---

stark white pavement
three stillborn pecans
wrapped in olive velvet

---

Love the poem.  Not certain 'holds' is needed. [?]

Wondered about a more startling title.  My first thought was 'stillborn' --- but mightn't work for this. 

Love this. 

My mind wandered all round these trifles
waiting for night
to carry one away to my nest
and try my teeth on it.

Love this as well.  agree with Lynn on 'hold'.
was thinking something like 'vagrant' or
'stray':

three vagrant pecans
or
three stray pecans

an excellent write, nonetheless.

tiko

stark white pavement
three pecans
wrapped in olive velvet

[very haiku-ish]

Sure, keep it simple. Lovely and strong image, Cheryl. Tom

Ho about swapping L2 and L3 because:

1) more suspense getting to the meaning
2) perfect haiku syllables 5-7-5

although the syllables can be flexible in haiku and losing "holds" appeals to me also

HTH

Ian

'stillborn' is good, Lynn.  I'm using it.  Do you think fallen is too much too?

Thanks,
cheryl

Love your reply, Sue.  Beautiful.  What do you think of the poem now.  Have I tainted it?

Thanks,
cheryl

Thanks, Tiko.  What do you think of 'fallen'?

cheryl

Thanks, Tom.
cheryl

i think you can actually use stillborn!

tiko

Ian, tks for your generous reply.  I'm afraid to change the lines -- may muddle what's olive velvet.  Know what I mean?  

Tks so much,
cheryl

Eh?  Does that mean you like it as is?

lol

cheryl

i would like fallen to be replaced with stillborn, but yes.

tiko

I thought I did... but now I think I don't.  What do you mean?

Ian

cheryl -- what if you use 'fallen' as title and 'stillborn' where you've used fallen in L2 [tiko's suggesiton]   

excellent notion!!!

Ok, changed now.  Has more meaning now.  I was at first concerned about the sound, but stark and stillborn sound fine.

Thanks very much.

Ian, what I meant was that I wanted to make sure I was saying the pecans were covered in olive velvet.  Hope that makes sense.

Thank you,
cheryl

to picks.

Ah, the literal meaning -- that is what I thought you meant!  I was suddenly worried I was missing something symbolic / metaphorical, I do that...  I say nice poem with trees and oceans and the poet says "it's about my first wife!"

I don't think that reversing the lines will confuse...  if you were particularly worried, you could put a colon or dash at the end of the new middle line.

Just a thought.

Ian

Tiko, thank you so much.

cheryl

Ian, thank you as well for your suggestions.

L2-3's echo of "the newborn wrapped in swaddling clothes" makes this poem so rich to me.

What a wonderful thought.  Thank you, Tom.

cheryl