butchiesmom

Today, I dreamed of high-heeled shoes,
Hopscotch, running and skipping.
Playing baseball on the road in front of the house,
Running under the grapevine in the back yard,
Riding a bicycle, walking it up the hills and riding it down.

Walking briskly in high-heeled shoes,
the sharp staccato sounds of the heels hitting the ground,
echoes bouncing off the walls of the hallway,
fooling people into thinking a much larger person is treading the floors
and astonishing them when they realize tiny me was the noise maker.

Strutting proudly in my first pair of “big girl shoes” and stumbling
As ankles rolled over the unaccustomed height and balance needs.
Remembering sandals with platform soles and missing the bottom step.
Mom heard my screams over the sound of the car engine she was warming.
Came running to find me there with an ankle rapidly swelling.
Wore them again after the swelling and pain went away.

Remembering all the pumps I once owned, how proudly I looked at them,
Knowing only big girls where pumps and thinking I need more shoes.
Watching the height of the pumps dwindle over time and then disappear completely.
Wearing flats isn’t too bad with a cane and work quite well with a walker,
but I would rather wear my high-heeled shoes.

Walking barefoot isn’t bad, no heels to turn ankles.

PaintedDiary

Oh Gail,

I absolutely love this. How creative and true!!! I love the way you turned the dream into your reality in the last stanza. The last line was amazing! Fond memories do "we girls", have of high-heeled shoes. I love poetry of the everyday, and how it has become poetry of life. You captured this beautifully Gail. Bravo poet!! LOVED it!! Since this is in the Critique Saloon, I will say that the Poem should remain insitu.

Painted

Altree94

This is absolutely WONDERFUL! Something I can really relate to! So what do you want help with? - This is perfect just as it is! TY for posting and please do not change a thing!

MsJacquiiC

Hmmmm - I like the piece as well - Not sure exactly what kind of advice your looking for (I did move the poem to the Critique Saloon - from the Revisions...)

But anyway - I see a couple of things that need work:
1. The structure of the poem...
There are some fine lines in this write - I would like to see additional line breaks. When you do the line breaks - you'll see that some things in the poem are unnecessarily repeated...

EXAMPLE:
Came running to find me there with an ankle rapidly swelling.
Wore them again after the swelling and pain went away.
BECOMES:
Came running to find me there,
ankle rapidly swelling.
Wore them again: the pain away...

ALSO - with more structure the poem actually LOOKS like a poem...

2. You've used many many many "-ing" words (running and skipping, Playing,
Running, Riding, walking, riding --- that's just in the 1st stanza) - I'd like to see those words "doing" something LOL - ALSO with that added into your 1st revision - you'll see some of the repetitives running away....

EXAMPLE:
Walking briskly in high-heeled shoes,
the sharp staccato sounds of the heels hitting the ground,
echoes bouncing off the walls of the hallway,
BECOMES:
I walk liltingly in those high-heeled shoes,
the sharp staccoto beat tapping
insane rhythm as the echoes bounced
off the walls...

Just an idea - but cutting down on the "-ing"s will give the DREAM purpose - if you get the meaning...
---------------------
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Anyway - those are just a couple of things you can work on to bring this piece to publishable status.

You've started with some lovely ideas (((I absolutely LOVE poems about a dream))) and just to rework them into freestyle poetic form will be lovely!

Hope this helps!

Jacquii.

butchiesmom

(Loudly, clearing throat to get painted's and tree's attention) I did say I didn't like this poem but Tree talked me out of using the delete button, lol.
Please read Jacquii critique and you'll see why I was so unsure of this one. She pointed out all the problems I couldn't voice with it.
Anyway, lol. Thanks Painted and Tree for the praise, it saved the life of this storem, and Jacquii for further giving it a longer life, lol.
Now that I can see what bothered me about it I can do something to fix it.
Gail

butchiesmom

Jacquii, I printed out your helpful suggestions and was telling my hubby about it when I read this one line you suggested:
I walk liltingly in those high-heeled shoes,

I had to laugh out loud and so did my husband, lol. He said tiltingly would be more apt, lmao. Even when I weighed around 100 pounds, when I walked down a hallway in heels, it sounded like a much larger person, lol. Thanks for the idea though, lol.

MsJacquiiC