Glass

[Daedalus]

Hi pacabel, I feel like this latest AS needs a pause somewhere, probably somewhere around flutters and propelled, where I agree with Jee there's a mixed message. I love the AS for by the way, in many ways I think it's more effective than English language haikus.

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Hi, Pacabel,

Sorry, missed you out on the last round of fluffing.

I recently met a baby who was six weeks early, he was 4lb something. "limbs like twigs" is an apt description; I like the way 'twigs' emphasises the vulnerability - the possibility of snapping.

Really like the idea of "pillowy breath of dreams" - it's a lovely phrase. For a while I was thinking of a fan as something that blows air and propels things! But then the penny dropped. I love the overall image: a single small white feather fluttering is it is blown by the dreaming sleeper.

best,

-Matt

[Hare]

Sprouting twigs and swaddle.....pillowy breath of dreams. Lovely images.

[Featherless Biped]

The latest AS made me think of this Doc Edgerton photo.



(I also, to be honest, had a bit of trouble parsing it. Is "down" a preposition or a noun? Is "flutters" a noun or a verb? Still, I like the imagery in there.)

[kristalynn]

Yes, that AS needs reworked; I need to lose "propelled." Thank you, everyone for reading and commenting. I'm late with this. Unhappy with everything I've written lately, but here goes:

Fingers curl around an open palm
in mid grasp
lips part, an unsent amen
surrender to night

[Daedalus]

Pacabel, I don't know what to make of this one. I think the lack of punctuation is causing a problem for me. I think this is a moment when two people are having sex, but I imagine I'm way off. I like unsent amen, but surrender to night seems a little weaker than the rest.

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Hi Pacabel,

I'm reading this as the moment of death. Perhaps the palm grasped is a priest's giving last rites and hence an 'amen' needed but not reached, but I don't think so. I think the amen is just amen: so be it. So the word of acceptance and surrender is almost murmured at the moment of death. That it was unsent doesn't matter (on my reading) - the intention was formed, this person died with grace and presumably in the presence of a loved one. I was touched by this one. It's my favourite of yours this Sevens. You do exactly enough: a few brush stokes paint the picture and capture a moment in time. I like also that the last line can be read as instruction as well as a description.

-Matt

[Featherless Biped]

Like Daedalus, I'm confused about the nature of the scene depicted here (sex? birth? death? prayer?), but I liked the unsent amen. And hang in there; powering through on the days when you don't feel like much is a really important part of writing.

[ModularArithmetic]

Thank you, Hare, Sorella, and Jee. Here is an American Sentence:

Only six pounds, the baby's limbs poke through her swaddle like sprouting twigs.

Yikes, tiny baby. Twigs are a great simile, although for the sake of the AS I think you could lose "sprouting" (they're twigs! They're already small, and the baby is already sprouting) and maybe "only." Twiggy arms are still an image worth writing a sentence about though.

[JFN]

pacabel, (Is it Andrea, or have I lost the plot?)

In Fingers curl..., I keep reading "grasp" as "gasp", which keeps putting the sexual metaphor in mind, but having spent several hours over their past few nights lying on the nursery floor holding our daughter's hand through the bars of her cot (or crib, depending on colloquialisms etc.) as she (very very slowly) falls asleep I wonder if this is a much more innocent nighttime interaction. If so it's a lovely moment to try and capture, and I hope you work on the idea after Sevens.

John

[kristalynn]

Hi, John, yes it is Andrea. I keep forgetting to sign my own name, but thx for remembering it and commenting on my poem. Thank you, MA, daedalus, Matt and FB for reading and commenting and especially for the encouragement to "hang in there." I definitely will. The payoff for pushing through is great. Here's what resulted from some more pushing through (I haven't reaped the benefits yet)

The blue of his eyes
held in memory
like the found stone
held in my hand.

[Sorella]

There you go again, Andrea (I didn't know! Nice name) -- the symmetry and simplicity of tour latest makes for a keeper.
As for the curling fingers, I thought of someone fallen asleep, even a baby, hand in midair as they are.

[Hare]

I was thinking of an infant for 'fingers curl'...maybe also for the memory of blue eyes. Something about these has
me thinking of a child.

[Featherless Biped]

Oh, I really like today's, which draws a neat synesthetic analogy between the feeling of remembering something the heft of the stone. I'm picturing the stone as a smooth piece of blue shale, maybe from a creek bed. Yum.

[5th column]

Like some others I read gasp not grasp and was thinking of it as a sexual reference, that said, it worked for me as gasp..

I like the simplicity of the last which you can work with after reading.