriam]

The alternate title, Where I Slid Down the Muddy Bank, is too light-hearted for what appears to be a serious poem. I can see a good sonnet buried under the effortful rhymes, the awkward syntax, the broken word, the cliches (fast as blazes, clear and deep, two souls adrift). There are some ok phrases/lines (a coon too old to tree,
my inability to set things right), but this is not a polished sonnet.

[Julie Steiner]

I don't mind the clichés, which I consider more characterization than anything else. After all, "fast as blazes" is the kind of expression one would associate more with the owner of a coonhound than with the owner of a poodle. And I also get the impression that this narrator is too practical and plainspoken to reinvent the wheel just to avoid using a perfectly serviceable but unglamorous locution. (Which is probably why the surreal bit about the river's time-lag stuns me--it's so surreal that even this down-to-earth guy can't ignore it.)

[Tim Murphy]

Definitely not mine, but a very fine sonnet.

[Tim Murphy]

My best guess is Lance.

[Martin Rocek]

This has potential but it doesn't quite work for me--the pushes toward the abstract away from the concrete imagery seem a bit strained in places.

[Charlie Southerland]

The title suffers some from the alternate title. Drop it. The first four lines are grabbing. The hyphen doesn't bother me. I am disappointed in the use of 'hollows' instead of 'hollers' in L8. 'Hollow' is more attuned to Mid-western and north north-east lingo than the Southern colloquialism of the South. I prefer 'holler'. The story is clear enough and follows through. The wake/awake rhyme is a little lazy. I think the couplet saves the poem and ties it together well. My top 5.

[Michael Cantor]

Dammit, Charlie, I had assumed you were the writer. Now what do I do?

It starts well - particularly the first four lines - but falls apart for me in the sestet, particularly the abstractions of L10-L12.

[Jennifer Gordon]

I can't help remembering Shelley's sonnet on chasing death in hopes of an unidentified yet haunting hope for rest, this contrarily owning none in the face of the lonely contemplation as the sonneteer envisions the drama to conclude with empty hands and the ghostly horror of failure.

Beg pardon, but is it a blue heeler? Just a stupid aside.

Reliving the final pursuit with a poignant sense of experiencing the fraught moments, the metaphors are utilized rather cleverly and managed beautifully.

It seems to flow smoothly, breaking down in L7 which chokes at "..the wood--" and I am unable to force the metre into place, left with tripping on that little error which the modern sonneteer casually shrugs off as impossible to amend.

This catches the reader more capably with the soul's inability to rectify oneself than the previous on this theme do, methinks. Or correct me. I like it.