After You'd Gone

I like your ideas in the first two verses, the letters being piled up into a cairn, and the rosebud in a book, but I think they need more work. The choice of tenses seems a little awkward too.

thanks Dilletante - useful point about the tense. And I think you've really hit the nail on the head - ideas might be ok but no substance yet. A case of me perhaps thinking the idea is enough and rushing at it?? thank you again. Margot

You've captured the sense of loss quite well.

I think the second stanza doesn't scan as well as the others and may need a bit of rewording.

Overall, I enjoyed this, though.

I love this, especially the socks!

The rosebud was too sickly-sweet romantic in contrast - the letters and socks and realism of loss are what make this piece so powerful, and that is the only slight problem in my opinion.

But then, I'm not really the romantic type...

thank you for suggestion Dynamaso - I'm off on holiday for a week so will ponder on this. Jennifer thanks too for your comment. I'm a tad averse to the saccharin myself, but in spite of this included the rosebud as I thought it would enable easy identification with the point. I wasn't sure that the truth from which this part had been drawn would have the same impact....I had a partner once who had a very irritating habit of bookmarking pages with Wriggley wrappers and I'm still finding them! For similar reasons 'after I chucked you out' wasn't my favoured choice for the title. However, I am now wondering if I can make the Wriggley reference work without injecting too much humour. Margot

finally got around to amending to take on board Jennifer's comment re 'sickly sweet'. Thanks Jen Margot

It is a fab piece of work,I love it to bits!

I think you've nailed it now! Cherry duly awarded.

wow! Thank you Tony. It didn't occur to me that anyone would read this again, but it's been niggling me that it still didn't quite work. Finally my judgement overcame my sentimentality! Margot