Hi David,
I agree with everyone, not self indulgent at all. As a poem, it's not your best but it's still good. My one overall crit is that like nearly every poem by anyone, it probably started with one thought or phrase, and then fretted over how to make the poet's connection to the moment clearer, or better felt, and I think the necessary artifice of that process shows a little more than it should. On the other hand, would-be poets like I look between the lines more than average readers do. A couple particular nits are noted below.
All the best,
Jim
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Callin
Fifteen years on
from that melancholy weekend,
the muted celebration
of your fiftieth birthday
when fifty-one
was not on the agenda,
if the doctors were not wrong,
I am laid low
("laid low" does not fit for me with the descriptions given of the songs remembered, although it certainly fits with the event recollected. You might think of something that captures a sweeter pang of loss.)
by the memory of this song
or that
("that" here seems to imply a memory that was occurring in the past. you might consider "those" instead to make the reference to "song" clearer.)
that led us on
through our teenage years,
Dylan’s soulful drone,
the mysteries of Astral Weeks,
the joyous explosion
of sound and speed
that started Born To Run ,
the healing lucubrations
of the saxophone
on Backstreets,
its fat and tender tone,
and then
that one
by Hall and Oates you liked,
She’s Gone.
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