Hi, John, this is sad and delicate and impactful. There are parts of it I would say I "love" - the ghost police and the roses, for instance - but it is so sad and disturbing that it wouldn't be accurate to say it that way.
Since it's in Metrical, I'll note that I am counting 4 stresses or feet in the first line and 3 stresses in the rest of them, except for "who is over thirty" - I'm counting two in that one; but that one doesn't bother me as much as the first line. I think the way it begins currently sets up the expectation of an alternating tetrameter-trimeter kind of deal.
If you can find a way to trim a foot from the first line, it would not only regularize the meter but would help to establish, right from the beginning, that spareness that this poem seems to demand. There is something about consistent trimeter that almost has a clipped or choked feeling, I think.
|