critique

Your other poems were like brooks,
with too many bends for me to trace
or follow up; just meander down. The scenery
floats by, sudden bright patches dazzling,
the sound of an unknown bird. The eye
falls asleep to the soothing beauty of the world.
At the end you step out not really knowing
what land you passed through.

Or, like languorous conversation
flits, ideas skipping like stones across a pond,
like skipping across stepping stones:
touch on this, skip over that, and come to rest
here. In a papered front room of a very old house,
two friends sat close laughing and talking for hours.
Who can trace where the talk went? Or where
the talk went, when the silence fell? As,
leaning in, right hands brushed - touched -
in a way that seemed so suddenly
unexpected

This new poem of yours is short. Sweet...
perhaps. Direct, straight, in a way that is new
and nervous. For the first time I see what you mean,
conscious and clever and complete in one moment
and it scares me. For some or no reason, that old song
has stuck in my head: I like short songs,
I like short songs, I like short songs,
I like short songs!