This is a bit of grim humor for us boomers who, as kids, had no name other than "dementia" for what has now been identified as "Alzheimer's"
Still, it is an enjoyable read. As I age I'll also try to remember the glue trick!
I liked this.
You have worded this so that each sentence seems to be able to stand alone as a thought.
Except for the next to last line.
Suggestion - change from ... that waits... to .. waiting now to reflect...
(keeps almost the same number of characters, yet continues that ability to stand alone as a thought).
"... a trickle of fear zigzagging down my spine ..."
"... that vile thing..."
very good word-smithery (I hope that's a word.)
What I most enjoyed was the mother not simply making pronouncements, but leading the daughter by question and observation =
"How long do you think the table is?"
Ha! Your muse fled?
(I suspect to meet other muses at the Amusing Bar & Grill
and make bar bets over which of their devotees has more writer's blocks per month.)
Fun read and thank you for using a color font to show the prompts within the poem.
Well done.
Well done!
Human frailties, indeed create senryu.
And each line may stand alone, honoring Haiku tradition.
Then using the prompt,
you provide an enigmatic line tying all together.
I liked how you ended the poem with the same verse as the first.
To me that is the picture of the pianist, who enters,
sits at the piano for a moment of reflection, then begins.
Your poem built the tempo faster, then more passive then strident,
just as I feel much of Rachmaninoff's compositions seem to be presented.
The ending is just as the pianist finishes, and there is that tiny moment of reflection,
before they turn to the audience. A moment of perhaps, "Have I done justice to this piece, did they understand me?"
Here we go again.
That certainly ties into your note that no one escapes the rat race!
Short sweet story, anthropomorphizing a rat's behavior into our daily lives.
And I like how well you handle dialog.
Only one suggestion (unless you deliberately kept this under 300 words) would be
"He began with 'H', dot dot dot dot, tapping out 'here we go again'."
I like the pulsing that the same line as the first in each stanza creates throughout the poem.
The sound of when the rain, driven by the wind, suddenly increases and then abates.
Tin overhang augments the sound. That is true.
the last few lines cause the reader to ponder why the rain is more favored than the memories.
Very nice.
I like that you posted this look into your creative process.
I've not used google docs, but obviously you piqued my interest into looking at this resource.
You wouldn't know how many times I've revised my stories in my portfolio, even some that were published some time ago.
Our reading styles have shifted, and what was once hot is luke warm now.
Anyway keep on writing!
The opening of this essay draws the reader in. - The air hums with the buzz of insects, sunlight filters through a canopy of leaves, and the earth breathes life.
Then you define the premise, telling us just where this is headed - This is the essence of a forest, a complex and vital ecosystem that underpins the health of our planet. -
By this line the reader is committed to read the rest of the essay.
I think this was well-written, and informative.
Only suggestion is bump the font size up for better readability.
Well done.
A tale for children. This tells a lot about Owl's hunting and feeding habits, and creates fables as to how this happened.
Cute.
I did note some mechanical issues. there are no sentence breaks. That makes this hard to read.
Natural line breaks should occur. First one could be after the second sentence.
read out loud, and you'll find the other natural breaks.
Also you start out with "it" for the Owl, then later switch to "He"
you should standardize that.
Interesting free verse.
Made me think a bit about this.
Granted, in our minds, we probably drop adjectives and other grammar to speed our thoughts.
But I think this would be more powerful without the contractions and slang...
they'll - they will
one'll - one will
sorta - sort of
(or would 'seems to be' work better?)
also they're is contraction of they are, so I think that should be 'their hand'
can effect - I think more spiritual as 'may affect'
I found this intriguing, and a bit unsettling.
You built the suspense and kept moving toward what the reader anticipates but doesn't want to accept.
Well done.
A small mechanical error, where you write in paragraph five, ".... looked like... " that is telling not showing. Suggest simply change to "as if" (then the reader "sees" the floorboards in their mind.
Haiku Senryu styling
Each line stands alone, that's good.
A dichotomy exists in that, does the second line or the third create enlightenment? That's good.
My only critique is that "To whom do I wait" doesn't seem grammatically correct,
shouldn't this be "For whom... "
I was a child in North Carolina, my pop a US Marine - from california.
But I still remember the Dog-wood trees, buds jut blossoming when there'd be
a midnight chill, and thick, frozen, frost the next morning.
You poem helped recall that image from the early 1950's
Thanks.
Only one bit of mechanics I suggest working on
"to take and grab" just doesn't ring right with the rest of the poem meter.
Maybe drop 'take and' in favor of a two syllable word?
Roughly rudely 9something like that.
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