Poetry in Progress ~ construction zone

[Tathagata]

ouch damn! what a powerful piece, T!

I'm a strange mother fucker aren't I?

Thank you Jen
It occurred to me this week that love letters and words of love can be the most hurtful things you can send sometimes
~shrug~

 

[Tzara]

This is a kind of bump for this thread...

and a place to park some (s)light thing I am playing with. N.B.: Parking your poem on this thread implies it is looking for comment, which mine is, kinda. Feel free to dissect it.

And, newbieoneslookingforcomment, this is an option for you. Just sayin'.

Appoint

A spatial point is a concept used to define an exact location in space.
It has no volume, area or length, making it a zero dimensional object.
—Wikipedia

In poetry, the point is to fit words
into lines that will stick in their head
like a zebra in marmalade, thick
and flavorful and startling and,
however apparently incongruous,



...............................like truth.​

Question, y'all. Is this aphorism or poetry? Do it matter?

It's OK to flog me. Class dismissed.

 

[champagne1982]

and a place to park some (s)light thing I am playing with. N.B.: Parking your poem on this thread implies it is looking for comment, which mine is, kinda. Feel free to dissect it.

And, newbieoneslookingforcomment, this is an option for you. Just sayin'.

Appoint

A spatial point is a concept used to define an exact location in space.
It has no volume, area or length, making it a zero dimensional object.
—Wikipedia

In poetry, the point is to fit words
into lines that will stick in their head
like a zebra in marmalade, thick
and flavorful and startling and,
however apparently incongruous,



...............................like truth.​

Question, y'all. Is this aphorism or poetry? Do it matter?

It's OK to flog me. Class dismissed.

Since we seem to be discussing poetry and since you've got some kind of universal definition, we could call it an aphorism re: poetry. It could even be said to be aphoristic poetry on poetry.

p.s. I like the punny title.

 

[Angeline]

and a place to park some (s)light thing I am playing with. N.B.: Parking your poem on this thread implies it is looking for comment, which mine is, kinda. Feel free to dissect it.

And, newbieoneslookingforcomment, this is an option for you. Just sayin'.

Appoint

A spatial point is a concept used to define an exact location in space.
It has no volume, area or length, making it a zero dimensional object.
—Wikipedia

In poetry, the point is to fit words
into lines that will stick in their head
like a zebra in marmalade, thick
and flavorful and startling and,
however apparently incongruous,



...............................like truth.​

Question, y'all. Is this aphorism or poetry? Do it matter?

It's OK to flog me. Class dismissed.

I think it's poetry. After all, what about writers like Ogden Nash and Piet Hein? Both were considered poets (by others and themselves) and both (especially Hein) wrote things some might consider aphorisms. Show me the rule that says you can't do this.

As to the poem (since we agree it *is* one), here's some food for thought. The first three lines are exciting because you present a startling image. In the second three, you explain it. What if you had another image instead before "truth."

Just a thought. You said we could flog.

 

[Tzara]

I think it's poetry. After all, what about writers like Ogden Nash and Piet Hein? Both were considered poets (by others and themselves) and both (especially Hein) wrote things some might consider aphorisms. Show me the rule that says you can't do this.

As to the poem (since we agree it *is* one), here's some food for thought. The first three lines are exciting because you present a startling image. In the second three, you explain it. What if you had another image instead before "truth."

Just a thought. You said we could flog.

Your command is my, uh, command:

Appoint

A spatial point is a concept used to define an exact location in space.
It has no volume, area or length, making it a zero dimensional object.
—Wikipedia

In poetry, the point is to fit words
into lines that will stick in the head
like a zebra in marmalade, thick
and flavorful and startling and,
however apparently incongruous
(think green monkey drinking gasoline),



.....................................true.​

La la la la.

Flog me baby, all night long.

 

[champagne1982]

Your command is my, uh, command:

Appoint

A spatial point is a concept used to define an exact location in space.
It has no volume, area or length, making it a zero dimensional object.
—Wikipedia

In poetry, the point is to fit words
into lines that will stick in the head
like a zebra in marmalade, thick
and flavorful and startling and,
however apparently incongruous
(think green monkey drinking gasoline),



.....................................true.​

La la la la.

Flog me baby, all night long.

I think you need another ungulate... giraffe for instance - and drinking biodeisel. 'E' poems R us. Primates are just silly.

 

[Angeline]

I think you need another ungulate... giraffe for instance - and drinking biodeisel. 'E' poems R us. Primates are just silly.

I'm telling Tath on you.

 

[Angeline]

Your command is my, uh, command:

Appoint

A spatial point is a concept used to define an exact location in space.
It has no volume, area or length, making it a zero dimensional object.
—Wikipedia

In poetry, the point is to fit words
into lines that will stick in the head
like a zebra in marmalade, thick
and flavorful and startling and,
however apparently incongruous
(think green monkey drinking gasoline),



.....................................true.​

La la la la.

Flog me baby, all night long.

It's moving in the right direction. I still don't like the explanation. And the monkey is interesting but not as incongrous as a zebra in marmalade. A monkey might plausibly drink gasoline. (No. I have no idea why a monkey would do that. Maybe we can ask Tath. lol)

You need something as off the wall as the zebra image. Maybe let the late-night crew ponder with you?

<Whack. Slap.> (I'm good at flogging.)

Maybe a monkey drinking butterflies. How do you feel about that?

 

[Tzara]

It's moving in the right direction. I still don't like the explanation. And the monkey is interesting but not as incongrous as a zebra in marmalade. A monkey might plausibly drink gasoline. (No. I have no idea why a monkey would do that. Maybe we can ask Tath. lol)

You need something as off the wall as the zebra image. Maybe let the late-night crew ponder with you?

<Whack. Slap.> (I'm good at flogging.)

Maybe a monkey drinking butterflies. How do you feel about that?

Ow!

Butterflies are never the right direction. Monkey drinking or not.

I'll fiddle. Like I said, this poem is toy.

Ow!

Hey, that hurts!

Ow!

Like I said—I will think about it.

Ow! Motherfucker!

Gimme that!

Now you fucking bend over! Let's see how you like it. (Whizz, crack.)

See? See?

[We now pause for local news.]

 

[DeepAsleep]

Appoint

A spatial point is a concept used to define an exact location in space.
It has no volume, area or length, making it a zero dimensional object.
—Wikipedia

In poetry, the point is to fit words
into lines that will stick in the head
like a zebra in marmalade, thick
and flavorful and startling and,
however apparently incongruous
(think green monkey drinking gasoline),

Floggishly:

I like the definition of a spatial point as an idea, to start this. What I tend to shy away from is poems about poetry. The brutal woman that I keep locked in my basement, who critiques my work sends 9/10 of it back blacked out with sharpie, and the words, "Show, don't tell." written red, in the margins.

It occurs to me that the zebra in marmalade is incongruous enough that a monkey drinking gasoline is maybe belaboring the point. (<---best sentence i've ever written. Hands. Down. Thank you, from the bottom of my soul.) Restatement/re-illustration is a bad personal habit, so it comes readily to mind.

Still. Why write a poem about poem, and not just up and poem?

~R

 

[lorencino]

Letters from Leaflet #01

This started out as an essay and then I kept finding little flashes of poetry frolicking in the sea of prose. So i tried it as a poem. And tried and tried and maybe it's genes are really prose, but I badly wanted to post a poem for 11/11/11 on Sunday and time is running out and I don't think it's got the flow I want so I decided not to post it in that other place where all the stories and poems are found but thought I'd see if I can find a home for it here until it matures a little.

Our leader asked us to support our troops

It means understanding
that those in uniform
in a battle zone,
must feel the fear that I would feel
on confronting the dangers they face.

It means understanding
that they, too, have a need to feel
that what they do in monstrous circumstances
has consequence
in the struggle to heal our world.

It means knowing that
when you see your friends,
and those that share your days, killed or maimed,
you feel a bonding,
an attachment to those who survive
and those who don't.

It means knowing
that because lives lost and lives saved
are precious in an ultimate, universal way,
the weight of seeing a life snuffed out
or circumscribed by maiming and disfigurement
maims and disfigures the lives of those around.

It means understanding
the desperate need, with the price so high,
for the mission to have value
for participants,
value for family, friends,
and comrades.
It is a desperate torturous need to feel
the sacrifice,
the pain,
the anguish and lost lives
were not wasted on an impure cause
not wasted on a venal whim.

Supporting our troops is humbly
acknowledging these needs
and the pain that fuels them
even as we feel duty-bound
to question the wisdom and morality of the mission.

Supporting our troops is wanting them home
and out of danger;
wanting to make our own sacrifice
to heal and cure our war-afflicted veterans;
wanting to draw them back into our collective embrace
from the battle-numbing, horror-twisting consequences
of what they endured on the mission;
it is simply wanting them as people.

Supporting our troops is knowing the price
spouse and children pay
when a dear one's absence echoes in their hearts,
a dear one surrounded in threat;
it is empathizing with those who endure
endless days of worry
hoping to see their dears again;
it is pausing for a thought of the pain of a man
whose fiancé returns from battle in a coffin,
or wondering what a little girl feels in her chest,
when she knows her daddy
will never hold her hand again.

Supporting our troops does not mean
agreeing to continue military adventures
because a high price has already been paid.
The sacrifices of our Canadian dead
and the suffering
their families will endure to the end of their days
do not make an immoral war moral.

Supporting our troops
by trying to understand the hurt
of soldiers and their families,
breeds compassion which knows nothing
of national boundaries, freeing it to grow
until it shades all of humankind
teaching us that the howitzer
is not the solution for the human condition.

Thus when we stand in silent homage
at 11:00am on the 11th day in November
I shall implore: “Please bring our troops home now.”

 

[sophieloves]

as the wife of one of those serving right now, this poem speaks so clearly to me. may i offer just a few thoughts as they hit me?

this feels like poetry till i reached v 6 - then it began to lose its poetry ... though not its message. i feel it would be just a case of manipulating a few lines, though i'm not sure i can help any. let me go have another look and see what strikes me as a place i can put my finger on. i'm sure there are many here better equipped, though. let me just add one more thing - i believe the more dignified, structured feel of this piece works well as a reflection of the training, planning, militaristic way of things - funerals, remembrances - rather than the heat and hurt and anger and frenzy of battle. it has a solemn, measured tread.

Our leader asked us to support our troops

It means understanding
that those in uniform
in a battle zone,
must feel the fear that I would feel
on confronting the dangers they face.

Liked the natural flow here but question the use of the comma - why one there and not at the end of the preceding line? is it needed? it broke it a little for me reading it - enough to question its use anyway

It means understanding
that they, too, have a need to feel
that what they do in monstrous circumstances
has consequence
in the struggle to heal our world.

could i suggest you drop the 'a' from 'a need' and the 's' from 'circumstances'? that sounds better to my ear. maybe even drop the comma before and after 'too'?

It means understanding
that they too have need to feel
that what they do in monstrous circumstance
has consequence
in the struggle to heal our world.




It means knowing that
when you see your friends,
and those that share your days, killed or maimed,
you feel a bonding,
an attachment to those who survive
and those who don't.

It means knowing
that because lives lost and lives saved
are precious in an ultimate, universal way,
the weight of seeing a life snuffed out
or circumscribed by maiming and disfigurement
maims and disfigures the lives of those around.

It means understanding
the desperate need, with the price so high,
for the mission to have value
for participants,
value for family, friends,
and comrades.
It is a desperate torturous need to feel
the sacrifice,
the pain,
the anguish and lost lives
were not wasted on an impure cause
not wasted on a venal whim.

participants doesn't do it for me. sounds too detached somehow. but - damn - this is so so so so true. it hits home absolutely. the need. it is a desperate yet oddly dignified need. hard to put into words but i feel it.

Supporting our troops is humbly
acknowledging these needs
and the pain that fuels them
even as we feel duty-bound
to question the wisdom and morality of the mission.

i'm feeling a discrepancy here in the punctuation - not that it's right or wrong, but the continuity between this verse and previous ones. i happen to like the ommittance - it still reads with the same measuresd tread in my ears, without the visual trip-ups of the commas... is this to be read aloud? if so, i don't see the need to add the commas... you know how you will speak it. as a written piece, some might say the scattering of those little marks across the page serve as a visual reminder of the fallen, scattered bodies... sigh. but that last line there - is 'of the mission' essential? it doesn't feel as if it adds anything more beyond 'wisdom and morality' but, in fact, circumscribes the thinking to specific missions rather than to the whole concept of the war.

Supporting our troops is wanting them home
and out of danger;
wanting to make our own sacrifice
to heal and cure our war-afflicted veterans;
wanting to draw them back into our collective embrace
from the battle-numbing, horror-twisting consequences
of what they endured on the mission;
it is simply wanting them as people.

lines 6 and 7 here feel - off - too... i don't know the word. wait. it feels like it's trying to address the physical, emotional, and mental carnage of battle but doesn't reach that while getting enough out of step with the 'measured tread' to feel awkward. almost.. platitudinous? is that what i mean? i don't know. sigh. just feels wrong to me somehow. sorry i can't be more specific.

Supporting our troops is knowing the price
spouse and children pay
when a dear one's absence echoes in their hearts,
a dear one surrounded in threat;
it is empathizing with those who endure
endless days of worry
hoping to see their dears again;
it is pausing for a thought of the pain of a man
whose fiancé returns from battle in a coffin,
or wondering what a little girl feels in her chest,
when she knows her daddy
will never hold her hand again.

Supporting our troops does not mean
agreeing to continue military adventures
because a high price has already been paid.
The sacrifices of our Canadian dead
and the suffering
their families will endure to the end of their days
do not make an immoral war moral.

Supporting our troops
by trying to understand the hurt
of soldiers and their families,
breeds compassion which knows nothing
of national boundaries, freeing it to grow
until it shades all of humankind
teaching us that the howitzer
is not the solution for the human condition.

Thus when we stand in silent homage
at 11:00am on the 11th day in November
I shall implore: “Please bring our troops home now.”

i would offer more but i'm afraid i'm at a loss as to what i could... i'm not even sure you need to change a thing, because whether or not this counts as a poem or a speech, it reaches me. maybe i'm too close to it. other eyes can help you more than me. the more i read it, the more i 'hear' it aloud, in my head, sombre, bordering on .. oh, i do not know.

 

[Angeline]

Ow!

Butterflies are never the right direction. Monkey drinking or not.

I'll fiddle. Like I said, this poem is toy.

Ow!

Hey, that hurts!

Ow!

Like I said—I will think about it.

Ow! Motherfucker!

Gimme that!

Now you fucking bend over! Let's see how you like it. (Whizz, crack.)

See? See?

[We now pause for local news.]

Good grief man what at you talking about? I went to bed at 11:30 est last night, after three hours ( ) online looking at teenage girl punk-type stuff with my daughter (who is trying to find Christmas presents for her best pals). It was fun but I feel like I've been on a death march. So you must have been spanking someone else.

And in my absence I see DA came in and said he doesn't really like poems about writing poetry. That's why I love this thread lol. For every opinion you can get an equal and opposite other opinion.

I knew you'd hate the butterflies. Lauren Hynde refuses to use "rainbow" for the same reasons. I think any word can work in the right context though my choice may have been influenced by the fact that I posted in between looking at sites that had angry, gothic, emo butterfly jewelry. But no hard feelings, eh?

<Here have another whack. But not too hard. I'm not that into it.>

 

[DeepAsleep]

first impressions.

Our leader asked us to support our troops

It means understanding
that those in uniform
in a battle zone,
must feel the fear that I would feel
on confronting the dangers they face.

It means understanding
that they, too, have a need to feel
that what they do in monstrous circumstances
has consequence
in the struggle to heal our world.

It means knowing that
when you see your friends,
and those that share your days, killed or maimed,
you feel a bonding,
an attachment to those who survive
and those who don't.

It means knowing
that because lives lost and lives saved
are precious in an ultimate, universal way,
the weight of seeing a life snuffed out
or circumscribed by maiming and disfigurement
maims and disfigures the lives of those around.

It means understanding
the desperate need, with the price so high,
for the mission to have value
for participants,
value for family, friends,
and comrades.
It is a desperate torturous need to feel
the sacrifice,
the pain,
the anguish and lost lives
were not wasted on an impure cause
not wasted on a venal whim.

Supporting our troops is humbly
acknowledging these needs
and the pain that fuels them
even as we feel duty-bound
to question the wisdom and morality of the mission.

Supporting our troops is wanting them home
and out of danger;
wanting to make our own sacrifice
to heal and cure our war-afflicted veterans;
wanting to draw them back into our collective embrace
from the battle-numbing, horror-twisting consequences
of what they endured on the mission;
it is simply wanting them as people.

Supporting our troops is knowing the price
spouse and children pay
when a dear one's absence echoes in their hearts,
a dear one surrounded in threat;
it is empathizing with those who endure
endless days of worry
hoping to see their dears again;
it is pausing for a thought of the pain of a man
whose fiancé returns from battle in a coffin,
or wondering what a little girl feels in her chest,
when she knows her daddy
will never hold her hand again.

Supporting our troops does not mean
agreeing to continue military adventures
because a high price has already been paid.
The sacrifices of our Canadian dead
and the suffering
their families will endure to the end of their days
do not make an immoral war moral.

Supporting our troops
by trying to understand the hurt
of soldiers and their families,
breeds compassion which knows nothing
of national boundaries, freeing it to grow
until it shades all of humankind
teaching us that the howitzer
is not the solution for the human condition.

Thus when we stand in silent homage
at 11:00am on the 11th day in November
I shall implore: “Please bring our troops home now.”

It's important to write bout things like this.

However:

I don't know if I'd say it was a poem, so much as I think I feel it's a short speech, or an essay. Metaphor, figurative language, etc. I do it, too, fairly often, though it doesn't seem to stop me from continuing to just throw words at the paper.

I'm glad that you spoke candidly and plainly about this. I've heard more badly written war poems than I care to think about. Direct, elegant writing. That's the ticket.

 

[DeepAsleep]

Good grief man what at you talking about? I went to bed at 11:30 est last night, after three hours ( ) online looking at teenage girl punk-type stuff with my daughter (who is trying to find Christmas presents for her best pals). It was fun but I feel like I've been on a death march. So you must have been spanking someone else.

And in my absence I see DA came in and said he doesn't really like poems about writing poetry. That's why I love this thread lol. For every opinion you can get an equal and opposite other opinion.

I knew you'd hate the butterflies. Lauren Hynde refuses to use "rainbow" for the same reasons. I think any word can work in the right context though my choice may have been influenced by the fact that I posted in between looking at sites that had angry, gothic, emo butterfly jewelry. But no hard feelings, eh?

<Here have another whack. But not too hard. I'm not that into it.>

Butterflies:

On the Slam team, this summer, it was agreed we should write a poem a week, good or bad, just to make sure everyone stayed with the writing and creative, for the workshopping process, under the auspices that one might be inclined towards creativity, in a feedback sense, if one were focused on being creative a little more closely.

In any case. Slam is full of shit. The teams that won this year won, not with poems (Failing of slam) but with hotbutton bullshit. Finals stage was an enormous disappointment.

The joke, in slam, is that you can't win a tournament unless you've been raped, abused as a child, had cancer, been beaten by your husband, or persecuted for being black. The sad truth is that these are all things which need to be discussed, but they're often topics used in a strategic sense ("if I put this poem up after that poem, but before I know that team will use this poem, then it'll get a specific score....")

ANYWAY. Slam's a lot more flash than your average page poem: Consequently, simpler ideas, shouted louder, often beat a complex poem, because you only have three minutes to make a deeper connection with an audience than the next yahoo. Drilling vs. fileting - and on the team, we called this tendency towards cliche':

Butterfly farts and hope beams.

I actually heard a poem that contained the line, "God doesn't give you any more than you can handle" three times - just in competition, let alone the side slams or cypher-readings. Hope. Beams.

 

[Angeline]

This started out as an essay and then I kept finding little flashes of poetry frolicking in the sea of prose. So i tried it as a poem. And tried and tried and maybe it's genes are really prose, but I badly wanted to post a poem for 11/11/11 on Sunday and time is running out and I don't think it's got the flow I want so I decided not to post it in that other place where all the stories and poems are found but thought I'd see if I can find a home for it here until it matures a little.

Our leader asked us to support our troops

It means understanding
that those in uniform
in a battle zone,
must feel the fear that I would feel
on confronting the dangers they face.

It means understanding
that they, too, have a need to feel
that what they do in monstrous circumstances
has consequence
in the struggle to heal our world.

It means knowing that
when you see your friends,
and those that share your days, killed or maimed,
you feel a bonding,
an attachment to those who survive
and those who don't.

It means knowing
that because lives lost and lives saved
are precious in an ultimate, universal way,
the weight of seeing a life snuffed out
or circumscribed by maiming and disfigurement
maims and disfigures the lives of those around.

It means understanding
the desperate need, with the price so high,
for the mission to have value
for participants,
value for family, friends,
and comrades.
It is a desperate torturous need to feel
the sacrifice,
the pain,
the anguish and lost lives
were not wasted on an impure cause
not wasted on a venal whim.

Supporting our troops is humbly
acknowledging these needs
and the pain that fuels them
even as we feel duty-bound
to question the wisdom and morality of the mission.

Supporting our troops is wanting them home
and out of danger;
wanting to make our own sacrifice
to heal and cure our war-afflicted veterans;
wanting to draw them back into our collective embrace
from the battle-numbing, horror-twisting consequences
of what they endured on the mission;
it is simply wanting them as people.

Supporting our troops is knowing the price
spouse and children pay
when a dear one's absence echoes in their hearts,
a dear one surrounded in threat;
it is empathizing with those who endure
endless days of worry
hoping to see their dears again;
it is pausing for a thought of the pain of a man
whose fiancé returns from battle in a coffin,
or wondering what a little girl feels in her chest,
when she knows her daddy
will never hold her hand again.

Supporting our troops does not mean
agreeing to continue military adventures
because a high price has already been paid.
The sacrifices of our Canadian dead
and the suffering
their families will endure to the end of their days
do not make an immoral war moral.

Supporting our troops
by trying to understand the hurt
of soldiers and their families,
breeds compassion which knows nothing
of national boundaries, freeing it to grow
until it shades all of humankind
teaching us that the howitzer
is not the solution for the human condition.

Thus when we stand in silent homage
at 11:00am on the 11th day in November
I shall implore: “Please bring our troops home now.”

If you want the poem to appear on the 11th, go on and post it today. You can always edit it if you want to change it. However, I agree with the general concensus that it's too long, too prosey, and has too much telling. It's very hard to write without explaining what one means. I know, believe me, but DA is right about metaphor. The best poems (on any subject) work well because of the strong images they present. Images suggest rather than show. At some point you have to trust that your reader's imagination can conjure the message from the images.

Here's a great antiwar poem (even though Senna Jawa doesn't like it lol).

Here's another. And one more (really famous) one.

What they all share is that the images move the message forward. And the point of my post is not to flog you (don't listen to Tzara ), but to bring home how important "showing" is to good poetry.

If I were you (and I'm not, so I respect your right to do this the way you want), I'd take one strophe (verse) and try to rework the sentiment into an image. What image, for example, does

understanding
that those in uniform
in a battle zone,
must feel the fear

conjure for you? How do they feel? What's the expression on the face? Is the posture stooped? Weary? What do the uniforms look like? Are they worn, rent? Come up with the image that conveys that, then move to the next strophe and think about what your message there is and what image(s) would convey it. If there's no message to glean image from, then you probably don't need that strophe. Even if it turns your poem into a writing exercise for you, you'll be moving in the right direction. And the more you force yourself outside your comfort zone, the better you'll get.

Just my opinion. Respectfully submitted.

(And Sophie, rock on. You got right into the review spirit of the thread!)

 

[Angeline]

Butterflies:

On the Slam team, this summer, it was agreed we should write a poem a week, good or bad, just to make sure everyone stayed with the writing and creative, for the workshopping process, under the auspices that one might be inclined towards creativity, in a feedback sense, if one were focused on being creative a little more closely.

In any case. Slam is full of shit. The teams that won this year won, not with poems (Failing of slam) but with hotbutton bullshit. Finals stage was an enormous disappointment.

The joke, in slam, is that you can't win a tournament unless you've been raped, abused as a child, had cancer, been beaten by your husband, or persecuted for being black. The sad truth is that these are all things which need to be discussed, but they're often topics used in a strategic sense ("if I put this poem up after that poem, but before I know that team will use this poem, then it'll get a specific score....")

ANYWAY. Slam's a lot more flash than your average page poem: Consequently, simpler ideas, shouted louder, often beat a complex poem, because you only have three minutes to make a deeper connection with an audience than the next yahoo. Drilling vs. fileting - and on the team, we called this tendency towards cliche':

Butterfly farts and hope beams.

I actually heard a poem that contained the line, "God doesn't give you any more than you can handle" three times - just in competition, let alone the side slams or cypher-readings. Hope. Beams.

Well she's walking through the clouds
With a circus mind that's running round.
Butterflies and zebras
And moonbeams and fairy tales.
That's all she ever thinks about
Riding with the wind.

When I'm sad, she comes to me
With a thousand smiles she gives to me free.
It's alright she says, it's alright.
Take anything you want from me, anything
Anything.

A zillion years later, reading that still makes me shiver. And it shows that any word works in the right context. And that it's all about the images.

 

[champagne1982]

As Ange said, lorencino, post in heat, edit at leisure, if this is something you need for remembrance day.

Have you thought about using form? Since your theme is strong but what you have to say is tightly woven around that centre you could use powerful repetition or even rhythm (effective, when used to conjure the cadence of marching boots or the drone of transport aircraft engine).

 

[DeepAsleep]

Well she's walking through the clouds
With a circus mind that's running round.
Butterflies and zebras
And moonbeams and fairy tales.
That's all she ever thinks about
Riding with the wind.

When I'm sad, she comes to me
With a thousand smiles she gives to me free.
It's alright she says, it's alright.
Take anything you want from me, anything
Anything.

A zillion years later, reading that still makes me shiver. And it shows that any word works in the right context. And that it's all about the images.

I was pointing more at the intent behind the words than the word itself.

Plus, butterfly farts, as an idea, is hysterical to me.

~R
Lowbrow.

 

[Angeline]

I was pointing more at the intent behind the words than the word itself.

Plus, butterfly farts, as an idea, is hysterical to me.

~R
Lowbrow.

I've never jived with the whole slam concept myself for exactly the things you point out. I know there's a lot to be learned from doing readings. I think alot of what I like about your poems now comes from the oratory tone in them. But I'm not a performance artist and I'm definitely hippie, not hip hop. And I like the idea of the intimacy of a poem and a reader.

Also I don't have the energy to do all that yelling and forcefulness. Some days I have all the energy of a butterfly fart.

 

[champagne1982]

...
Also I don't have the energy to do all that yelling and forcefulness. Some days I have all the energy of a butterfly fart.

I'm glad I swallowed before reading.

 

[Angeline]

I'm glad I swallowed before reading.

It occurred to me last night that the reason I love this place so much is that nowhere else can I discuss why monkeys might drink gasoline, zebras in marmalade and butterfly farts. I am comforted that there are others out there who cherish the absurd as much as I do.

 

[sophieloves]

i wonder what a butterfly's fart tastes like


really

 

[champagne1982]

It occurred to me last night that the reason I love this place so much is that nowhere else can I discuss why monkeys might drink gasoline, zebras in marmalade and butterfly farts. I am comforted that there are others out there who cherish the absurd as much as I do.

I've just discovered why my muse seems to be in hiding lately! I need to find my absurd little vixen who doesn't give a whit about proper diction and scuffed up cliche.

I wanna write a poem about the pink frost that was growing on the power lines and the crow's feathers this morning. It looked like God was on a sugar high from the cotton candy floss vendor at the big ole' Carny In The Sky and went a little crazy.

(Yes, it was cold enough that we had ice fog here).

 

[sophieloves]

I've just discovered why my muse seems to be in hiding lately! I need to find my absurd little vixen who doesn't give a whit about proper diction and scuffed up cliche.

I wanna write a poem about the pink frost that was growing on the power lines and the crow's feathers this morning. It looked like God was on a sugar high from the cotton candy floss vendor at the big ole' Carny In The Sky and went a little crazy.

(Yes, it was cold enough that we had ice fog here).

pink frost? crikey, sounds like an attack of the barbie fairy!