Poetry in Progress ~ construction zone

[Angeline]

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).

It's 34(F) here now, And it's not even Thanksgiving yet. Brrrr.

 

[champagne1982]

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

I'm in the Canadian version of Big Sky Country. We get spectacular sunups and sundowns and some of the strangest light in between. Pink isn't bad. It's the fiery mango and passionate pomegranate that really are remarkable.

The Barbie faery is on a rush
out to impress God and Ken
she dusts the crow
with strawberry frost
and blames it on Skipper.

 

[DeepAsleep]

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.

It's a lot of air and dust, is Slam. Dust devils and etc. But there's a lot there that's great, too.

A conversational tone is one of the few things I really focused on cultivating, when it comes to slam. It's easier to get in someone's head if they trust the sound of your words. I'm especially exceptional, in a slam scene, because I worry about how my poems will look on paper, worry about grammar (though I flaunt it when I want to) and I use metaphors (sometimes!) and figurative language (sometimes!) Some of my stuff is more prose than anything else, and that flies, sometimes, too. There are people who don't yell, who do all of these things better than I do - Anis Mojgani, for instance, writes quiet, beautiful poems about religion and childhood and women. He's got his typical 'slam poem' stuff, too, but it's not what he's loved for. Plus, he's an awesome little man.

I'm going to compete with quiet poems, tonight. We'll see how that goes.

~R

 

[lorencino]

Letters from Leaflet #1 edited

Thank you to sophieloves for the detailed textual analysis and the unearthing of so much of my carelessness. Thank you to DeepAsleep and Angeline for your advice and encouragement. I have done what I can to edit in the grace of all of your suggestions within the limited time available to me before November 11. This still has far to go and is clearly still on the speech side of the fence.

To be honest, It was originally written as a speech that was performed by an actor friend of mine at a Remembrance Day school ceremony this past Thursday. After I had given the draft he used to my friend, I kept going back to it, not satisfied with it even as prose. Eventually I decided to try it as a poem. It would probably have been easier to begin with a fresh poem but this is an ongoing and interesting exercise in becoming aware of the differences between effective prose and effective poetry.

This poem is obliquely about war which is rich with opportunity for dramatic imagery, but more specifically it is an ideological argument between me and my Prime Minister. I accept the advice that Angeline is offering on the importance of carefully modulated imagery and the advantages of being concise, but it is really tough to implement this when the topic lies in the rarified realms of ethics and metaphysics. I hope I will eventually be up to the task of concretizing philosophical concepts in the same way that incorporeal abstractions like love and passion have been rendered so materially vivid in the writing on this site.

So here is my November 11 2007 Poem. Hopefully by November 11, 2008 it will be a real poem.

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, must know
that what they do in monstrous circumstance
has consequence
in the struggle to heal our world.

It means knowing that
when they see their friends,
and those that share their days, killed or maimed,
they feel a bonding,
with 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 draining in the sand
or slowed 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 warrior, family, and friend.
Value above all for comrade-groups who share
the heat and stench of battle,
share the screams of writhing men
and flying steel, and a bent woman sobbing
by the still body of her bloodied friend.
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 venal whim.

To support our troops is to feel humble;
to acknowledge needs
and the pain that fuels these needs.
It is this, even as we feel duty-bound
to question the wisdom and morality
of what we do in a foreign land.

Supporting our troops is wanting them home
from the battle-numbing, horror-twisting danger;
ready now to make our sacrifice
to heal and soothe their tortured minds,
to calm their war-afflictions.
Supporting them is wanting to draw them
back into our collective embrace;
it is simply wanting them as people.

Supporting our troops is knowing the price
spouse and children pay
when an endless absence
echoes through their hearts,
and a darling lives in faraway threat;
it is empathizing with those who endure
endless days not knowing;
it is pausing
to think of the pain of a man
whose wife lies silent in a flag-covered box
or wondering
what a little girl feels in her chest,
when she knows her daddy
will never
hold
her hand
again.

Supporting our troops cannot mean
agreeing to more killing, because
a high price is already paid,
because lives have already been spent.
The sacrifice 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 in understanding
gives rise to compassion, respect,
and compassion knows no boundaries.

Imagine all the people . . .
armed with compassion

(You may say I'm a dreamer . . .)​

thriving in compassion
knowing the howitzer is not the solution.

And as I stand in silent homage
at 11:00am on the 11th day in November
I shall pray:
“Please, bring our troops home, now.”

(I hope I'm not

the only one . . .​

)​

 

[DeepAsleep]

PS - Ange, one of my favorite butterfly fArtists: Derrick Brown (www.brownpoetry.com - it's worth visiting just to listen to the commentary he has running there. it's long, but it's fucking funny.)

Two:

PUNISH CHILDREN


If I ever have a kid, they’ll probably be a spaz to pay me back
for my brazenness.


Who will curl forth honesty
and say that they would like to send their child back
to that sudden baby cave?

I fear having a boy
fore seeing the day I will stare into his skin
and have to say:
“You might unravel, son.
Do not try to prepare for this.
Know that I don’t know shit. No one does.”

I fear having a girl the most,
who will ask me what it’s like to die
and I will have to reply:

“Lose your virginity
and fall asleep in pain.
Be better than me.”

If that small, hairless, voteless tyrant says:

“Stop talking like you’re trying, Pop.
What is it really like to die?
Speak plain.”

I will say:
“Love writing with all your heart.
Then have kids
and write no more,
you wretched, screeching Leprechaun.”

She has that laugh ‘cause she has my sense of humor.
How strange that the woman you always wanted to meet
came out of your own body.

How egotistical and pure.

My past rushes through her like a river after winter.

I hope she fails history.




THE KUROSAWA CHAMPAGNE


This poem was built after watching Kurosawa’s Dreams and
The Lady from Shanghai by Orson Welles. It is infused with a time
I watched a lover have a nightmare and did not wake her.


Tonight
your body shook,
hurling your nightmares
back to Cambodia.

Your nightgown wisped off
into Ursa Minor.

I was left here on earth feeling alone,
paranoid about the Rapture.

Tonight
I think it is safe to say we drank too much.
Must I apologize for the volume in my slobber?
Must I apologize for the best dance moves ever?
No.

Booze is my tuition to clown college.

I swung at your purse.
It was staring at me.

We swerved home on black laughter,
bleeding from forgettable boxing.

I asked you to sleep in the shape of a trench
so that I might know shelter.

I drew the word surrender in the mist of your breath,
waving a white sheet around your body.

‘Dear, in the morning let me put on your make-up for you.
I’ll be loading your gems with mascara
then I’ll tell you the truth…’

I watched black ropes and tears ramble down your face.

Lady war paint.

A squad of tiny men rappels down those snaking lines
and you say;
“Thank you for releasing all those fuckers from my life.”

You have a daily pill case.
There are no pills inside.
It holds the ashes of people who died

…the moment they saw you.

The cinema we built was to play the greats
but we could never afford the power
so in the dark cinema
you painted pictures of Kurosawa.

I just stared at you like Orson Welles,
getting fat off your style.

You are a movie that keeps exploding.
You are Dante’s fireplace.

We were so broke,
I’d pour tap water into your mouth,
burp against your lips
so you could have champagne.

You love champagne.

Sparring in the candlelight.

Listen—
the mathematical equivalent of a woman’s beauty
is directly relational
to the amount or degree
other women hate her.

You, dear, are hated.

Your boots are a soundtrack to adultery.
Thank God your feet fall in the rhythm of loyalty.

If this kills me,
slice me julienne
uncurl my veins
and fashion yourself a noose
so I can hold you
once more.



wheeeeeeeeeeee

 

[Angeline]

Thank you to sophieloves for the detailed textual analysis and the unearthing of so much of my carelessness. Thank you to DeepAsleep and Angeline for your advice and encouragement. I have done what I can to edit in the grace of all of your suggestions within the limited time available to me before November 11. This still has far to go and is clearly still on the speech side of the fence.

To be honest, It was originally written as a speech that was performed by an actor friend of mine at a Remembrance Day school ceremony this past Thursday. After I had given the draft he used to my friend, I kept going back to it, not satisfied with it even as prose. Eventually I decided to try it as a poem. It would probably have been easier to begin with a fresh poem but this is an ongoing and interesting exercise in becoming aware of the differences between effective prose and effective poetry.

This poem is obliquely about war which is rich with opportunity for dramatic imagery, but more specifically it is an ideological argument between me and my Prime Minister. I accept the advice that Angeline is offering on the importance of carefully modulated imagery and the advantages of being concise, but it is really tough to implement this when the topic lies in the rarified realms of ethics and metaphysics. I hope I will eventually be up to the task of concretizing philosophical concepts in the same way that incorporeal abstractions like love and passion have been rendered so materially vivid in the writing on this site.

So here is my November 11 2007 Poem. Hopefully by November 11, 2008 it will be a real poem.

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, must know
that what they do in monstrous circumstance
has consequence
in the struggle to heal our world.

It means knowing that
when they see their friends,
and those that share their days, killed or maimed,
they feel a bonding,
with 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 draining in the sand
or slowed 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 warrior, family, and friend.
Value above all for comrade-groups who share
the heat and stench of battle,
share the screams of writhing men
and flying steel, and a bent woman sobbing
by the still body of her bloodied friend.
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 venal whim.

To support our troops is to feel humble;
to acknowledge needs
and the pain that fuels these needs.
It is this, even as we feel duty-bound
to question the wisdom and morality
of what we do in a foreign land.

Supporting our troops is wanting them home
from the battle-numbing, horror-twisting danger;
ready now to make our sacrifice
to heal and soothe their tortured minds,
to calm their war-afflictions.
Supporting them is wanting to draw them
back into our collective embrace;
it is simply wanting them as people.

Supporting our troops is knowing the price
spouse and children pay
when an endless absence
echoes through their hearts,
and a darling lives in faraway threat;
it is empathizing with those who endure
endless days not knowing;
it is pausing
to think of the pain of a man
whose wife lies silent in a flag-covered box
or wondering
what a little girl feels in her chest,
when she knows her daddy
will never
hold
her hand
again.

Supporting our troops cannot mean
agreeing to more killing, because
a high price is already paid,
because lives have already been spent.
The sacrifice 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 in understanding
gives rise to compassion, respect,
and compassion knows no boundaries.

Imagine all the people . . .
armed with compassion

(You may say I'm a dreamer . . .)​

thriving in compassion
knowing the howitzer is not the solution.

And as I stand in silent homage
at 11:00am on the 11th day in November
I shall pray:
“Please, bring our troops home, now.”

(I hope I'm not

the only one . . .​

)​

I say you submit it and either continue to work with it or write something new. In fact, I think you should write something new either way. Write two new somethings.

 

[Angeline]

It's a lot of air and dust, is Slam. Dust devils and etc. But there's a lot there that's great, too.

A conversational tone is one of the few things I really focused on cultivating, when it comes to slam. It's easier to get in someone's head if they trust the sound of your words. I'm especially exceptional, in a slam scene, because I worry about how my poems will look on paper, worry about grammar (though I flaunt it when I want to) and I use metaphors (sometimes!) and figurative language (sometimes!) Some of my stuff is more prose than anything else, and that flies, sometimes, too. There are people who don't yell, who do all of these things better than I do - Anis Mojgani, for instance, writes quiet, beautiful poems about religion and childhood and women. He's got his typical 'slam poem' stuff, too, but it's not what he's loved for. Plus, he's an awesome little man.

I'm going to compete with quiet poems, tonight. We'll see how that goes.

~R

Good luck, R.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

My god, there's a massive amount of brilliance and humor going by on this thread. And so fast!

I have to try to catch up.
As to Appoint:

this discussion of poetry about poetry is a valid one. What if, rather than instructing or suggesting, you phrased it as if you were simply reporting on your own moment? Something like, but not necessarily exactly like:

I want to fit words
into lines that will stick in your head
like a zebra in marmalade, ...

Now, instead of explaining something to me, you're seducing me. And you can probably guess which I would prefer...

As to butterflies and zebras:
a. that's my favorite fucking song in the whole world. See
this for clarification.
b. butterflies, it's true, are dangerous to a poem. However, when they are being ingested or digested by monkeys they fit the original conceit: that it is a "line" that sticks in one's head. For better or worse. If that's what you want, by all means go there...
c. If you shift slightly and begin thinking of what you'd like to do to a reader, you'll be able to expand this piece, which I think would be neato.

As to this aside from Ange:

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

I am. Sign me up.

Sophie, a butterfly fart tastes like marzipan in aerosol form.

DA, yes:

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.)

That is one damn fine sentence.

And Lorencino, I'm not ignoring the piece, but I don't have anything intelligent to say about it yet. Well done, so far, and I'm glad you're getting such detailed feedback.

Friggin love this thread.

bijou

 

[Angeline]

My god, there's a massive amount of brilliance and humor going by on this thread. And so fast!

I have to try to catch up.
As to Appoint:

this discussion of poetry about poetry is a valid one. What if, rather than instructing or suggesting, you phrased it as if you were simply reporting on your own moment? Something like, but not necessarily exactly like:

I want to fit words
into lines that will stick in your head
like a zebra in marmalade, ...

Now, instead of explaining something to me, you're seducing me. And you can probably guess which I would prefer...

As to butterflies and zebras:
a. that's my favorite fucking song in the whole world. See
this for clarification.
b. butterflies, it's true, are dangerous to a poem. However, when they are being ingested or digested by monkeys they fit the original conceit: that it is a "line" that sticks in one's head. For better or worse. If that's what you want, by all means go there...
c. If you shift slightly and begin thinking of what you'd like to do to a reader, you'll be able to expand this piece, which I think would be neato.

As to this aside from Ange:

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

I am. Sign me up.

Sophie, a butterfly fart tastes like marzipan in aerosol form.

DA, yes:

That is one damn fine sentence.

And Lorencino, I'm not ignoring the piece, but I don't have anything intelligent to say about it yet. Well done, so far, and I'm glad you're getting such detailed feedback.

Friggin love this thread.

bijou

I can't access either lonk in the thread you lonk to because the songs were removed from YouTube. But that's ok because I know we both mean this. The song is the most moving, sexy, soul-stirring blues in the world. Right with you on that.

And yeah we're cool cause I like the part where I get to use the paddle. It's a big old beautiful world.

 

[twelveoone]

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).

and when are you going to thank me for kicking your ass
or would you rather spank me for licking your
ice fog
cotton candy dental floss
AchTung! girrafe in flames

 

[unpredictablebijou]

I can't access either lonk in the thread you lonk to because the songs were removed from YouTube. But that's ok because I know we both mean this. The song is the most moving, sexy, soul-stirring blues in the world. Right with you on that.

And yeah we're cool cause I like the part where I get to use the paddle. It's a big old beautiful world.

It is indeed, my friend.

The one lonk is non-essential. Just a little story. The lonk to the music was important and I thank you for finding it again. I forget that Youtube is a fluid world sometimes. In fact, I've been stymied in the Radio Free Jezebel thread cause they changed the link structure and I'm all at sea now. I'll get a handle on it soon...

DA: the line "we swerved home on black laughter" was worth the price of admission all by itself.

bj

 

[Angeline]

It is indeed, my friend.

The one lonk is non-essential. Just a little story. The lonk to the music was important and I thank you for finding it again. I forget that Youtube is a fluid world sometimes. In fact, I've been stymied in the Radio Free Jezebel thread cause they changed the link structure and I'm all at sea now. I'll get a handle on it soon...

DA: the line "we swerved home on black laughter" was worth the price of admission all by itself.

bj

Funny thing about typos. Some people really flip over others' reaction to them. There's a former poster here who basically got in a snit and left the forum because he wrote something about a "wonton woman," which damnit is a funny typo. People giggled and he pitched a fit. Of course, I'm more of a cream cheese and lonks woman myself.

That YouTube clip is liking watching ghosts from the 60's, isn't it?

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Funny thing about typos. Some people really flip over others' reaction to them. There's a former poster here who basically got in a snit and left the forum because he wrote something about a "wonton woman," which damnit is a funny typo. People giggled and he pitched a fit. Of course, I'm more of a cream cheese and lonks woman myself.

That YouTube clip is liking watching ghosts from the 60's, isn't it?

Her crisp exterior
fairly sizzles in my hand
and I must wonder
as I hold her
what she's full of.

 

[Angeline]

Her crisp exterior
fairly sizzles in my hand
and I must wonder
as I hold her
what she's full of.

Life, shit and jazz in ever-changing order.

 

[Tzara]

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

The real problem with the monkey drinking gasoline is that it is basically the same metaphor (simile? I get these mixed up): Animal something substance. Why, I suppose, I came up with it. As WSO says, easy peasy.

You point out the basic problem, though: tell, not show. I tell a lot. Hey, trained as academic, which is like trained to tell. I fight that, though usually unsuccessfully.

I'm OK with that. It explains why this didn't feel right. (Yes, it is aphorism, or maybe even platitude, and not poetry.) But then you say something really interesting. This: Why write a poem about poem, and not just up and poem?

That is a very interesting statement that I hope to comment on in some other thread, it not being appropriate here.

Thanks and good luck on your continued slammingness.

 

[Tzara]

Good grief man what at you talking about?

My Ego (read: Left Brain) is very dominant. That may be good for my daytime job, but isn't a help for trying to be creative. So, I sometimes try to let Mr. Right Brain (me Id) out. He can be indecorous. Scusi.

I knew you'd hate the butterflies.

I actually have a poem "about" butterflies.

I could probably write one about rainbows, too, but I'd have to think about it.

 

[Tzara]

As to Appoint:

this discussion of poetry about poetry is a valid one.

And one I plan to continue. I think I may wish to disagree with Mr. Ross on this. It could be some age thing, but I think it's not. I think it is a matter of philosophical aesthetics, which will at least make him yawn, if not barf.

But, then, I'm like his Dad's age, and my opines would likely make him barf.

I would be disappointed if they did not, in any case.

What if, rather than instructing or suggesting, you phrased it as if you were simply reporting on your own moment? Something like, but not necessarily exactly like:

I want to fit words
into lines that will stick in your head
like a zebra in marmalade, ...

Now, instead of explaining something to me, you're seducing me. And you can probably guess which I would prefer...

Well, however nice seducing you might be, that still leaves me telling you things. The basic problem is that I am telling.

I think.

Now, I do have things I'd like to tell you, but they ain't 'zactly about poetry. Sorry.

And I know you distrust emoticons, which is why I like to use them in messages to you.

Sorrow fully,

tz.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Well, however nice seducing you might be, that still leaves me telling you things. The basic problem is that I am telling.

I think.

Now, I do have things I'd like to tell you, but they ain't 'zactly about poetry. Sorry.

And I know you distrust emoticons, which is why I like to use them in messages to you.

Sorrow fully,

tz.

Point, multiple points, taken.

Well I guess you'll have to also write a different piece, in which you show me exactly what you'd like your poetry to do to me, in images of the results of your poems. I dunno, like,

This line makes a suspicious noise behind you.
This line makes your fists clench.
This one gives you a terrible headache
and this one immediately heals it.
This line actually grows wings on your back.
If you'd like to remove them, read this line.
This line, read three times aloud, causes imperceptible earthquakes.
This line causes a sensation of pleasure.
Read in conjunction with this line, your sensation is distinctly sexual.
This line's individual syllables make your hips move involuntarily.

and, well, like that.

Poetry about poetry. hm. It's writing about writing, and that seems like a good idea to me because ideally, writers read about the methods and principles of their craft sometimes, in order to learn how to do it better, and so instructional reading should probably be available from a multiplicity of sources. As many as possible, I suspect.

But if you're talking about the question, "is a poem about poetry a poem", I don't know. I have no idea what a poem is. And not to be facetious, but if I'm using words, rather than, say, photographs, I am by definition not showing you; I am telling you. There's a certain level, beyond the elementary "show, don't tell" (okay, instead of "I am sad," try "my tears fall in a similar way to those things that fall in a way that you will feel sad about.") where all of that seems to blur for me anyway. That's why I need someone to actually paint that painting. Or take that photograph. Or whatever. I can't see it. You can't, in fact, see it either. I'm just telling you about it.

Okay, what if you just wrote a poem that was entirely footnotes? Okay, Nabokov almost did it, but still. You could take it all the way and not write the poem at all.

I guess you've got your assignments, anyway.

bj

You use emoticons because you can't dip my pigtails in the inkwell. I understand.

 

[Angeline]

My Ego (read: Left Brain) is very dominant. That may be good for my daytime job, but isn't a help for trying to be creative. So, I sometimes try to let Mr. Right Brain (me Id) out. He can be indecorous. Scusi.

I actually have a poem "about" butterflies.

I could probably write one about rainbows, too, but I'd have to think about it.

Are you sure that poem is about a butterfly? In spite of the title, I have my doubts. And there's that simile in the first line.

But whatever the meaning/subtext/innuendo is, you used the word "butterfly" in an interesting way, one that does not immediately bring to my mind the horrifying images of happy butterflies and 14-year old girls who dot their big loopy i's with hearts. Well, it's a horrifying reference to me unless it's a poem about happy butterflies and etc. Actually that's sort of horrifying to me, too.

But I digress as usual. My point is that "butterfly" has got to be in the top ten list of words (along with "rainbow") that most poets hiss "never use!" But any word can work in the right (i.e., interesting) context. You could use "rainbow" in an unexpected, interesting way; the Stones did.

Not that you disagree. I just got to thinking about it.

And all this writing about writing is metacomposition. It's not easy to do it well, but why not? No subject should be off limits or outside the range of feasibility just like no words should. I just don't think it's a good idea, generally, to limit oneself that way.

But you're right. The only real problem is the telling thing. Is telling always bad? I've trained myself to think that it is in poetry, but how can I argue to be unlimited as to word and subject and not consider that there could be an appropriate way to use telling in a poem? Sigh.

I can make any argument circular. Have I mentioned that I'm a triple Gemini?

 

[champagne1982]

Show Don't Tell

When I watch hummingbird wings
beat frantically at the confinement
of your throat, I know you've swallowed
the nectar of my I-love-yous.
Too soon for magic, the butterflies
will take flight and sex becomes more
than skin pressing together. Sex
becomes poetry that I can show you.

 

[DeepAsleep]

And one I plan to continue. I think I may wish to disagree with Mr. Ross on this. It could be some age thing, but I think it's not. I think it is a matter of philosophical aesthetics, which will at least make him yawn, if not barf.

But, then, I'm like his Dad's age, and my opines would likely make him barf.

I would be disappointed if they did not, in any case.
Well, however nice seducing you might be, that still leaves me telling you things. The basic problem is that I am telling.

I think.

My father and I have had some interesting conversations about ethics. Right and wrong is one of our favorite topics (He's generally right and I'm generally... you get the idea.)

Don't sell me short. I might surprise you.

~R

 

[unpredictablebijou]

I actually have a poem "about" butterflies.

I could probably write one about rainbows, too, but I'd have to think about it.

Lepidopterist
by Tzara©

So like a butterfly,
wings glazed with dew, spread
to dry in early sun.

With my tongue's very tip,
carefully I touch the head.
It flutters, blushes. Plumps.


Ange is right. You're not fooling anyone. Unless there's some obscure tribe that goes round licking hallucinogenic butterflies as a shamanic activity...

Come to think of it, even then you're not fooling anyone.

bj

Nice assonance.​

 

[Tzara]

My father and I have had some interesting conversations about ethics. Right and wrong is one of our favorite topics (He's generally right and I'm generally... you get the idea.)

Don't sell me short. I might surprise you.

~R

You always surprise or, at least, entertain me, which to a jaded oldster of my sensibility is tantamount to the same thing.

Please tell me you wear those really baggy pants that fall off your still skinny hips. I've always wanted to have a son to whom I could complain about his style of dress.




I'd love to complain about your taste in music, but so far you haven't given me much chance. Did you like the Wiggles?

 

[Tathagata]

BUTTERFLY ASLEEP
FOLDED SOFT ON
TEMPLE BELL...
THEN BRONZE GONG RANG
- Buson

Even butterflies can be enlightening

 

[unpredictablebijou]

BUTTERFLY ASLEEP
FOLDED SOFT ON
TEMPLE BELL...
THEN BRONZE GONG RANG
- Buson

Even butterflies can be enlightening

Nice. Very nice.

And Champagne, that is lovely!

See, there ya go. Everyone's wrong, and everyone's right. Simultaneously, all the time.

bj