Hi Colin,
I like this poem very much.
I’m not too sure about the line lengths, or it might be the line breaks, in
the first stanza. But the rhythm works well - so I suspect what might appear
on my screen might be easily altered by the space bar.
I also like the sounds of the words – the line ending words: glass, visits,
playfulness (that word sounds really lush where it is!) and then plank.
Similar sound games are echoed, for me, in the line endings of the 2nd
stanza, too.
But – and I want to know, I really do! – what is it really teenagers think
about when they’re whistle? I mean I read the word “whistle” as whistling
tunes – should I read it as “boys making wolf whistles at girls? (The word,
you use, teenagers doesn’t necessarily imply boys). Do you mean
(testosteroned) teenage boys?
It’s a good ending. It’s a good poem: affectionate, open, sensitive.
Bob
>From: Colin Dewar <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: newsub/ages
>Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2006 13:12:26 -0000
>
>Title?
>
>
>At sixteen he adores doughnuts,
>light sabres, funfairs, the synthetic frosting on the glass
>of the shop window. His moon face shines at Halloween and every year when
>my daughter visits
>his small-toothed grin, his short hands, show playfulness
>that conjures pirates, a jaunty hat and a stroll up the plank.
>
>At sixty, his Mum will soon be too old to lift him up the stairs,
>to warn what the teenagers really think when they whistle.
>My daughter asks why he is so bendy, so bulky,
>his fifth finger curved as a little sickle,
>then turns before I answer and dances in the sun,
>plays Wendy to Peter Pan.
>
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>Colin
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>______________________
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