There is something odd there, erikaj. The verbs are: 'trotting', 'pauses', 'jumps', 'dance', 'leap', 'glimpsed' and 'lives'. If they all go into the same tense, say the present. The ones we have to change are 'dance', 'leap' and 'glimpsed'.

A horse, trotting daintily through the sky;
Pauses a moment to graze a tree-top;
Then jumps over a drifting cloud
and is gone.

A great grey horse of the moon,
Chalky on a pagan hillside,
dances ballerina-like on the knife edge
roof top – leaps in dressage over a
satellite ariel.

Glimpses only from an aeroplane of dreams,
Or the startled eyes of a sleepy bird,
the moon-horse lives in the air,
and is gone.

Is that an improvement? I've explained my method for singleing out what to change in case there's something I didn't spot.

I think it's better, but YPMV.

Thanks for the imput, erikaj- I'm not sure about it. I think changing the full stop after 'hillside' to a comma has made more difference to the feel of the poem than changing the verbs around. I'll sleep on it for a while, and in the meantime I welcome other opinions.

So I went to Oklahoma and thought I'd be stifled. And I was a bit, but stifling turned out to be good for me because now I have a miniburst of creativity. And I have this about my mother's home town:

The town is an ugly town with a hard, bitter edge.

I'm not sure exactly if it's because I'm unfamiliar with the terrain; it is different out here--so treeless, flat and barren looking. The land gently rolls and dips and suddenly mountains jut out from the ground, breaking the horizon, but mostly it's a vast flatness broken only by what man has made.

The trees are short;they look like they've been stunted from exposure to the elements---as if the constant wind keeps them battered and hunched over. There are few conifers here, few trees that are evergreen. Instead the trees are gray skeletons, stripped bare and whip-thin, that shake and rattle against the wind. And the sky---it seems to stretch out forever. Not quite blue today and not quite gray, not an even cloud cover. Like paints that have been mixed and not quite blended: blue, gray, white and smeared across canvas stretched taut like a tent. The grass is dead, brownish and the ground races out towards the sky. Everything is so monochromatic: gray, brown, dirty white, yellow. Naked trees, cold rocks and boulders, dead grass. Only the shock of evergreen bushes to startle the eye.

Short trees, short bushes, rocks low to the ground. Even the sky seems lower down. As if the whole world is crouched, bracing itself against the elements. The town has followed this horizontal theme--low one story buildings with flat roofs. One story houses, square shoebox houses: yellow brick and brown roofs, with evenly divided yards marked off in chain link or brown wooden fences. The buildings of the town are cement block and metal.

There's a desperate, dingy feel. Out of date and behind the times, worn from too many washings--gray with wear and unraveling at the seams. Not retro or quaint, just old and used. My aunt says the county is broke and I can see it. It looks like the last bit of update and progress came through in the 70s.

The historic brick buildings of downtown were razed for a mall. Now only the old library remains, serving as the town hall. And the mall is just another building. Dusty and used. Not big enough for even a food court, just a few simple food stands. A tiny bookstore. A stifling feeling.

Good writing, askye.

Few comments:

Instead the trees are gray skeletons

I wonder if this could be stronger: 'Instead, they are grey skeletons' might be better. Similary,

And the sky---it seems to stretch out forever.

Might be better as 'The sky seems to stretch out forever', even blending into the next sentance with a comma instead of a break.

Everything is so monochromatic

If you take the 'so' out, it would read more smoothly.

Otherwise, it's very good. And it may just be that I'm looking for a different tone in the longer paragraph, so I might have been talking rubbish about the changes. I especially like the opening line- very effective.

Am-Chau, sorry I haven't responded sooner, I like some your suggestions. I went one step further with the trees=skeletons. That image is still staying with me. I'm still working on the other, not quite story, that will end up resembling this in parts, because this is the source for that.

The trees are short;they look like they've been stunted from exposure to the elements---as if the constant wind keeps them battered and hunched over. There are few conifers here, few trees that are evergreen. The trees are gray skeletons, stripped bare and whip-thin, that shake and rattle against the wind. And the sky, it seems to stretch out forever, not quite blue today and not quite gray, not an even cloud cover. Like paints that have been mixed and not quite blended: blue, gray, white and smeared across canvas stretched taut like a tent. The grass is dead, brownish and the ground races out towards the sky. Everything is monochromatic: gray, brown, dirty white, yellow. Naked trees, cold rocks and boulders, dead grass. Only the shock of evergreen bushes to startle the eye.

Am-Chau, sorry I haven't responded sooner, I like some your suggestions.

That's fine; always glad to help. I like the second version, the only thing I have to say is that in "the sky, it seems", the 'it' feels redundent. Maybe 'the sky seems' would work? You might feel you need the pause, in which case leave it, but it jarred me a little when I read it the first time. Otherwise: good work.

Yeah, I have that, and then also I use "not quite" twice in a row. I should see if I can change that up.

It's really just taken right out of my journal.

The not quite story thing is what has my attention now, of course when I sit down to work on it nothing comes, but when I'm driving around suddenly the words just rush at me.

when I'm driving around suddenly the words just rush at me.

I know that place. I don't drive, so it's usually when I'm walking, but still it's hard to find a way to write them down. Will you post the 'not quite story thing' when you're done? I'd like to read it.

I will. I'm not sure when that will be, but I will.