After You'd Gone

By sunshine

Thu, 19 Jun 2008

2987 reads

9 comments

Long after you’d gone
they still delivered letters
in your name
and I placed them carefully
one upon another
until there was a cairn
in the corner of the room

When I thought I didn’t
miss you
I found an odd sock
at the back of drawer
and I laid it
in the space
left by your other socks

Long after you'd gone
I found you
were still with me
in so many ways

Comments

I like your ideas in the

Permalink Submitted by dilletante on Fri, 2008-06-20 01:40

I like your ideas in the first two verses, the letters being piled up into a cairn, and the rosebud in a book, but I think they need more work. The choice of tenses seems a little awkward too.

thanks Dilletante - useful

Permalink Submitted by sunshine on Fri, 2008-06-20 08:00

thanks Dilletante - useful point about the tense. And I think you've really hit the nail on the head - ideas might be ok but no substance yet. A case of me perhaps thinking the idea is enough and rushing at it?? thank you again. Margot

You've captured the sense of

Permalink Submitted by Dynamaso on Fri, 2008-06-20 08:01

You've captured the sense of loss quite well. I think the second stanza doesn't scan as well as the others and may need a bit of rewording. Overall, I enjoyed this, though.

I love this, especially the

Permalink Submitted by jennifer on Fri, 2008-06-20 08:14

I love this, especially the socks! The rosebud was too sickly-sweet romantic in contrast - the letters and socks and realism of loss are what make this piece so powerful, and that is the only slight problem in my opinion. But then, I'm not really the romantic type...

thank you for suggestion

Permalink Submitted by sunshine on Fri, 2008-06-20 13:13

thank you for suggestion Dynamaso - I'm off on holiday for a week so will ponder on this. Jennifer thanks too for your comment. I'm a tad averse to the saccharin myself, but in spite of this included the rosebud as I thought it would enable easy identification with the point. I wasn't sure that the truth from which this part had been drawn would have the same impact....I had a partner once who had a very irritating habit of bookmarking pages with Wriggley wrappers and I'm still finding them! For similar reasons 'after I chucked you out' wasn't my favoured choice for the title. However, I am now wondering if I can make the Wriggley reference work without injecting too much humour. Margot

After You'd Gone

By sunshine

Comments

I like your ideas in the

thanks Dilletante - useful

You've captured the sense of

I love this, especially the

thank you for suggestion

finally got around to

It is a fab piece of work,I

I think you've nailed it

wow! Thank you Tony. It

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