[Bill Dyes]

ABUSE (revision 2)

Iris strictly frame the driveway except
his car returns careless as wind and rain
pounding the blossoms from tall and erect
to no louder than a mute yellow stain.



HOME original

Iris strictly frame the driveway except
his car returns, wind and a pounding rain
bend the blossoms far from tall and erect
and no louder than a mute yellow stain.

[Jim Moonan]

.
Hi Bill, I can't put this in perspective/focus. It feels impressionistic but the word selection seems off. It feels like water spilled onto the page.

I decided to see what I would do with it:

Iris frames the driveway
expecting his return.

Wind and rain bend
the blossoms to become

The two bleed together
to form a silent yellow stain.

or simply:

Iris frames the driveway.
His car returns, wind and rain
bend the blossoms to be yellow stain.


.

[John Riley]

I think the point here is the return of the car and weather diminishes the Iris. I like its attempted simplicity but find it marred by the syntax and the combining of two forces.

I think it'd be better even shorter with the focus on the car.

Iris strictly frames
the driveway until
his car returns . . . .

with a line or two.

What you're trying here will only work with more simplicity.

[Bill Dyes]

Thanks Jim & John for stopping by and commenting:

I have been experimenting for awhile now with this 4 line form that I can only loosely call a quatrain since the metrics are not quite regular.
I kind of like the discipline it requires of me and I wanted the themes to be serious and not humorous.
I can't really say I 've been overwhelmingly succesful but I'm going to stay with the attempts a little longer.
I posted a revision for this latest iteration.

Bill

[Roger Slater]

I don't quite get what you mean by "except." You've just stated (if I'm reading correctly) that there are well-tended flowers by the driveway, then you say "except," which leads me to expect an exception or qualification to that statement. But I don't get one. Instead, I'm told that someone (presumably the grower of the flowers) then carelessly runs over the flowers. But that's not an exception to what you said. The fact remains that the flowers framed the driveway before the man ran over them (as you've told us). We're logically dealing with an "and then" rather than an "except," the need for a rhyme notwithstanding.

I'm not sure the irony of someone carelessly running over his flowers is enough, without at least a bit more subtext, to deserve its own poem. Instead you lob poetry bombs, like "careless as wind" without even arguably committing to any backstory. Was he drunk? What came over him? Surely it wasn't merely a momentary desire to be like the wind.

The last two lines are interesting. You have the flowers go from tall to mute, but presumably they were mute even when they were tall, so what exactly (or even figuratively) does that mean?

[Bill Dyes]

Roger;

Tall, straight and yellow iris framing a driveway would only be mute to the severely logical.
Only a tiny bit of imagination needs to be present to see and hear these flowers as louder than mute.
There is "carelessness" (even a hint of violence) followingly directly on the heels of 'care'. The poem takes exception to this.
"Is he drunk"/"what came over him"? Indeed!
You know, they say a house is not a home.
Can we surmise what is going on inside the house by what we have seen outside?

If I focused more I could probably revise some more.
But I will not increase this poem to more than 4 lines. I have set that rule for myself.

Thanks Roger.

Bill

[annie nance]

Hi Bill -

For the reasons you stated (You know, they say a house is not a home.
Can we surmise what is going on inside the house by what we have seen outside?), HOME is a better title. ABUSE is too on the nose. my opinion only.

annie

[Jim Moonan]

.
One word change (or two) and a comma gone makes all the difference!

It now has a bruising, hurtful, ominous feel, having described the violent arrival home of the car that wantonly crushes the irises.

"Strictly" and "except" are a great sonic effect that bookend the first line, and "except" to end the line is like a cliff... Although reading Roger's questioning of the word "except" got me to thinking maybe the word "until" might work...

And I wonder about "no louder". Maybe consider "to no more than a mute yellow stain."

My understanding is that someone (the abuser) has arrived home in the driveway and recklessly — probably in the pouring rain — runs over the yellow iris, smashing them on the blacktop/pavement. The poem ends there because the abuser has entered the house. I could be way off, in which case the poem becomes something of a "Red Wheelbarrow" kind of poem.

I agree with Annie that Home is a better title. Or maybe "House".


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[John Riley]

I like the change.