The Momento

Larry this is a great poem, it is extremely touching! I feel that I have to analyse it a bit further!

"My aunt never married;
on occasion my mother
would bring my brother
and I to visit her."

Your first line is great as it sets the mood and judgement for the poem. It's almost like you are making the reader judge this woman from the get go, she never married so something must be wrong with her! Great way of influencing your audience!

"I hated going there;
the house was dim and dusty
with drapes of lavender
and grey shadows."

I don't know whether it was your intention to portray darkness and sadness with this stanza but that is exactly what I interpreted. I felt like you were trying to tell me that the house was stagnant and lifeless. I couldn't help but relate it to the aunt figure's personality in the poem.

"She had ugly knickknacks,
a black banana made of glass
which sat on a piano
that was never played."

I love the image of a music-less piano! Could anything be more lifeless? It almost feels like this person's house is not lived in or if there is a presence in the house, it is ghostly. Very eerie indeed.

"Why would any one want
a glass fruit that looked
as though it was rotted
through to the center?"

I like this stanza because it has a childish feel to it. If it can't be played with and isn't pretty why would you have it. Very innocent.

"One visit, my brother and I
were restless - too much
silence and decorum;
so we played catch."

I love the description "too much silence and decorum," because it is completely contrasted with the world of the children. We have all visited older relatives when we didn't want to and that is exactly how it is. Well done for relating to your reader.

"He tossed the glass banana
I caught it perfectly,
then flipped it back, he missed,
the banana exploded on the floor.

My aunt came in the room;
without a word she turned
brought back a broom
swept it into a dust pan."

This was not what I was expecting! I assumed she would tell the children off, perhaps be self-righteous but she didn't. At this point I was extremely intrigued by this aunt character you've created. At this point, I think you make the reader question if their initial judgement of the aunt might have been too harsh. This then leads on to question, are we always too judgemental of other? Powerful!

"I watched, waiting, yet
no raised voice or even
a cross word came from her
but I saw a single tear roll down.

My mother said not a word
when she picked us up early
but later I overheard her
talking on the phone."

Great storytelling here. You haven't over embellished anything here and that is great as it keeps the steady flow of the poem. One of the best things about this poem is that your sweet and short stanzas make the poem flow exceptionally well. I liked the single tear rolling down as it gave me the image of repressed pain needing a single outlet.

"It was a gift to my aunt
from the only man in her life
before he went to Europe
and lost his life on D-Day."

POWERFUL! Here you tell the reader, nothing is ever as it seems and it is a message fully received! You force the reader to acknowledge that their initial judgment was in fact completely wrong and that the eerie lady was actually a woman in mourning who never recovered of a broken heart. Great twist!

"That black glass banana
has stuck in my throat
choking me for decades
no maneuver can dislodge it."

I absolutely love this ending!!! The feelings you describe toward the end are exactly the feelings you leave the reader with!! A lump in the throat caused by the realisation that they were wrong all along.

Great emotional poem which touches on human nature as a whole! 5/5 from me!

Firstly, a fabulous idea for the challenge - making the topic sentimental.

With this piece, the readers are blasted with images - it's as though we are actually within the situation, that's how vivid it is.

I really like how you told a story with the beginning, middle and end - that ending in particular, very sad and beautifully written. It gives the reader the idea of how important that particular knick-knack had been and how much the "brother" writing this regrets his actions, even after so many years.

Another key aspect I really loved was the emotion that poured through the words - especially disappointment and regret. I think that if you chose to write that the Aunt (or even the mother) as having been furious, than it would have completely changed the outcome. I think that disappointment is a far worse punishment than anger in any situation.

One very minor suggestion:
stanza five:
You have chosen to give separate thought to: 'too much silence and decorum' but you haven't closed this separate thought at the end with a " - " before the last line is written. (Perhaps not so much a separate thought as rather an accompanying thought)
So I (think) it should be:

One visit, my brother and I
were restless - too much
silence and decorum -
so we played catch.

Or perhaps some other form of pause?

Also, upon first read, the first two lines in the first stanza come across as slightly confusing - before we read on - I have no idea how to fix this. Once readers read the following two lines it makes complete sense, but there is that moment of confusion that I thought you may like to be aware of.

A fantastic write that emphasises the fact that what may seem like junk to one person may mean the world to another.

Beautiful. 5/5

Oh my God.... surely nominated tomorrow...

This piece inspired me in a similar way. (I really hope that's okay)

It is really well written, and I love your word choice. Excellent piece.

:'(