Saturday, April 4, 2009

Endings

I have serious issues with endings to poems. Here is an example:

Possibilities hold such hope
when no one else can see.
Dreams,
tucked safely in pillowcase corners,
seem alive and strangely tangible.
Few withstand.

Should that last line read: "Few withstand the harsh floodlight of reality's withering gaze"? Or is "Few withstand." okay? When I first wrote it, I had the longer sentence. When I re-wrote it seemed like the two words were enough.

Then I can't decide.

I kind of like how vague it is with the harsh 'few withstand' but I always feel caught between saying more and paring my poems down to the bare minimum. Usually the paring down wins.

1 comment:

  1. "tucked safely in pillowcase corners" I find this imagery fascinating. It is my favorite part of this piece. The last line is fairly brutal in comparison to the rest of the work, and changes the nature of the poem completely, like a little black dot on a clean, white ball.

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