Kevin's Watch

This is a rough draft (and my first attempt at a poem in years).


An old woman serves coffee at the Corner Cafe.
She has served there for twenty-five years.
She passes time watching the passersby,
And filling cups from a silver pot.
Customers come, and customers go:
Most go and do not come again.
She strikes a rapport with a man in a suit;
He tips her and fades away.
The colours are pale, the light is too dim,
A shadow lays deep in her heart.
But the moment is passed, and she is peaceful again.
What she thought that she saw is forgotten.
Customers go, and years pass by,
Yet there is no change in her habit.
She passes time watching strangers pass by,
And pouring tea from a silver pot.
Time may crumble the walls, and the memory too,
Yet still she will serve coffee at the corner cafe,
And peacefully fade to nothing.

I enjoyed that. I particularly like the almost-repetition of she passes time... and ...from a silver pot

I like that repetition as well, but I think a few lines don't quite gel. I like the idea though, and think a rewrite of some lines would make it pretty good.

--A

Yes, it doesn't quite work, does it. I was struggling against the intense drive to make it rhyme, and think a couple of times settled on the first thing I thought of to avoid it.

I think it's a good thing you didn't try to get the rhymes in there. I like it as i is, and rhymes without a meter is to much hip-hop for me!

i like the repetition, i use it much. very good start, needs pruning a wee bit. but i like it very much.