Twenty One

[Sooz]

Twenty one times I will meet you.
I like you, you see, you amuse me.
You’re my latest doll in a cupboard of toys
And a thing, no, an object of beauty.
You sing and you dance and you’re soft to the touch.
Your hair feels like silk through my fingers.
Those pretty blue eyes catch the light when you move
And your smile in my memory, lingers.
An intelligent wit holds my interest
Or the fact you would have your own way.
You have thoughts of your own and opinion
And a focus, a presence, for twenty one days.
I’ll parade you with joy on my arm for a time,
For twenty one times, in fact
I’ll dine you in places that don’t know my name
I’ll show you to strangers and see them react.
At times I’m in sorrow to lose you,
When twenty-one sunsets melt sky.
Often I want to play with you still
But twenty one’s stronger than I.
Twenty one times my love scorned me
Though twenty one times, I begged grace
I did flowers and chocolates and jewellery
Till my hammer contorted her face.
I gaze at you now, in my chamber
Together we watch fading light.
The ties that bind, hold you fast to my bed
I shall kill you this twenty first night.

[peter]

Hello . your poetry is not as bad as you suggested , though you should be getting as many reviews for your stories . how do you actually find time to write anything with the job you`ve got?

[Sooz]

Ah, you've caught me. Today I am lazy. I needed to do the next chapters on Katie and Sammy... but no, 1000 words and I'm done (my minimum daily wordcount) . So I decided to revisit some really old and cringey stuff. It's good to do an edit on your old work sometimes, and it was better than not doing any writing at all.

I work from home these days. I gave up the OT years ago, since then I've run my own business.

Today I'm going into work later, the weather report told me that we were going to have heavy storms at ten this morning, so I set my alarm and got up at seven thirty because I wanted to plant six oleander bushes in the garden before the rain came. Would you believe it, it's been glorious all day, so far and I could have had another hour in bed.

[Deborahhambrook]

Hi Sooz. I thought this was interesting. You start off wondering why 21- and gradually realise. I wasn't sure about the line- 'or the fact you have your own way', and should it be - 'opinions' with an S to go with thoughts? Just a thought- Not sure.

I enjoyed reading this.

Deb x

[Sooz]

Hi Deborah. Thank you very much for critiquing this for me. I appreciate it. I'll certainly look at the own way line again and see if I can find an alternative.

The opinion I liked the sound of in my head. He's a wordy, professor-ish kind of bloke and I meant opinion as in encompassing ALL opinion. But if it's ungrammatical, he'd certainly never do that, so it'll have to be changed. Thanks for pointing it out and I'll look into it.

[dragon]

I like this new take on the theme of Browning's Porphyria's Lover. It has a nicely sinister air. I feel you have hit the right level of enough said but not too much.

[Sooz]

Thanks Dragon, really appreciate the comment. Thank you.

[Phil]

There's a successful dark feel to this. I don't know if you draft and redraft - but this felt like an early draft and in need of a fair amount of tightening. If you do that sort of thing - I'd like to have a read at its next stage.

Phil

[Sooz]

Hello Phil, thank you for reading and commenting. No, this is actually an old one that I had a bash at tweaking a bit yesterday. I'm not sure how to tighten it up, poetry isn't really my thing and to be honest, I haven't got a clue. I've taken Deb's comments on board but other than that, not sure how to make it any better and I have no plans of doing anything with it. Who knows, in ten years I might have the skills and knowledge to make it right and look at it again.

[Cat-eyes]

Wow this is so affecting, I'm impressed. I especially like the 'untold' element