For poetry that isn't haiku or limericks
Moderators: kiore, Blip, The_Metatron
Evolving wrote:Blip, intrepid pilot of light aircraft and wrangler with alligators.
I hope the first of your poems isn't autobiographical, GenesForLife!
Would I be right in thinking you an admirer of Yeats? I got echoes of him in there - which is not an accusation that you're being derivative, but rather an observation that you're being intertextual.
In the second piece, I was thrown a bit by the use of 't' for 'the': may I ask what your motive was for that device?
Blip wrote:I'm a tiny wee bit tipsy and will respond properly tomorrow but meanwhile, here's one of mine that Nora asked me to post:
The Mind in the Cave
Deep in his cave, the shaman sighs;
he feeds the fragrant flickering flames;
sips slowly from his sacred draught.
The pounding hooves are faint at first,
but as the shadows buck and spin
the wall between the worlds dissolves.
Borne through the herds on beating wings
he soars into the ecstasy of flight.
***
The harsh bright light reflects from steel and glass.
I walk the gauntlet of false lipstick smiles,
watch as the heavy door is closed and locked.
With panic drumming in my ears, my visceral fear’s
diminished, not controlled, by drugs.
I slump into the agony of flight.
Evolving wrote:Blip, intrepid pilot of light aircraft and wrangler with alligators.
Nora_Leonard wrote:The lipstick smiles kind of threw me, because they didn't quite fit in with the image of a mental hospital. Because in a mental hospital, especially where people are locked up, you wouldn't expect nurses to be all prettied up.
Of course I could have the setting of the second part wrong, i.e. it could be a social setting where the woman is trying to fit in but finds herself being inexorably locked away from her true self.
Evolving wrote:Blip, intrepid pilot of light aircraft and wrangler with alligators.
Blip wrote:
If I were to tell you that the lipstick smiles are on air stewardesses...
My usual critical reader knows that, having at one time flown regularly all around the world, I now hate it, so for her there was no doubt about my intention. In the light of the comments here I am wondering whether to redraft the second stanza or to leave the ambiguity.
ETA having re-read Nora's heartfelt commentary, I'm struck by the idea that my own feelings about flying these days resonate with Nora's feelings about the suppression of creativity and that one can be locked up in a number of places (for a number of reasons) not just an aeroplane. We are both referencing extreme mental stress.
Amergin wrote:Moth
Alone and deep in the equatorial bush
I write by the golden light of a kerosene lamp.
A moth beats its delicate wings
against the mesh that covers my windows;
knocks and strums reverberate.
Compelled by light, its gargoyle head
and furred antennae butt the barrier,
with soft thuds and thrums;
dazed with foiled effort
it still persists;
again and again,
the whirr of ineffectual wings.
I return to my words
to butt my head and bruise my wing
for the ecstasy of light within.
THWOTH wrote:And so, in light of the comments and helps...
Who would have thought
that such a mighty waistband
could encircle the sturdy bowels
of a true Hero's chief?
Who would have guessed
that behind such soft and rosy cheeks
sat the sound wooden teeth
of a Grinder of Frenchies?
And who could have known
that beneath such a plumpened hand
would falter on a tiller tugged by storm
and so many hands be lost afore Texel?How many did suffer likewise
though without the dignity of oils
absent to the knowledge of their children's quiet tears?
and while a few grew fat, many more were washed away
by high winds and even higher words
leaving not a stain of their sweat and toil
upon the rented canvas of history
draft 1.5:5 12.12.10 (Just got to arrive at a title now)
Nora_Leonard wrote:THWOTH wrote:And so, in light of the comments and helps...
Who would have thought
that such a mighty waistband
could encircle the sturdy bowels
of a true Hero's chief?
Who would have guessed
that behind such soft and rosy cheeks
sat the sound wooden teeth
of a Grinder of Frenchies?
And who could have known
that beneath such a plumpened hand
would falter on a tiller tugged by storm
and so many hands be lost afore Texel?How many did suffer likewise
though without the dignity of oils
absent to the knowledge of their children's quiet tears?
and while a few grew fat, many more were washed away
by high winds and even higher words
leaving not a stain of their sweat and toil
upon the rented canvas of history
draft 1.5:5 12.12.10 (Just got to arrive at a title now)
<P> I think a poem like this actually needs a bit of intro, e.g. the picture and your musings on it, and a bit of history for those who have no clue as to who the person is or what the history is?
I don't think such a preamble takes away from the poetry, rather I think it prepares the reader FOR the poetry. Amergin's poem about the moth needs no such introduction, yours does. At least in my opinion. So, I'd like to see it again, with picture, and with a brief italicised introduction, so I can judge the whole?
BTW, for an American, the term Frenchie implies a condom and I don't quite think that's what you're aiming for?
As for the wooden teeth, I've actually seen in a museum (possibly Mount Vernon) an array of George Washington's wooden and ivory sets of false teeth.
Evolving wrote:Blip, intrepid pilot of light aircraft and wrangler with alligators.
THWOTH wrote:??
If you have nothing to hide
then you have nothing to fear
well, that once held true at least
so when the C.C.T.V.
stares blindly into your face
do you turn away in shame
or return that scrutiny
when the guardians of law
apply their temporal whim
do we then believe their pleas
that we have nothing to fear
when they have something to hide
do they not cower with shame
at their own hypocrisy
draft 1.0: 14.12.10
Evolving wrote:Blip, intrepid pilot of light aircraft and wrangler with alligators.
Evolving wrote:Blip, intrepid pilot of light aircraft and wrangler with alligators.
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