My Place, a rare dabbling in free verse Options

[JustDaniel]

My Place

A place called Yesterday…
where more and more of those
who grew up with me now
have come to live. It’s there
my sturdy house stands proudly still.

My Father spawned it after WWII
of Northwest Douglas-fir,
much like the tyke he planted
way up on the Heights
called Roosevelt, some time
near 1930 – looming now
more than 200 feet above the
sidewalk he initialed –
which is crumbling now, perhaps
desiring to roll down into the broad
Puyallup Valley, stopping by
to visit Western Washington State Fair
if anyone is there, then tumble
down the River to the Puget Sound
where we would visit sometimes
on brisk summer days, go through the old
aquarium, which now is gone,
replaced by one that’s beautiful
but not as welcoming
as what once was.

The Point Defiance Park and Zoo
remind me still that it’s okay
to stand defying all who come
to visit my old house.
Its nails and bolts now 65 years old
hold it together fast. It’s slow
to moan, but does complain
when winter winds blow hard.
It sways, as if reminded
of some precious thing it lost…
long-since forgotten now recalled
in tears it daubs, if awkwardly
as quickly as it can.

Whatever hinges it can move
at all now creak, protesting
every opening, though welcoming
each guest – a wink where once
a smile lit up each room,
now shaded windows let in
little light through pitted panes
that sag, distorting images
of evergreens, whose scents
stretch hard to overpower
the must that age has left.

© MLee Dickens'son 2011

[JustDaniel]

Hope y'all don't mind. I made the mistake of commenting on a bunch of your pieces AFTER I posted it.... thus burying my own! Guess that's a good reason for doing the commenting FIRST, huh?

[Eisa]

Hi Daniel

It's so good to see you posting here again. I'm glad you bumped this up as I seem to have missed it. Yes! -- it is best to do your critiques first, then your own post last, that way you are up the top of the page.

It's great to see you have mastered FV, Daniel - I always think of you as a form writer.

I really like this. On first read I don't feel able to give a full critique as this is a long one, so I'll give you my first impressions.

I am wondering why you have underlined certain places and woder if it's really necessary. I personally don't think they add anything here - unless I'm missing something. (I am dim at times )

As this is a long poem, (I must say each stanza is almost a poem in itself) I would consider --

trimming back a little.
a few line break changes
a few word changes

eg: 1st stanza

A place called Yesterday…
where increasingly
those who grew with me
have now come to live.
It’s there ... my sturdy house
still proudly stands.

This is obviously just a suggestion for you to mull over - or chuck away!

Great to read you again

Snow

[JustDaniel]

Thank you on every level, Snow!

I will definitely consider your suggestion. On further read you may discover that my 'free verse' is a bit like Robert Frost's style of that genre -- almost totally iambic. It's my comfort level, I suppose.

As to the 'underlines' -- Yes, they do not add a thing to the poem, but they are links for further information and insight re pictures and such. If I were to 'publish' this, of course, it would be without the links, though it might be illustrated with some of the pictures there.

I'll get back to your piece soon. I'm at work and have to lead a group shortly. Just stopped in for a quick visit.

deLighting in your sharing, Daniel

[Eisa]

Daniel - when I started writing freeverse I often found myself slipping into iambic meter. as you say its a comfot zone

Snow

[Psyche]

Hi Daniel!

It's great to have you back again, with your enormous talent. You've stunned me with this poem, as it gets better and better each time I read it.

Perhaps the links wouldn't do in a published poem, but I must confess that I've spent at least 1/2 an hour learning all about those places. The first link, amazingly, led me to dozens of pics of pine trees, cos it so happens that I need them for my own blogspot, and you've given me a whole bunch to chose from!

And I've learnt a great deal more about Washington State. I happen to have visited Seattle ages ago, and then took an amazing bus trip over the mountains to the town of Spokane, where I have a stepdaughter!

So you've led me down memory lane, to 'the good 'ol days'....Tx!

I can't possibly offer suggestions right away, as it's 2.15 a.m. in Buenos Aires (my usual stint at the PC time). I do hope to get back, Daniel, except that life's problematical lately, and I'm not keeping all of my promises.

Yet I'm delighted to have read your excellent poem. To show my ignorance, I want to ask you whether your poem is about your own home, or whether it's actually a piece about somebody famous in the U.S., and now his home is a museum where guests come to visit. Because it gives me that impression!

And I love the way you give the old home personality, as if it were a living structure. The last stanzas blow me away, truly...

Syl***

[Siren]

Hey Daniel,

Good to see you posting here again.. The evolvement of life through time and how the same place is just not the same anymore. changes times and incidents bring. This is what I got from this. You were always a man with an admirable penchant for description. So many sections I enjoyed going through.

Dani