'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?': The Poetry Thread

[The_Narrator]

Since there's a book list, I thought perhaps a poetry list would also be welcome. Suggest your favourites here!

Perhaps if this thread is popular enough we could also go for a bit of discussion?

Well, I'll start. Bit of a fan of the romantics here, so I'd go for:
-'Sonnet XVIII' - William Shakespeare
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1852.html
-'Ode On Melancholy' - John Keats
http://www.bartleby.com/101/628.html
-'I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud' - William Wordsworth
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud/
-'She Walks In Beauty' - Lord Byron
http://bartelby.com/101/600.html

And non-romantic, the two that come to mind are:
-'Sailing To Byzantium' - W.B. Yeats, and
http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/781
-'The Waste Land' (but especially Part One: 'The Burial Of The Dead') - T.S. Eliot
http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html

[Wolfie Gilmore]

Sparked by the discussion in the Loo shag etc thread, here’s a Blake poem I’m rather fond of - London

http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/2370/

[The_Narrator]

Ah, links, there's a good idea. *Above post edited*

I really like the line "blood down palace-walls" from Blake's poem. Very thought inspiring. And good subject matter too; everyone knows the old saying, when you tire of London ...

Perhaps we could also put some of our non-fan-fic related poetry in here too? (Just an excuse for me to boost my ego/be devastatingly humiliated, depending on your mercy levels.)

Go on then, I'll start with a sonnet I just chucked together.

It would take a millenium or more
To describe the exact shade of your eyes -
By then, that colour would have become folklore,
Told to romance lovers amidst their sighs.
That blueness is as open as the sky,
Forever roaming, infinite, yet calm.
They reflect the ocean, on which I'd lie,
Waiting outstretched for your delicate palm.
Even when in my loneliest hour,
A flutter of eyelids is all it takes
To save me from darkness, for their power
Is enthralling beauty, and my heart breaks.
If your eyes are the gateway to your soul,
Let me embrace you, leap into that hole!

Yuck yuck yuck. I need your immediate help. There are a few phrases I like, such as "Told to romance lovers" and ... actually, that's it. This was another stream-of consciouness-thingy, so some of the rhymes feel a bit forced. Actually, that's the impression I get of the whole thing. Writing in a strictly controlled form like a sonnet, whilst making it sound natural is very hard, and I think I've missed the mark here. There are some awful cliches ("darkness"? I thought I'd got over my teenage angst!?) But then writing about someone's eyes in a love poem is in itself an overblown statement, so perhaps being over-the-top in a Gatsby-esque way is a good thing, "making cliches sound like his own", I think Nick said, roughly paraphrased, so perhaps the last two lines are appropriate, the exclamation mark acknowledging the boldness of the hyperbole. But on the other hand, "ocean" and "sky"? Hardly original there. And there's a contradiction there, in that my "heart breaks" when I look into those eyes, but they are meant to be beautiful! Unless it's subtler - my heart breaks because nothing else is as beautiful? Because that spark of vitality and life will one day disappear? - but it's not really explored. Perhaps in another sonnet? Argh, I feel quite discomforted now. Suggestions for improvement please? I'll work on some too, and repost.

[Veverka]

You Who Never Arrived (http://audiopoetry.wordpress.com/2006/04/04/you-who-never-arrived/) by Rainer Maria Rilke... I first found this poem quoted in a Dawn/Riley fanfic, which was a lovely use of it. It makes me think of miscarriage, actually, unborn potential, the balance between becoming and not becoming, being, not being.

[Rosamunde]

Perhaps we could also put some of our non-fan-fic related poetry in here too? (Just an excuse for me to boost my ego/be devastatingly humiliated, depending on your mercy levels.)

I'm not known for my mercy when it comes to poetry, I'm sorry. But I'll do my best...

Go on then, I'll start with a sonnet I just chucked together.

The fact that you bother to make it rhyme or use a form like a sonnet impresses me greatly. There's not enough of it about these days.

It would take a millenium or more
To describe the exact shade of your eyes -
By then, that colour would have become folklore,
Told to romance lovers amidst their sighs.

I don't like the first line of this poem at all. It feels very cliched to me -- I'm sure I've begun a poem this way once or twice, and I think a lot of other have too. I'm not sure what to suggest, but I'd like something more immediate, a mention of the eyes at once perhaps?

That blueness is as open as the sky,
Forever roaming, infinite, yet calm.

I really think "their" blueness would sound better here. The transition from the first sentence would work a lot better if you used "their" I think. I like the "as open as the sky" image a lot.

They reflect the ocean, on which I'd lie,
Waiting outstretched for your delicate palm.

I think the imagery's a bit confusing here: are you lying in the colour of this person's eyes or are you lying on an actual ocean? And are they going to pick you up or do you want to hold their hand?

Even when in my loneliest hour,
A flutter of eyelids is all it takes
To save me from darkness, for their power
Is enthralling beauty, and my heart breaks.

I like "eyelids" rather than eyelashes a lot. I like that their power is "enthralling beauty" but your heat break seems a little too cliched. I can cope with "loneliest hour" (a nice echo of Frost I think) and "darkness" I quite like, but breaking hearts is too far. Something else could break? Spirit, resolve, sense, reason?

If your eyes are the gateway to your soul,
Let me embrace you, leap into that hole!

I really like "hole" rhyming with "soul". Original, I think, and rather evocative. I like the idea here, and the immediacy, but not so much the language. "Embrace you" just sounds too 18th century for me, but if that's the look you're going for, who am I too argue?

I know I'm being very nit-pick-y but overall I do like your poem. Or at least, I think it shows a lot of potential. You're clearly thinking about what you're doing and I can't overemphasis how great I think that is.

Yuck yuck yuck. I need your immediate help. There are a few phrases I like, such as "Told to romance lovers" and ... actually, that's it. This was another stream-of consciouness-thingy, so some of the rhymes feel a bit forced. Actually, that's the impression I get of the whole thing. Writing in a strictly controlled form like a sonnet, whilst making it sound natural is very hard, and I think I've missed the mark here.

I don't think you've missed the mark exactly, it's just that it needs a little more work. I think it feels forced because there isn't much immediacy: it feels like you're setting the subject at a distance, which doesn't work so well for a poem of adoration, because the reader needs to feel <i>why</i> you're so enthralled. It might help if you described the eyes a bit more. You compare them to the ocean and the sky, which are perhaps the worst cliches for something blue, particularly because those things change shades all the time, and you could equally be comparing green eyes, grey eyes, dark eyes, light eyes to them, which leaves me with no concrete sense of what I'm supposed to be picturing, the imagery falls rather flat. I think a few more concrete details of what the eyes are like would help.

There are some awful cliches ("darkness"? I thought I'd got over my teenage angst!?) But then writing about someone's eyes in a love poem is in itself an overblown statement, so perhaps being over-the-top in a Gatsby-esque way is a good thing, "making cliches sound like his own", I think Nick said, roughly paraphrased, so perhaps the last two lines are appropriate, the exclamation mark acknowledging the boldness of the hyperbole. But on the other hand, "ocean" and "sky"? Hardly original there.

I love that you're thinking about what your write and are aware of where you fall down. I think cliches work when you use them in an original way -- but you aren't really doing that. As you said, we've all heard about eyes before, and we've all read the cliches about them, so it's hard for this to sound fresh. I do like the exclamation mark tho.

And there's a contradiction there, in that my "heart breaks" when I look into those eyes, but they are meant to be beautiful! Unless it's subtler - my heart breaks because nothing else is as beautiful? Because that spark of vitality and life will one day disappear? - but it's not really explored. Perhaps in another sonnet? Argh, I feel quite discomforted now. Suggestions for improvement please? I'll work on some too, and repost.

That's actually a very interesting idea. I'd like to know why your heart breaks. I'd also like to read some more about the person these eyes belong to and get some sense of her. :)

Hope some of what I said made sense!

[Wolfie Gilmore]

Been packing up me house all day so too pooped for poetry criticism, but I think Ros has probably done a better job than I could anyhow....bit of a novice when it comes to writing poetry in a particular form, though I do try every now and then. But I probably should learn more about forms (or relearn, since I did know all that stuff at university....but that was about ten years ago so, the knowledge is seeping away into the fabric of...wherever knowledge goes when it leaves the head. Anyway, so when I've got my form-head on, I'll come back and do some analysis, if you're still interested then :)

On the topic of other people's poetry...

Ah, links, there's a good idea. *Above post edited*



I really like the line "blood down palace-walls" from Blake's poem. Very thought inspiring. And good subject matter too; everyone knows the old saying, when you tire of London ...



…then piss off somewhere else, cos London doesn’t give a shit about you, loser. Isn’t that the phrase…? ;)



I love Blake. To quote a watcher, “I wrote my thesis on [him]”. Well, among other things, but he definitely had a featured role. There’s something about the way his mind works that speaks to me more than most…he’s the Alan Moore of his time. Or possibly the Bjork. I love me some visionary madness.



Perhaps we could also put some of our non-fan-fic related poetry in here too?

Hell yeah...I could do with an incentive to write some more, haven't in a good long while.

[Rosamunde]

I love me some visionary madness.

That makes me want to read some Blake. The site you linked to didn't seem to work for me, but I'm sure I could rustle up a book from somewhere. I like visionary madness, too.

Hell yeah...I could do with an incentive to write some more, haven't in a good long while.

Do! I miss your poetry.

One of mine in the spirit of posting. Bit gloomy, but what else is new. Please do criticize brutally if you feel like it :)

And I Rot

My hands are bathed in my blood
and sweat and piss. Water turns to slime
between my palms

and my clothes reek. I think of the pattern of pale
sunlight against a concrete building,
almond blossom

and pinkeens darting greenly
through a still pool, but
I press my hands between my sticky

thighs and even memories of beauty
evaporate. My skin is sour milk and blue mould
nibbles the whorls of my mind.

I can wash and smile
but I know now that shame always
turns its victims to filth.

[The_Narrator]

I had a very shitty day yesterday, but seeing your post last night really cheered me up! :) So thank you for taking the time to comment, and in a helpful and constructive way too.

Before I reply, I'd say that my biggest problem when writing poetry is finding that inspiration/perspiration balance. I hate, absolutely hate, when a poem feels false or forced in any way. I completely agree with Keats (yeah, he's a bit of an inspiration for me) when he said that "if Poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all". But then, if I were to write completely freely, writing exactly whatever thoughts hit me first, my poetry would just turn into a multi-mood, Joyce-esque rant lasting several volumes, and I'd produce one poem a year, waiting for inspiration, or the right metaphor, or the right phrase to hit me. But then, not editing is just laziness really, so ... *conflicted*.

Well, here is Sonnet I, version 1.02 anyway.


My thoughts halt! Your eyes invigorate me,
Inspire me, drown out the dullness of sight.
Twinkling stars, burning incandescently
Out of that blackened canvas called Night.
Their blueness is as open as the sky,
Forever roaming, infinite, yet calm.
I could float there forever serenely,
Awakened only by clutching your palm.
Even when in my loneliest hour,
A flutter of eyelids is all it takes
To save me from darkness, for their power
Is enthralling beauty; yet my trance breaks.
If your eyes are the gateway to your soul,
Let me stare deeply, leap into that hole!


Well, addressing what you said, I wasn't sure how formal a tone to use. A sonnet for me requires language as formal as its structure, but then I run the risk of making it too rigid and like you said, archaic. "Embrace" has thus been removed. I will leave the "my heart breaks" phrase though, although "heart" has been been changed, since the reasons for that breaking will be explored in another poem. Not sure if I like "stare deeply", it doesn't really have immediacy or passion. Like you said, it sounds like I'm writing from afar, which I tried to change with the immediate "My thoughts halt!" The "dullness of sight" is immediate, I feel, as though everything else seems to be dull whenever I see her eyes. But still not quite there, perhaps? "Floating serenely" in her eyes is much more romantic, but I think it sounds very objectifying, as though I like the feeling of looking into her eyes, rather than actually looking into them, which isn't the idea I want to bring across. But I'm not sure, I could just be paranoid/overanalaysing. *Rolls eyes* "Heart" has been replaced by "trance", describing the break of both the trance of looking into her eyes (as though realising and understanding the profound beauty in the eyes actually breaks my looking into them), and the trance I have deluding myself about life. My next poem would be about the loss of vitality and so on, and that would the be the 'trance'; that everything stays the same, whereas beauty is often like an apple, rosy-red and beautiful one day, rotting the next. The imagery has been generally un-murkied (I hope), by removing the ocean image, and expanding on the sky imagery. Waiting for the "delicate palm" meant for me that I was so captured in the beauty of her eyes that it actually took physical contact to awaken me. But "waiting" has been removed, as I certainly would not want to removed from the beauty of her eyes.

I'd also like to read some more about the person these eyes belong to and get some sense of her. :)

I could describe the kindness and beauty and intelligence of my muse to you all day ... and night ... and week ... but I'd rather write another poem about her instead! *Picks up biro, opens up Notepad ...* Though getting all shouting-from-rooftops-y does have its merits now and again. And as trite as it might sound, I really could look into her eyes all day. *Sighs*

And I'm not sure if I'm receptive or poetically knowledgeable enough to be able to comment on your poem, but if you'll forgive me doing so, I'll give my two-pennyworth.

I like the bluntness of "sweat and piss". It immediately enforces the tone of the poem, and is very natural in that, depressingly, blood and tissue and water is essentially all our bodies are made from. The "sunlight against a concrete building" is a very beautiful image for me, as though the dullness and unattractive greyness of the concrete can be ignored when the picture-esque sunlight is upon it, perhaps even turning the building into something beautiful itself. The suspension of "but" at the end of the line suggests something ugly is about to the ruin that image, and the following lines do just that. The descriptions of the skin remind me of cheese, slowly gaining "mould" and the colour and clammy texture of "sour milk", which I think is very well written, as generally, food imagery feels as natural and earthy as the descriptions of natural elements, such as the sunshine and the pool and so on, but it sounds disturbing, as it is a reminder of the decay of the body, the "Rot". I may be very wrong here, and apologies if I've misread this, but the last three lines suggest to me that something more than understanding the "shame" of how the body turns into "filth" has happened - perhaps rape? Hence the blood and sweat, the clothes that "reek", the alienation of the person from their own flesh, and the admission that they can "wash and smile, which sounds like someone trying to scrub the memories from their system, but never being able to, and always having to put on their smiling face. I really enjoyed reading this poem, as the imagery is very thought-provoking, the wording is precise and each individual word means something, and counts, and I like reading a poem with, as you called it, a "gloomy" tone, without it being cliched or unnecessarily angst ridden, just genuinely downheartened. The tone almost reminds me of some of Edgar Allen Poe's works, or Sylvia Plath even.

Thanks again for discussion and posting! :D

[tangent]

Hmm not so much on the writing of poetry i'm afraid, but if we're talking favourites then I would have to plump for Kipling's 'If'. I simply can't read that without feeling inspired.

[Rosamunde]

I had a very shitty day yesterday, but seeing your post last night really cheered me up! :) So thank you for taking the time to comment, and in a helpful and constructive way too.

I'm glad you weren't offended! And that I helped a bit :) I was pleased to find a poem I could get my claws in to: it's great to find some poetry with meat to it!

Before I reply, I'd say that my biggest problem when writing poetry is finding that inspiration/perspiration balance. I hate, absolutely hate, when a poem feels false or forced in any way. I completely agree with Keats (yeah, he's a bit of an inspiration for me) when he said that "if Poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all". But then, if I were to write completely freely, writing exactly whatever thoughts hit me first, my poetry would just turn into a multi-mood, Joyce-esque rant lasting several volumes, and I'd produce one poem a year, waiting for inspiration, or the right metaphor, or the right phrase to hit me. But then, not editing is just laziness really, so ... *conflicted*.

I strongly believing in editing, but I do know what you mean. An over-edited poem can sound awful. You can almost feel the strain of writing it as you read. However, I do think it takes <i>a lot</i> of editing to create a poem that feels that strained. Sometimes I'm guilty of that: I even vacillate over the commas! And sometimes poems come, as Plath said "white-hot", and don't need much editing at all. I do find it hard to tell sometimes, which ones sound better. When I draw, the drawings that come easily are always the best, but poems are different. Sometimes the ones that take much dithering cut closer to your intended meaning that the white-hot ones.

Perhaps you should try writing freely and then editing? That's often the way I work (I'm not saying it's the best way or anything!) and it sometimes helps. I write down many thoughts and images and gradually edit them, separate them, until I have something I might call a poem. That method does mean that sometimes the same images crop in more than one poem, but that doesn't always bother me.

Waiting for inspiration is the worst. Sometimes so much comes at once, and sometimes months go by. It's painful. I don't have an answer for that! Although I have a story about the poet Rilke who lived for a time with the sculptor Rodin. Sculptors are much more practical people than poets and when Rodin saw Rilke mooning around the house complaining that he had no inspiration, Rodin said, go to the Jardin des Plantes and look at something and write about that. So Rilke went and saw the panther pacing in the his cage in the Jardin and he wrote one of his most famous poems "The Panther" about it. He wrote a book called Neue Gedichte (New Poems), in which he decided to focus on objects rather than emotions. By writing about objects he did not need to wait for the "rare, random descent" of inspiration, and he was able to create inspiring poetry about objects first and then feelings.

I think that may be off the point, but I quite like Rodin's idea of just going out and looking at something and writing about that. It's more immediate than trying to come up with an idea out of nowhere and sometimes it helps create poetry.

Well, here is Sonnet I, version 1.02 anyway.

Well done you for giving it another go! :D So few people bother.

My thoughts halt! Your eyes invigorate me,
Inspire me, drown out the dullness of sight.

Great first line. I love a short, pithy sentence to draw me in. I like that you're talking about inspiration, too; poets that write about poetry often create the meatiest poems. The verbs are good too, draw the reader straight in.

Twinkling stars, burning incandescently
Out of that blackened canvas called Night.

This is the only bit of the poem that I don't really like. "Twinkling" and "incandescent" are just too used. I realise you need to rhyme with "invigorate me", but another word would not sound so tired. "Shimmering stars, smouldering brightly"? I don't know. It's hard to find new words for stars, I do know! I avoid them because I live in such a smoggy city, I never find out quite what they look like. "Charred canvas" might sound better than "blackened canvas", too, but then I'm tricky about canvases because I mess around with them a lot. :rolleyes:

Their blueness is as open as the sky,
Forever roaming, infinite, yet calm.
I could float there forever serenely,
Awakened only by clutching your palm.

I like "infinite, yet calm" a lot. The editing of these lines works wonderfully, your imagery has improved a lot. I like the way you've still worked the word "palm" in but made the meaning much more concrete.

Even when in my loneliest hour,
A flutter of eyelids is all it takes
To save me from darkness, for their power
Is enthralling beauty; yet my trance breaks.

"Trance" is great! I like the word "trance" a lot, it feels fresh and is very evocative. I like "loneliest hour" too, I'm glad that you kept that, it has a very nice sound.

If your eyes are the gateway to your soul,
Let me stare deeply, leap into that hole!

I'm very pleased that you change "embrace". I think this works a lot better. Personally, I'd prefer the word "gaze", I think it had a more fluid sound, but that's entirely personal preference.

Well, addressing what you said, I wasn't sure how formal a tone to use. A sonnet for me requires language as formal as its structure, but then I run the risk of making it too rigid and like you said, archaic. "Embrace" has thus been removed. I will leave the "my heart breaks" phrase though, although "heart" has been been changed, since the reasons for that breaking will be explored in another poem. Not sure if I like "stare deeply", it doesn't really have immediacy or passion.

I've never really written a sonnet, so I'm not quite sure about the tone required. The only modern sonnets I've read are those by Patrick Kavanagh, and he doesn't really use formal language, but then he plays around with the formal structure a bit too. I really admire you for writing sonnets, although I'd really like to read a poem by you written with less formality. Just for comparison. Unless you don't believe in informal poems, which is fair enough.

"Stare deeply" isn't bad, I think. It does have immediacy, as we can picture what you're doing, and passion too, it shows the depth of your feelings because you are involved enough with the subject to want to stare deeply.

Like you said, it sounds like I'm writing from afar, which I tried to change with the immediate "My thoughts halt!" The "dullness of sight" is immediate, I feel, as though everything else seems to be dull whenever I see her eyes. But still not quite there, perhaps? "Floating serenely" in her eyes is much more romantic, but I think it sounds very objectifying, as though I like the feeling of looking into her eyes, rather than actually looking into them, which isn't the idea I want to bring across. But I'm not sure, I could just be paranoid/overanalaysing. *Rolls eyes*

"Dullness of sight" is definately getting there. I like the idea that nothing is inspiring outside of her eyes.


"Heart" has been replaced by "trance", describing the break of both the trance of looking into her eyes (as though realising and understanding the profound beauty in the eyes actually breaks my looking into them), and the trance I have deluding myself about life. My next poem would be about the loss of vitality and so on, and that would the be the 'trance'; that everything stays the same, whereas beauty is often like an apple, rosy-red and beautiful one day, rotting the next. The imagery has been generally un-murkied (I hope), by removing the ocean image, and expanding on the sky imagery. Waiting for the "delicate palm" meant for me that I was so captured in the beauty of her eyes that it actually took physical contact to awaken me. But "waiting" has been removed, as I certainly would not want to removed from the beauty of her eyes.

Removing the ocean image has improved the poem immensely. I think it's very hard to write about the ocean (and oh I have tried) without sounding cliched, and expanding on the sky image made the poem a lot more immediate and a lot easier to understand.

I'd definately like to read your poem about the decay of beauty. It's interesting to think of love in terms of decay and the loss of beauty is almost more fascinating than beauty itself. Sometimes I think that's why we're compelled to write or draw: to freeze beauty and vitality, to capture it forever, and yet all we're left with is something less than a photograph. At the same time, I think they're also beauty in decay, beauty in the loss of beauty. It can be a transition to something new.

(I'm probably not making sense here...)

I could describe the kindness and beauty and intelligence of my muse to you all day ... and night ... and week ... but I'd rather write another poem about her instead! *Picks up biro, opens up Notepad ...* Though getting all shouting-from-rooftops-y does have its merits now and again. And as trite as it might sound, I really could look into her eyes all day. *Sighs*

:) I think I was actually probing you to write another poem there. Please do! *pokes*

And I'm not sure if I'm receptive or poetically knowledgeable enough to be able to comment on your poem, but if you'll forgive me doing so, I'll give my two-pennyworth.

Oh this was some of the best feedback I've ever received! Honestly, I've never had such detailed, receptive and kind feedback before. Thank you so much for that.

I like the bluntness of "sweat and piss". It immediately enforces the tone of the poem, and is very natural in that, depressingly, blood and tissue and water is essentially all our bodies are made from. The "sunlight against a concrete building" is a very beautiful image for me, as though the dullness and unattractive greyness of the concrete can be ignored when the picture-esque sunlight is upon it, perhaps even turning the building into something beautiful itself. The suspension of "but" at the end of the line suggests something ugly is about to the ruin that image, and the following lines do just that. The descriptions of the skin remind me of cheese, slowly gaining "mould" and the colour and clammy texture of "sour milk", which I think is very well written, as generally, food imagery feels as natural and earthy as the descriptions of natural elements, such as the sunshine and the pool and so on, but it sounds disturbing, as it is a reminder of the decay of the body, the "Rot".

I'm so pleased you liked the food imagery, the ideas of rot. In a way, I was trying to compare the rot and ugliness of the body with the timelessness of nature. Also, I wanted to be quite gross and mould usually has that effect. I'm so pleased you understood the patterns of the imagery, tho, and that you thought they worked.

The sunlit building is a particular favourite of mine: it was a building I saw often and was always inspired by the beauty that sunlight could create on such a drab, squalid building. I love finding beauty in the ugliness of an urban setting.

I may be very wrong here, and apologies if I've misread this, but the last three lines suggest to me that something more than understanding the "shame" of how the body turns into "filth" has happened - perhaps rape? Hence the blood and sweat, the clothes that "reek", the alienation of the person from their own flesh, and the admission that they can "wash and smile, which sounds like someone trying to scrub the memories from their system, but never being able to, and always having to put on their smiling face.

Unfortunately, you're completely right. I wasn't really trying to write about rape when I began this poem, but as often happens to me the theme reared its ugly head not quite of my own volition, and I think you're very receptive and understanding to pick up on it in the way you did. Unless I wasn't being as subtle as I thought I was! The idea of alienation from one's own flesh was one I was trying to get across here, and I'm so pleased you thought it worked. :) The idea of the smile as a mask was an important image for me: that you can never quite escape, that some part of you is always filthy, but smiling is necessary and important.

I really enjoyed reading this poem, as the imagery is very thought-provoking, the wording is precise and each individual word means something, and counts, and I like reading a poem with, as you called it, a "gloomy" tone, without it being cliched or unnecessarily angst ridden, just genuinely downheartened. The tone almost reminds me of some of Edgar Allen Poe's works, or Sylvia Plath even.

O wow I'm delighted to be compared to Plath as she is an inspiration for me a lot of times. I steal her three-line stanza approach at any rate, although when I'm being pretentious I say I got it from Dante :D I'm so, so happy you enjoyed this poem and thought that the wording worked. So often I'm afraid that each word does not count in the way that it should, and I'm so pleased that here you thought it did. I've been unnecessarily angst-ridden through reams of poetry, so I'm also very glad the gloom worked.

Again, thank you, this is honestly some of the most thoughtful and kind feedback I've ever received. It really means a lot that you took the time to read and understand and that you even liked it! :)

[Wolfie Gilmore]

Right, I’m feeling fresher this morning, so once more into the lit crit breech (which…gosh I’m rusty…is university really worth it if you forget ten years later? Something for the government to consider…):

Oh, and I’m loving the poem-response-reworking dynamic in here :)


Well, here is Sonnet I, version 1.02 anyway.


My thoughts halt! Your eyes invigorate me,
Inspire me, drown out the dullness of sight.
Twinkling stars, burning incandescently
Out of that blackened canvas called Night.
Their blueness is as open as the sky,
Forever roaming, infinite, yet calm.
I could float there forever serenely,
Awakened only by clutching your palm.
Even when in my loneliest hour,
A flutter of eyelids is all it takes
To save me from darkness, for their power
Is enthralling beauty; yet my trance breaks.
If your eyes are the gateway to your soul,
Let me stare deeply, leap into that hole!

Right, my immediate response to the issue of old fashioned language is that you need a reason for it. I think the sonnet form is flexible enough that it doesn’t require archaic language to make it sonnetty. However, if that kind of diction feels right for you, perhaps you need to make more of it? You said this poem was about your muse? Perhaps make something of that…the idea that this person actually inspires an old fashioned dynamic (I know people still talk about muses, but it’s definitely still got a classical/Shakespearean flavour to the word).

Or perhaps you could remain in the formal register, but lose some of the words that sound archaic, part of an older poetic vocab – enthralling, incandescently, gateway (not sure about that one, but it feels a little not of the modern age), halt…the abstraction of “dullness of sight” sounds more Romantic than modern – that habit of grand general statements that they had.

All that said (I usually go for the negative/constructive-criticical first because I am a bitch ;)), I thought this poem has some really exciting language. Ros quoted this bit already but… “Forever roaming, infinite, yet calm.” gave me that special catch-in-the-stomach feeling. Reminds me a little of “Luxe, calme et volupte” from whichever addle-headed French chappie that was ;) – makes me feel like I’m in a boat in the middle of nowhere and the waves are bobbing me up and down. Sort of…safe yet completely vulnerable.

Also loved this one:

Let me stare deeply, leap into that hole

It’s both romantic (in the non capitalised sense) and disturbing – the idea of someone else’s soul as a void, as something big enough to swallow you…though you want to be swallowed. An Alice in Wonderland in which Alice actually craves the hole.

Ok, that sounded dirty. Sorry!

[Rosamunde]

On Clyde Road

My pinks shoes don’t shock the eye. Now
they are duller than the leaf mulch on the wide
footpath, and loose at the seams.
There’s a certain beauty in broken things: in eggshells
as blue as mould, the brazen orange rust
through black paint
and the lost colour beneath the patterns of earth
on my pink shoes. The damp leaves squelch
as I walk for the last time on Clyde Road.

The soles on my pink shoes are as loose
as my loneliness is raw. The Georgian houses
whisper secrets of all their years of sorrow and glow
in the last breath of summer sunlight.
I hope that there is beauty in broken
things, in old bricks and the silence between words.
My pink shoes are torn and I am tired of sadness
and rot. The summer is dying in the air around me
but I intend to ripen.

[Wolfie Gilmore]

So, I've been thinking about God, and what exists, and meaning and all that lately...

I would like to believe in an interventionist God, so long as he was on my side

(apologies to Nick Cave)


I want to rapture in a change like death
An all-brain baptism to make me gasp
And shock my scientific abdomen
I want woolly things I don’t believe in
To prowl out in the afternoon -
God and Magic, Love and Monsters
Clearly-lit as shoppers
Jostling through lunch-time in Boots

I want a sign to knock me down
Like Hollywood in lights
I’m sick of self-propulsion
I want a wall that writes
On itself, in big black letters:
“There are more things in heaven and earth
Than are dreamed of in your philosophy
You blind little Narnian dwarf.”

Because I want my god to quote Shakespeare and Lewis
Because I want the narrative of the universe
To fit into the traces of my education
Like a clip-clop, sugar-eating pony
Because I want to know that I am right
And always was.

I don’t want change at all, it seems
Just a certain, polished version
Of the same.

[The_Narrator]

It really means a lot that you took the time to read and understand and that you even liked it! :)
No problem. :D I'm glad that I was able to help out a bit. And it's bloody fantastic to be able to share my scribblings amongst people who can improve and appreciate them too!

You said this poem was about your muse? Perhaps make something of that…the idea that this person actually inspires an old fashioned dynamic (I know people still talk about muses, but it’s definitely still got a classical/Shakespearean flavour to the word).

Sorry, *Dru voice* got lost in the moment.*/Dru voice* It was the first word that popped into my head, I'm afraid. As much as I wish I could say I was going for an old fashioned flavour, it was more me just using formal language. I should have clarified 'muse' with: 'Juliette: the most caring, intelligent, fascinating, beautiful and loyal person I have ever met, who inspires me, who excites me, who fully understands me, and who I am completely in love with.' But it's far less catchy, and takes ten times as long to type. :D

the idea of someone else’s soul as a void, as something big enough to swallow you…though you want to be swallowed
Wow, that jogged my memory of the most overquoted philosophy nugget used in essays, 'When you stare into the Abyss, the Abyss stares back into you' - well, so says Nietzsche. But I'm not sure that it's so disturbing initially - it sounds romantic as you said - but on deeper reflection, I suppose the idea of a loss of memory/consciousness/being absorbed by someone else so entirely you lose yourself is quite a horrific idea really, especially since it's craved so desperately. Unless being aborbed into someone else's being could be good? Some kind of Nirvana like state? Oh well, this is generally unrelated to the poem, I just have a habit of typing out my thoughts and musings. :)

Sorry I don't really have anything other than replies to contribute atm, but more poems to come soon, once I finish actually writing them! I'd like to show you the other sonnet I was talking about, and since you requested so nicely, a free verse-ish one too. Thanks for the above two poems too; won't comment as yet, but I really like them on initial reading!

[Rosamunde]

I want to rapture in a change like death
An all-brain baptism to make me gasp
And shock my scientific abdomen

Great beginning! There's nothing fuzzy here, no dispensable words, it draws me straight by the imagery and the theme.

I want woolly things I don’t believe in
To prowl out in the afternoon -

Love, love, </i>love</i> this bit. It's so evocative and gives me such wonderful images. I like "woolly" and "prowl" together a lot - wolly making it fuzzy and unreal and "prowl" making it feral and alive.

God and Magic, Love and Monsters
Clearly-lit as shoppers
Jostling through lunch-time in Boots

Not very keen on "God and Magic, ..." myself, it seems unnecessary somehow and fuzzies the powerful image created earlier. Personally I don't like imagery that's not very concrete, and "Love and Monsters" seems to unclear when used in connexion with the brilliant image of Boots and shoppers. Maybe that's what you were going for, but I'd like a less grand statement here.

I want a sign to knock me down
Like Hollywood in lights
I’m sick of self-propulsion
I want a wall that writes
On itself, in big black letters:
“There are more things in heaven and earth
Than are dreamed of in your philosophy
You blind little Narnian dwarf.”

I like this image! So irreverent and fun. I really like the reference to Narnia and the though "I'm sick of self-propulsion": it's a great way to see faith.

Because I want my god to quote Shakespeare and Lewis
Because I want the narrative of the universe
To fit into the traces of my education
Like a clip-clop, sugar-eating pony
Because I want to know that I am right
And always was.

I'd really cut the second "because". I love the clip-clop, sugar eating pony, but I'm not sure about the word "education"? When compared with the last two lines it doesn't work for me. "I want to know that I am right" doesn't quite fit with my concept of education: how about ideals? beliefs? knowledge? certainty?

Like Shakespeare and Lewis tho! I'd want my god to quote them too.

I don’t want change at all, it seems
Just a certain, polished version
Of the same.

Great ending. Tugs the assuredness out from everything else you've said, changes the poem from fun ideas into something much more powerful. I love how eloquently you poked fun at religion and then also cast doubt on yourself. It's a very clever poem with some very striking images. I only had a few niggles really!

Wow, that jogged my memory of the most overquoted philosophy nugget used in essays, 'When you stare into the Abyss, the Abyss stares back into you' - well, so says Nietzsche. But I'm not sure that it's so disturbing initially - it sounds romantic as you said - but on deeper reflection, I suppose the idea of a loss of memory/consciousness/being absorbed by someone else so entirely you lose yourself is quite a horrific idea really, especially since it's craved so desperately. Unless being aborbed into someone else's being could be good? Some kind of Nirvana like state? Oh well, this is generally unrelated to the poem, I just have a habit of typing out my thoughts and musings.

I like the abyss quote, reminds me of Doctor Who. Nietzsche says some fun things sometimes: I get this image of the Abyss with its eyes cold as dead stars and its voice so quiet the silence almost drowns it out, whispering not out about all the worst things but just about the things that are true :lol:

The idea of conciousness being absorbed into someone else sounds fairly creepy and I'm sure happens in many fantasy books. It's an interesting idea though: to become so obsessed with some one you loose your own personality and become someone who can only think of them, think like them.

Maybe like a Nirvana state, but one in which you have got lost in and have no chance of waking up, unless you stop caring about the person you have become absorbed in, but you are so absorbed in them to stop caring about them would be impossible.

I didn't see the line in your poem as being like that really. I thought of it as wanting to get as close to someone as you could but knowing it was never quite possible, which brought sadness, but is good as we have discovered if our thoughts about absorption stand up to any kind of argument.

Sorry I don't really have anything other than replies to contribute atm, but more poems to come soon, once I finish actually writing them! I'd like to show you the other sonnet I was talking about, and since you requested so nicely, a free verse-ish one too.

Will be very interested to read them! :)

[The_Narrator]

I can't sleep. Wrote this. Probably really bad, just wrote it out of frustration. Cathartic to do, but certainly doesn't produce good quality work.

'That fucking stinks, you fucking little shit. You on the shitter?'

God, how I HATE
That crudeness, that crassness!
It wears away at me,
Like a moth, lurking in the back of the cupboard,
Chewing dully at the fibres of my shirt.
Dog barking in the background,
Washing lying forgotten on the sticky lino floor,
I wonder how I could have been born
Into this household of misbreds and drunks.

How is it that I have to pretend
To be on the toilet
So I can write?
'You best not be fucking writing.
Poems are for fucking poofs.'
Stuffing the creased paper
Down my trousers,
To be treasured and examined under moonlight.

My mind is a fragile butterfly,
Eager to meet whatever it finds
But content to just drift on the wind's tender stream.

I have landed in a fly-trap.
I'm waiting to be ingested.
'Hurry up, you shithead!'

Sorry I haven't done a long analysis, but can I just say Rosamunde, that "lost colour beneath the patterns of earth on my pink shoes" and "the silence between words" are absolutely striking! Those images have been in my head all night! Even the words are beautiful, there's something musical in the phrasing, amplifying the beauty being described. Even considering "the beauty" is being seen in "broken things", the antithesis between the words and the chaos they describe is achingly beautiful, in a tragic way.

[Rosamunde]

I can't sleep. Wrote this. Probably really bad, just wrote it out of frustration. Cathartic to do, but certainly doesn't produce good quality work.

Sometimes the best poems come from rage and frustration, I think!

Great sense of rage you've got across here: I find myself hating the people you're writing about too, which shows how effective your language is!

God, how I HATE
That crudeness, that crassness!
It wears away at me,
Like a moth, lurking in the back of the cupboard,
Chewing dully at the fibres of my shirt.
Dog barking in the background,
Washing lying forgotten on the sticky lino floor,
I wonder how I could have been born
Into this household of misbreds and drunks.

Good beginning, I like the immediacy, the exclamation marks.

I really like the "washing lying forgotten on the sticky lino floor", very evocative. Not sure about the dog barking: no real sense what kind of sound this is: is the dog barking plaintively and you pity it? is it yapping constantly and driving you mad?

I like that the moth chews "dully". Makes things seem even more forlorn: the moth can't even be bothered to destroy your shirt properly!

How is it that I have to pretend
To be on the toilet
So I can write?
'You best not be fucking writing.
Poems are for fucking poofs.'
Stuffing the creased paper
Down my trousers,
To be treasured and examined under moonlight.

Good image: you're suffering for your art! Like the italics, the way someone else's words are being forced on top of your own, gets across a sense of your cramped-ness, anger.

Not sure about the word "examined". Makes me think of biology rather than poetry. ;)

My mind is a fragile butterfly,
Eager to meet whatever it finds
But content to just drift on the wind's tender stream.

I have landed in a fly-trap.
I'm waiting to be ingested.
'Hurry up, you shithead!'

Fragile butterfly? No, please, no. Butterflies do not make good images. They've been over-done, too often an image of beauty and fragility. "My mind is..." even another kind of insect would be good? An autumn wasp? Wasps are fragile in autumn, but then everyone except me hates wasps. But seriously, I really like this poem, but "fragile butterfly" just jars so.

The "wind's tender stream" is quite nice, particularly when contrasted with the last verse. I like how that verse brings everything up short, we get a sense of the rush the writer's in, and how their thoughts are constantly jarred.

Like this poem, overall, some good thoughts and images in there. It's nice to see that you're still writing thoughtfully and thinking about your words, but without using such stilted language as in your sonnet.

Sorry I haven't done a long analysis, but can I just say Rosamunde, that "lost colour beneath the patterns of earth on my pink shoes" and "the silence between words" are absolutely striking! Those images have been in my head all night! Even the words are beautiful, there's something musical in the phrasing, amplifying the beauty being described. Even considering "the beauty" is being seen in "broken things", the antithesis between the words and the chaos they describe is achingly beautiful, in a tragic way.

So glad you think the imagery and language worked! This is really lovely feedback :heart:

[Signe]

Some day soon I'll comment on all the poems etc. from earlier posts, but atm I don't have the time :( However, I must say (referring to the first post) that Sonnet 18 is my favourite by Shakespeare.

Now, my own favourite poet is W.H. Auden. You've probably heard of him (John Hannah recites him in Four Weddings and a Funeral). Two of my favourite poems by him (though there really are about 10 that I adore) are Funeral Blues (aka IX from Twelve Songs April 1936) and Johhny (aka X from Twelve Songs April 1937). Both can be found on this page:
http://www.npr.org/programs/death/readings/poetry/aude.html
The first is Funeral Blues and the second Johhny.

Personally I find the line "Stop all the clocks, cut of the telephone" one of the most striking I've ever read. In a few words, so many emotions of sadness and (sudden) death are depicted.

[Rosamunde]

Kew Gardens in October

After Rilke

The air was heavy with
winter dankness
but I stood in cold sunlight
at the edge of an obscure path.
The longing rose in me like a chord of a
solemn song
or a lost keen from a dark street
in a foreign city.

The shrubs hid the hothouses
and the well-trodden paths. There was no
welcoming bench or canopy of leaves.
Just a stretch of cold grass and an old wall
strangled by dying buddleias.
The sunlight wrestled with the heavy air
and when I breathed fog
it set it gleaming.

On bad days I try to draw that wall
with its tangle of dead flowers
and its long shadow.
My throats still contracts
as I think of that rebellious sunlight.
I want winter damselflies and golden fish
taken flight. I hope there is no end to longing;
no end to October light.

[tangent]

Okay then.Thought i would give this a pop cos it has that attractive/scares the hell out of me quality. So here's a very humble offering from a newb at this. Be gentle.

I Dont Understand

Planets whirl across the sphere
A hundred million miles from here
Forces crush and pull and sear
And I don’t understand

Symbols formed up in a line
Divided by the equals sign
Describe a world no longer mine
And I don’t understand

Money makes man’s heart turn cold
Peoples dreams both bought and sold
Human life’s worth less than gold
And I don’t understand

War's inferno burns the land
From city streets to desert sand
Innocents die at freedom's hand
And I don't understand

But when I greet my infant niece
My troubled heart finds its release
In her pure smile I find my peace
And then I understand

[Rosamunde]

tangent - like this one! I like your rhymes a lot - I think you have a talent there and it works well. If you were intending to write more poetry I would work on developing your rhyme scheme a little so it's not just aaa then bbb etc, but that's just a small point. I think the rhymes work really beautifully, I like the sounds you make.

Symbols formed up in a line
Divided by the equals sign
Describe a world no longer mine
And I don’t understand

I particularly like that verse - very evocative images! You should write more poems - it works for you. :)

[tangent]

Thanks ros that's very encouraging especially coming from yourself. I wanted to keep the rhymes simple cos i don't really understand too much about poetic forms (apart from terza rima but that looks hard) might try another at some point though.

[Rosamunde]

Deleted due to paranoia. PM for more info, but don't imagine you're terribly interested. :)

[tangent]

Okay time for my second ever go. Try not to laugh too hard.


Poetry

This graceful art that some call prosody
Holds such a strange and fearful draw for me
That at the risk of making readers cry
I simply had to have a second try

But ignorance, although it may be bliss
Should not be risked in subjects such as this
And so I went and bought myself a book
Resolved to give this art a second look

I found a wealth of things I’d never guessed
Like how it was that certain words were stressed
Discovered Meter, Foot, Iamb, Trochee
And what’s an ode, and why a verse is free

But as I learnt I thought I glimpsed a truth
And so read on to try and gain some proof
To verify this vision that I saw
Of poetry’s vast heart, it’s inner core

For what I thought just pretty turn of phrase
Is different in so many different ways
It’s not some flighty language of the birds
But more a strong espresso, brewed from words.

[Jenni Lou]

I was liking yours a lot too, tangent. :)

I quite like Robert Frost myself. Simple yet beautiful metaphors are classic. He's got some great ones. One of my faves is "The Impulse."

I also always had a thing for Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

I don't do poetry much. I focused on my fiction more. But I anjoy alliteration and assonance and consonance and all that good stuff--which I would also incorporate in my prose--but I whipped this up one day. This one works better when read aloud, but whatevs.

TRAVELING BY NIGHT.

I like the sound of a runaway train
Rolling down the tracks, past a chain gang
As the train trails through the night smoking in vain
Trees, leaves, and plains retreat to refrain
From sight--
And then we swerve to the right
As we inhale trite fuel under a bright stereotype
Of stars--
In deep, lucid blue
Hanging pendulous as the move to pursue
The sun--
Where they ache to belong
Hidden in light on the other side dawn
The train races clouds in rapid tranquility
Reveling in awe of their intangibility
And quickly roar past in startling servility
And the ride ends in abrupt reside.

I like the smell of twilight dew
As I walk amid nature in a mist of renew
The hope of rebirth
Mingling in mirth
The crescent moon infects my senses, too.
I wait--
I watch the path keep straight
And alleviate uncertainty of a former debate
As the path consecrates my state of mind,
I see vines intertwined under trees of a rested recline
Wrapping and clawing the smooth of the path
My feet lay drenched in a flowing bath
Of green and thorns forcefully sent
And meant to encourage impending repent
And the wind whisks by in whistling reply
And reminds me that nature is, by temperament, blind
Of life and its inherent struggle to find
Meaning and purpose in a vast paradigm
Of circles and chains and patterns, no ends
Just waves of obsolescence as it scatters, rescinds.

[Wolfie Gilmore]

Rosamunde

Is it me or am I getting a bit of a Doctor Who flavour to this poem, Ros? The earth spinning faster than a human can perceive, reminiscent of the Doctor’s description of himself to Rose in Rose!

Love this poem. You capture sensory experience so exquisitely, and the ending is darkly beautiful. One bit I don’t get though is the repeated line “Have you mapped them recently?” Could you explain some of your thinking behind that?

(reading the other poems now!)

[Rosamunde]

Rosamunde

Is it me or am I getting a bit of a Doctor Who flavour to this poem, Ros? The earth spinning faster than a human can perceive, reminiscent of the Doctor’s description of himself to Rose in Rose!

Love this poem. You capture sensory experience so exquisitely, and the ending is darkly beautiful. One bit I don’t get though is the repeated line “Have you mapped them recently?” Could you explain some of your thinking behind that?

(reading the other poems now!)

Canals on mars were mapped around the time they invented telescopes good enough to see mars clearly. Obviously, there aren't actually canals on mars, but they thought there were because with a bad telescope you can see these immense structures that look like canals. I'm just fascinated that someone spent this time mapping the canals on mars, and I was trying to convey the strange and pointless tasks you could do, the stangeness and fickleness of what is perceived as fact. I know it's a very obscure reference, but I just wanted to, I don't know, show the wealth of ideas there are, that you can never be lost with nothing to do or care about because there is just so much to learn. But maybe it's too obscure to work!

I didn't mean there to be a Doctor Who flavour, and don't remember the Doctor's reference to that, but I'd certainly take comparison as a compliment! :) I'm so glad you like this poem, tho, thanks for reading!

[The_Narrator]

Aimless

It comes around to six o’clock again,
Sitting alone with my microwave meal
And the ‘comfort’ of TV – dull, inane.

Is it unusual to want to feel
Something more than boredom and tedium,
Something that is real, distinct, not surreal?

My perception is dulled – this medium
Of vision sees only charcoal, storm, grey:
Rarely silver or aluminium.

Lines appear blurry, faded; they portray
An abstract cubed sense of reality -
Was it once different to life today?

I’m detached from the world’s normality,
A thundercloud raging o’er thorns and weeds.
Seized, sickened by my own mortality,
I pity those who will reap from my seeds.


I think the sentiment's right here, but there's a few choices I'm unsure of. Is the use of aluminium a nice way of describing how even when something's optimistic, shiny, it's still grey, as in aluminium or silver, or is it obviously just put there to rhyme with tedium and medium? I like the metaphor of being the cloud, further helps the idea of everything being grey, and also suggests a dangerous amount of narcissism, especially as everyone else is just a weed or a thorn, which is interesting (though disturbing of course), but is it too drawn out? Unsure. This poem makes me feel on edge, but I can't tell if that's because it's achieving what I wanted it to do, being edgy and uncomfortable, or because I feel unhappy with this effort.

[tangent]

A Twin Peaks accrostic for your possible entertainment. It's far from perfect but it as an enjoyable exersise so i thought i would share it anyway. The title being in the body is a major cheat but 25 lines so what you gonna do, huh?




The owls are not what they seem
He whispered in Dale Cooper’s ear
Enlightenment never forthcoming
Or meanings made any more clear
We watched and we waited for answers
Loving the stylish suspense
Sat hypnotised by the strangeness
And trying to make it make sense
Remember that slow sense of horror
Easing its way to your mind?
No sudden shock serial killers
Only scares of a subtler kind
THE OWLS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM
Wrapped up in sheet made of plastic
Her death was what started it all
And what followed would keep us all watching
Till the end and Dale’s final fall
To this day the show still has power
Holds a message that’s aptly surreal
Enigmas exist all around us
You never quite know what is real
So when we’re next faced with the humdrum
Encased in life’s strange waking dream
Enquire of the world that’s around you
Might the owls be not what they seem?

[Wolfie Gilmore]

A tourist in one of those apocryphal,
Friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend stories
Once pointed to the tower of Trinity College
Which has four statues, and said:
“Hon, what are they supposed to be?”
And her husband replied, “Why,
That’s Trinity College,
so they must be
the holy Trinity.”
“But there are four of them.
How does that work?”
The man paused, then his face lit up:
“Well, that’s the Father,” he said,
Pointing to the first. “Then that’s the Son.
And that’s the Holy Spirit.”
“And the other?” asked his wife.
He beamed, “Well, that’s just God.”

[The_Narrator]

Sonnet written whilst on well-deserved coffee break!

As though by lightning, I have been stricken
By your breathtaking beauty, astounding,
I feel the warm blood in my veins thicken,
Your being in my heart forever resounding.
It keeps me awake every single night
To imagine you taken, or alone,
And though I've longed to be your saving light,
You belong to no-one, you are your own.
But I'd not love you any other way.
Despite your flaws, your arrogance, your spite,
These things pale as my love grows e'ry day -
Just to know you causes endless delight.
People will rot and the world soon decay,
But I'm in love; I can't feel this dismay.

[The_Narrator]

Sonnet
The world stops spinning when I see your smile,
Birds stop flying, the trees stop growing,
The stars stop sparkling, and even the Nile,
That unstoppable river stops flowing.
As though a photograph of the earth
Has been taken, preserved forever -
In that moment, there ends age, death, and birth,
And all my thoughts from my conscious sever.
For I am transported to this still place
Where I touch, absorb your smile's purity.
Though I'm bought back to the world, I can trace
The memories forever; now I see
Your smile proves a truth that's above
All other absolutes - that of my love.

And some free verse *gulps* :

Though I long for Death's overthrow
I would not wish for eternal life,
For every second's a painful reminder
Of my spurned love which burns through me
And turns me from flesh to corpse to ash.

[Rosamunde]

Sorry no feed back from me in a long time. I've been reading along.

Just to keep the ball rolling:

Satyr / Satire

Paltry, scabby things –
None of my pleasures are deemed worthwhile.
You sit so smugly
In your revolving chairs
Echoing the earth
And its insistent turning.

Nothing can stop either of you.
No tidal wave
No smile so lovely
It requires recognition.
You only have your gentile distaste
Of scabs, of laughter, of pain.

Emotions are disgusting things.
Branded by trickling noses
And red seamed-arms.
No matter –
You may laugh at me.
Laugh and set each adeptly crowned tooth

Gleaming.

[tangent]

THE BANK JOB

Sometimes whilst waiting in the bank
I wish I had a Sherman tank
To decimate this stupid queue
(Well maybe all but one or two)
I know! It’s not these peoples fault
It’s those brave keepers of the vault
That valiant breed that hold the key
that locks up all my cash for me
The corporate gods that spend all day
Just playing with my monthly pay
In and out of various funds
Selling Dollars buying Bunds
Making money for the bank
Sell the Euro! Buy Swiss Franc!
I guess it keeps the bankers busy
Moving money till they’re dizzy
But can’t they spend a little time
Maybe invest the odd spare dime
In cutting down my lunchtime wait
So the boss won’t kill me when I’m late
So I can keep my stupid job
And once more earn an honest Bob
Return it to the money men
And start the process all again
But that’s the system, them’s the rules
The machinery my money fuels
The money maze, the profit-fest
The rich get richer, I get stressed

[Wolfie Gilmore]

Funny, tangent, I like. Comic poetry's hard - keeping it light without making it facetious - so kudos! Nice rhymes and flow!

[Wolfie Gilmore]

I am baring myself to you
Like an old man on the ice
At the mercy
Of your cold clean glare
Showing you the skin
Under my furs
Taking a step towards you
I can never take back
You thought (I think)
I was above all that

But I’m unique only
As cracked, cheap china is
You’ll see no wildness in me
Any more, I’m marked
Only by my hairline fractures
Or the great deep scratches
In my MDF furnishings

I take a commuter train
I complain
I don’t do my paperwork on time
And the thing I think about the most
Is the stuff of self-help books
Not tracts by Wittgenstein.

[Wolfie Gilmore]

A little poem inspired by Jo's seagull

When I can’t remember
Why I liked a thing
In the first place
Or what drew me to a person
When we were new friends
That is loss

[Rosamunde]

A little poem inspired by Jo's seagull

When I can’t remember
Why I liked a thing
In the first place
Or what drew me to a person
When we were new friends
That is loss

I really like that. It's simple, and true. Reminds me of haikus in that it doesn't use any extra words, but gets straight to the heart of the idea.

[Wolfie Gilmore]

I really like that. It's simple, and true. Reminds me of haikus in that it doesn't use any extra words, but gets straight to the heart of the idea.

It started off as a haiku actually. Finding one poem leads to another at the moment :)

Ooh, I should write some Boosh ones :)

[Rosamunde]

It started off as a haiku actually. Finding one poem leads to another at the moment :)

Ooh, I should write some Boosh ones :)

I like it when it gets like that. An endless cycle. :)

Ooh, you should. Someone needs to write about the Hitcher in a Milton-esque way.

[Wolfie Gilmore]

Hitcher, Milton, check!

But for the moment...

The Buffyforums crimp (as requested by Tangent)

Posting, posting in the VIP chat room
Posting posting, fingers flying cross the keyboard
Posting posting, where on earth does all the time go?
I don't know, I don't know, but now I've got to go go

[Rosamunde]

Hitcher, Milton, check!

But for the moment...

The Buffyforums crimp (as requested by Tangent)

Posting, posting in the VIP chat room
Posting posting, fingers flying cross the keyboard
Posting posting, where on earth does all the time go?
I don't know, I don't know, but now I've got to go go

Ahahaha GENIUS. Much admiring your crimping skills.

And so apt, given that I'm posting here rather than writing essays. :)

Editing because I wanted to chuck in an entirely unrelated poem. A bit indulgent since it's written in 2nd person.
Long Distance

You’re knitting for me.
I imagine your window slick with snow,
your hands too pale, as
you knit for me, white
cloth never to be worn. I listen for the click

of distant needles, imagine
your feet on an unfamiliar sofa.
My body remembers your hands on it;
your insistent tug at the hairs on my
nape. The click of needles, white

folds of cloth softer than your lips
on my skin. You’re knitting for me
and when I press my lonely limbs
to the cold windowpane, I hear the
click, and see snow. White, distant.

[Mabus]

I don't usually write poetry, though some people have told me the imagery in my fics is poetic. Every now and then, though, the urge strikes. The following is a mixture of personal medical history, Buffyverse and SF allusions, and a little bit of unorthodox religious symbolism.

I am
unsilent
lungs straining
a chubby little suffocating Smurf
choking on my own vocal cords
which they will bypass
and later burn away
to let me breathe
and be Freddy
Vader
Ra
if I am to be heard at all

I am
unbent
metal
in my untwisted spine
learning again how to walk
once I come off the half-shell
I stagger forward
arms outstretched
zombie
Frankenstein
Borg
it improves with time

I am
unbroken
and why
should I stop there?
I do not fear
shifts in my body
if done with skill
if uploaded
unbodied
I will sing praises
as I Ascend
as I Become

When they bury me beneath the water
in the name of the Three who are One
and I rise from the grave
I but recapitulate my past
I am
and always have been
undead

[Wolfie Gilmore]

That is beautiful Mabus. Really beautiful.

[Mabus]

That is beautiful Mabus. Really beautiful.

Really? I was going for "creepy". :p

[Wolfie Gilmore]

Really? I was going for "creepy". :p

Same thing to my mind. :) I'll give you longer feedback later though, as I'd like to go into it in more detail.

[Wolfie Gilmore]

Planet Me

If David Attenborough was narrating my late afternoon
“THIS is the time of day,” he would say,
“When this strange creature begins to stare into space.”
He would bend down over me like a small boy over ants
Only tender. He would not crush me
As he watched.

“Observe the glassy look in its eyes,” he would say.
“This trance-like state allows it to conserve vital energy
That it will need for its migration home
Which it performs each night.”

I wish David Attenborough was here to narrate my commute
It would feel safe, I would have authority
In all my tiny, scurrying movements
I would not just be another passenger
My journey would be epic, a force of nature.

Or perhaps I wish there was a god.
But David Attenborough is easier to picture
Straddling the sky.

[Rosamunde]

More Boosh Poetry!!!

You say I make you feel like Old Gregg.
But I'm a very willing Howard:
Honestly, for you, I'd even go to a club
Where people wee on each other.

[Wolfie Gilmore]

Hee! A poem with both old Gregg and wee = WIN! :D

[Rosamunde]

Hee! A poem with both old Gregg and wee = WIN! :D

Two of my favourite subjects! :D

Thank you!

[tangent]

Okay, my first go at free verse. I found this harder than the rhymey stuff by a long chalk. I'm really not sure about the second to last line. It just doesn't seem to want to go the way I want it to. Anyway, feedback would most definitely be appreciated.

View from a barred window

I am trapped
Wrapped in chains of drudgery
A prisoner of the everyday
Caught in a waking dream

Outside the sun is smiling
And the blue sky beckons
With hinted promises of endless freedom
A life free of cares

So I dream
Of beer garden days and long languid nights
The shade of a tree by the side of a lake
Cool winds and the smell of grass
The voices of children and the laughter of friends

But still I remain
Chained to a desk
Consigned to an air conditioned hell
Treading water in an endless sea
The weekend's lonely island a horizon away

But I can dream

---

[tangent]

A quick poem i knocked up at work. Based on a girl i passed in the street yesterday.

You'd be pretty if you smiled

You’d be pretty if you smiled
Just once in every while
If your eyes weren’t as hard as a stone
But your straight ahead stare
Pretends I’m not there
And you stay in your cold comfort zone
Till that ice is all thawed
Then your beauty is flawed
Like a statue of Helen of Troy
And you won’t launch my ships
With no smile on your lips
And a heart that is closed off to joy
Yes, you’d be pretty if you smiled
My sweet sullen child
If you smiled at this lost lonely boy

[tangent]

A bit of self indulgent nonsense 'cos im feeling grumpy.

Still Waiting

The daily grind, the ties that bind
The pain that haunts my heart
I stay confined within my mind
And wait for life to start

[tangent]

Okay fourth post in a row, this is getting scary. Anyone fancy doing a bit of poeting to stop me taking over?

Anyhoo here's a couple of bits I wrote on holiday in Torquay. The second one might not work for those of an american persuasion but over here we pronounce Buoy the same as Boy.

The Great Escape

Lazy hazy days away
Escape the everyday malaise
Time to let the watch unwind
And leave the daily grind behind
No fuss, no worry, no hint of stress
No need to hurry, no crowds to press
I'm free at last to sit and stare
Just watch the world without a care
The world is mine and mine's the day
A perfect seaside getaway


The Harbour

I sit and i stare in the distance
at the place where the sea meets the sky
Allowing the world to turn round me
Just letting the time pass me by

The sound of the seagulls surrounds me
A harsh bitter laugh of a cry
As they swoop and they soar all around me
Their wingbeats as soft as a sigh

An army of boats on the ocean
Are tetherd to bright coloured Buoys
They drift with the tides lazy motion
As they dance to the gulls raucous noise

And such is the peace of the harbour
As I sit and I stare into space
A haven from lifes lusty ardour
A world that revolves at my pace

[Rosamunde]

East Pier, Dun Laoghaire

The banjo wails blue. At the end
of the pier where no one bothers to walk
he plays his tune. Again. Again. I depend
on the sameness of his forlorn frame. We don’t talk
but I watch his fingers. The same. Again. When lost
I stand marooned where sea meets sky. Here is all
horizon and three notes, unscarred by rust or frost.
When lost I stand where salt bites skin and the tall
cringe in the face of the wind. Today I breathe blue,
wail blue, and follow the tinny notes. Faint
with unsaid frights, dwarfed by the lighthouse, just us two.
Then I leave. The sound is lost, note by note. The pier’s paint
is scarred by sea, by wind, like me. I belong here,
not on dry land. Now in the warmth, nothing is clear.

[Wolfie Gilmore]

Take me to your leader, take me now

This afternoon I understand
Why people want to be abducted by aliens
Or taken roughly by glowering Heathcliff
Why they invent the threat
of a punitive God
Who comes down like a ton
of burning bricks from heaven
When you wander away
Into the thorny wilds.

It is not weakness
Or thinking you're bad
It is not a narrow mind
Or some lazy masochism
That needs to be led
Sheep to reliable slaughter

It is the swelling fear
That rises inside
Like mutating bread
Too much humanity
Too much heart
Too hot

Please take it away
Take me
and cool this
Cool me
Do not let me lose myself
In what is building
Babel

I am too much
I must be stopped
Or the walls will be torn down
And the unknown will be born

[Rosamunde]

Wolves around the fireplace

A rip-roaring tail. Imagine me as a wolf:
long whiskers, powerful jaws, fearsome claws.
But you’re the one with yellow in your eyes
and I’ve not even got a moustache (though
it would look dashing). A rip-roaring tale, then.
Beaches covered in cities of shell
and continents of seaweed, smugglers,
gannets. We could go feral: be witches,
keep stuttering orange fires, live on wild cherries,

swim naked. Imagine me as a wolf,
as something more than me. There’s such beauty
in a landscape of rooftops, in mountains sheathed
in shingle, in beasts covered in bristling fur.
Imagine sunlight through yellow curtains,
a sunrise turned pink, the tedium of streets.
Imagine us as wild things with handsome tails,
finding strangeness in the familiar. Imagine us
as us. Imagine.

[Cori]

I un-deaded this thread at the request of The Narrator. :) Keep posting your poetry, guys. :D

[Mabus]

The whole fic section has been fairly quiet lately, Cori. But here's a bit of something after I read Lou's last bit.

Meditations on the Absence of a Liturgical Calendar

They talk of sacred space and time
I do not know the sacred
But I do not know that it knows these things

If they speak of that which is past
It is past
And if they speak of that which endures
in memory or else
It endures always

Who has risen
has risen
and is now ever risen

I do not see there
what I do not see here
nor do I need to see
(Go ask Albert what has become of his dice)

Am I unspiritual?
I do not know what spiritual means
Nor has anyone ever paused to explain.
I expect one day my hypothesis will be confirmed;
If falsified, I will not notice.

What needs doing needs doing
It does not care who does it
It does not care when
He who chooses is thereby chosen
And he who acts becomes the agent.

I am told one cannot turn back the clock
But day after day the clock returns
I am told one cannot hold back the tide
But the tide goes out all on its own
That which can be done
can be undone
and the runner who chooses the wrong road
goes farther astray the faster he runs.
What is progress then?

I hear: the dead will wake.
I say: wake the dead.
When the Even is Hallowed
I will proclaim:
He is risen.
And who is it to say
that I am wrong?

[The_Narrator]

Right, to ensure we restart with some vigour, here's some analysis, since that was I liked most about the thread in the first place. :) Well, I intended it to be analysis. Then it sort of tailed off into just disconnected thoughts that I wrote down ... sorry.
And apologies for spelling mistakes, my copy of Office ran out, and rather than buy a new one for £40 on the Ultimate Steal thingy, I instead invested in pre-ordering House Season 4, a bought a bottle of red and a pack of smokes. :xd Which means this is typed up in NotePad, which has no Spell Check. I would normally check it anyway ... but it's 1 AM, and I can't be naffed, so ...
No doubt this economic crisis stuffy is because of fools like me, who have no real understanding of money. :lol:


Tangent:

You'd be pretty if you smiled:
First off, I love the Helen of Troy 'Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?' reference. She is the most mythicised woman in history, supposedly the most beautiful, the one who caused the Trojan War and therefore the two greatest poems in history to be written. To compare these two women is majestic in scale. That a woman who you haven't even met, just someone you saw on the streets, could cause enough of an impression for her to be compared to Helen of Troy! It creates a lasting impression. It resonates with me especially, as I often find myself reflecting on strangers, how one tiny motion of their head or a peculiar action or way of saying something can cause you to think about that all day (and not just for people, but certain phrases, or an idea, or a piano melody etc. etc.) I also like that she is essentially a statue, she could be a beautiful person, but her coldness makes her seems like a statue. You can appreciate a statue's beauty, but in an aesthetic way, not the same way as a real person. Imagining her beauty is also very cool, imagining something is sometimes far better than actually seeing it, it won't let you down. Imagination is like a painting, the beauty you see won't fade or decay or change as it does in real life. Your rhyming here also works very effectively, it enables the poem to flow smoothly, to the extent that I don't want to just read it, I want to stand up and say it out loud. Only thing I can criticise is the use of 'ice' and 'thawed', they're bit overused, but I'm not sure what else could work in this context? Good poem!

The Harbour:
I like the lack of punctuation here. Rather than making the lines all run off, it serves to allow the reader take the poem at their own pace, much as you are taking "A world that revolves at [your] pace". Again, your rhyming really allows the poem to read smoothly. I especially like the phrase "bright coloured Buoys", it's very evocative of days spent on the beach or a pier watching the ocean, watching boats, people and the waves go by, but the bouys just gently bob there, never changing, they "drift with the tides lazy motion". The tone is just right, it's very peaceful. The seagulls are well described too, their "harsh bitter laugh of a cry" is very original. Very bittersweet, like knowing that your moment of peace can't last as you must return to daily life, but you can still enjoy the moment whilst it lasts.

The Great Escape:
Again, like 'The Harbour', the tone is very serene, amplified by the use of nice simple language (I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean simplicity in terms of avoiding large polysyllabic words and complex metaphors; and in terms of skill, it is a million times harder to write something elegant and simple, than it is to write something grandiose. The simplest themes makes the most powerful poetry imo.) The rhyming here is very drowsy. "Lazy hazy days away / Escape the everyday malaise" is fantastic! It rolls across the tongue like breathing out a good smoke. (Ok, not the best metaphor, but you get the image, it is smooth and just cries to be let out of your mouth into the air.)


Rosamunde:

East Pier, Dun Laoghaire:
I really like the run ons here. "At the end / of the pier" makes the reader follow the line as you follow the pier until you reach its end. The repetition of "again" feels like the whirling wind, striking against your face. The scene is quite desolate, but as I've read in your previous poems, you really manage to capture the beauty in what others might not consider to be beautiful. The imagery of standing alone with just the whistle of the wind and the sea spray is fantastic. Very inspiring.

Wolves around the fireplace:
The tail/tale pun is very clever. I like the overall imagery of this poem, it's very natural and evocative. Wolves are of course associated with loneliness, and that's the tone I get from this poem, the speaker wants to embrace their loneliness, but they cannot as a human, social creatures that we're meant to be, and so they want the person the poem is addressed to to "imagine me as a wolf". And yet humans can of course be lonely without being wolves. We're forced to walk "the tedium of streets", we can be wolf-like, if you "imagine us / as us". This is a really well-written poem, you have this lovely quality where every single word sounds perfect, as though each word or phrase was a specially picked blackberry from the entirety of a forest. Even the syllables sound magnificent, the sibilance in "in mountains sheathed / in shingle ... in bristling fur" cries to be read aloud. Oh, and "Beaches covered in cities of shell / and continents of seaweed" is just perfect!


Wolfie Gilmore:

Planet Me:
First off, the capitalisation of "THIS" strikes me. I feel like I'm reading one of those medieval alitterated Bibles. Very appropriate, as the subject matter is, like one of the books, as delicate and large in scale. Allowing the line "small boy over ants" to run on, and then for the reader to be struck with "Only tender" is a nice touch. Very reassuring. "Migration home!" is another good phrase. Makes the day sound weary and tiring - much as we look at the busy lives of ants' and wonder how they can stand the effort. As well as serving for a nice bit of humour by imagining David Attenborough "straddling the sky", it serves as a nice conclusion to the poem, rather than finishing it, it opens up a whole new realm of questions on the nature of God - would Attenborough really be more reassuring than God? God can sometimes seem cruel ... and yet, God is meant to be benevolent; if someone was watching out for me, I'd rather it be a being with benevolence than one with any other omni-whatever.

Take me to your leader, take me now:
The Heathcliff reference is nice, just by using "thorny wilds" and his name, it conjures up a painting's worth of gloomy desolate landscapes in my imagination. "Mutating bread" is a nice phrase, it sounds both natural and abnormal. My favourite lines are "Or the walls will be torn down / And the unknown will be born": they sound very menacing, very prophetic! The tone is chillingly ominous, the speaker scared of their humanity. Aware of it's effects too, making it all the more scary, their cries of "Do not let me lose myself" all the more poignant.


Mabus:

Meditations on the Absence of a Liturgical Calendar:
This poem is really powerful. The use of religious themes here are presented well, using a mix of directly religious language e.g. "He is risen" and allusion, such as how "the tide goes out all on its own". I also like the contrasts between deep questioning - "the runner who chooses the wrong road / goes farther astray the faster he runs" - and the simple, bold statements ("it is past" and "Who has risen". The way these are formed also make the poem enjoyable to read, a mixture of long and short sentences, each paragraph both an axiom and the conclusion of decades of thought. The convinctions of faith in the last two lines "And who is it to say / that I am wrong?" resound with the others ("Go ask Albert ..." and "I will not notice"), they conclude the poem nicely.


Right, some of mine. Both here are old ones I've reworked to be less ... crap, basically.


Trapped

The world is an old people's home
Full of chipped china, yellowing books, dirty windows.
A noiseless TV is left on in the front room,
Where all the furniture is tattered and torn,
And everything smells of death.
Am I the screeching bird,
Forgotten in a corner of the room,
Flying over and over into the edge of my cage,
Trying to push myself between the bars?


Breathless

Have you ever had tiny little niggling obsessions
That tear at your hair
That make you bite your nails
And tap your leg up and down
And up and down and UP and DOWN
Until the floorboard feels like it might break?
And it keeps you awake until four AM
When you collapse into bed,
My face primary-school clay
And my mind a road-side accident.


I just posted these to feel less guilty about reading more and writing less. Something worthy of reading is in the throes of being written ... *Famous last words* Random thought: does anyone else get 'spells' where they pretty much only read, or only write? I get it for months at a time; sometimes I write so prolifically I fill up pads of paper, and I won't so much as start the first page of a book, and then it switches, and I have to duct-tape a pen to my hand just to write, but I'll happily read a novel and refuse to sleep until I finish it. Or is that me just being crazy and neurotic?

[Mabus]

I just posted these to feel less guilty about reading more and writing less. Something worthy of reading is in the throes of being written ... *Famous last words* Random thought: does anyone else get 'spells' where they pretty much only read, or only write? I get it for months at a time; sometimes I write so prolifically I fill up pads of paper, and I won't so much as start the first page of a book, and then it switches, and I have to duct-tape a pen to my hand just to write, but I'll happily read a novel and refuse to sleep until I finish it. Or is that me just being crazy and neurotic?

More later...I'm glad you were interested in what I wrote...

It's quite the opposite for me. Though there are certain times when I'm reading and not writing, I write most and best when I'm also reading a lot. It keeps the ideas flowing. For instance, I just bought and read Watchmen, which seems to have broken my impasse on DeadWar. Sometimes it's a direct interaction of ideas, but sometimes it's a lot more obscure. (This time seems to be a mix.)

Of course, when it comes to poetry, I usually don't write it at all, though I've been told some of my prose has poetic elements. I prefer to tell a story, and I have trouble sustaining a poem long enough to finish.