Not For The Thin-Skinned

[CharleyH]

The risen sun cast a golden glow
over wintered boughs
glistening against the sky.
Magazines lay stacked on the table
cushions sprawl on the sofa
as, pacing the house's confines,
she gazes
between grey vertical blinds
across the manicured lawn.
She sat on the lichen grown
garden seat. Sun warmed,
blood stirred
and with fate decided
she left him.


Okay, I've cut out some extraneous 'stuff'. I hope I haven't lost too much.


The old ending leaves you thinking, the new ending has the answer. I like
the first ending. I think you took some lines out of the first draft
that were damn good. The answer I see is in between the two.

Kindly? It needs work.

 

[champagne1982]

I have used the time concept before in a couple of poems and then the food and fruit metaphor just can't seem to stay away from the sexy scenes. Is it too rambling or scattered? Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this one.

Slide on up this fleshy trail
and move inside.
Push away the barriers
thrown up against feeling
too much.
Not enough to feed
the churning emptiness.

God! Don't deny me
the banquet. I can see
it waiting, scrumptuous
morsels to tickle
my tongue.

Succulent fruit hanging
pendulously from entire
branches brought inside.

Inside again.

Why can't I avoid
mention of where I
need you most;
where I feel you,
I taste you,
I hear you,
I love you?

It seems the universe
was only just begun
when infinity became ours.

Words of forever
were spoken.
And love, always love.
Time counted down
in promises.

Too late, too late.
I cannot make time stand still.
Our hour of eternity
changes meaning
with each promise that we speak.

Yet I would make
them all again.

 

[flyguy69]

My first thought, Carrie, is that it says too much. Strip it down and it will be sexier!

....Slide on up this fleshy trail <-- This phrase...
and move inside. <-- implies this
Push away the barriers <-- This word...
thrown up against feeling <-- includes this
too much
Not enough to feed <-- are the barriers agianst this, as well? Or is something missing here?
the churning emptiness.

God! Don't deny me
the banquet. I can see <-- This word...
it waiting, scrumptuous
morsels to tickle
my tongue.

Succulent fruit hanging
pendulously from entire <-- means all this
branches brought inside.

Inside again.

Why can't I avoid
mention of where I
need you most; <-- The fleshy trail? Not a particularly erotic image, for me.
where I feel you,
I taste you,
I hear you, <-- a remarkable organ!
I love you?

It seems the universe
was only just begun
when infinity became ours. <-- This is awfully new-agey. Are you saying the universe didn't start until you claimed infinity, whatever that is, or that you remember the start of the universe as if it were only yesterday, and here you are, infinite? Either case seems a little self-important.

Words of forever
were spoken.
And love, always love.
Time counted down
in promises.

Too late, too late.
I cannot make time stand still.
Our hour of eternity
changes meaning
with each promise that we speak.

Yet I would make
them all again. <--This is an excellent close

 

[sandspike]

It's the ending right?

You Should Be So Lucky
by sandspike ©

Saturday we did the beach thing
sunny skies above dancing waves,
several times I fought back the tears
overcome by what she gives me

having much more than I deserve
tends to haunt me on brilliant days,
afraid the law of averages
is finally catching up to me

knowing I'll never repay
a debt as dear as this life,

I'll only wish you the same...
to have more than you deserve

I think I drank another wine before it's time. Splitting the last verse, which
was uneven to my ear was wrong. Or, 'a debt as dear as this life' has
no rhythm. The last two lines are weak and don't relate? Anyway. I think
the first two verses were pretty much what I do. What would you do to
this? thanks poetry people

 

[Guest]

I can't say I've been romantic lately since I moved 1300 miles away from my sweetheart, though, I still write. I'm a pretty simple poet and started out rhyming, but I'm still trying to get down this free verse poetry. I hate fragments and I'm a perfectionist when it comes to punctuation, but I know the poem below needs to be broke down. So, please, help me! Rip it apart!

I named the poem "Toxic", but I'm also thinking about "I Know". I could use some advice on this, too. Thanks!

I wake with red puffy eyes,
crave coffee with my sugar,
and my morning cigarette.
It'd be revolting to describe
the chronic cough with phlegm
every day that I live,
and now stricken with
acute bronchitis.

It feels like bones are breaking
in my body, and I know
it's not from aging.
My muscles; tense, tight
overworked, and stressed,
and I know it's my own doing.

The doctor warns about cancer,
emphysema, and a worsened
heart condition, hypoglycemia
that could turn to diabetes,

and I sit in his office
after putting off visits
with overloaded complaints,
fearful of tests,
my sugar mug in hand,
the vile scent of smoke,
and a body now toxic
so he says,
and my only reply is
"I know"

then walk away in tears.

 

[PatCarrington]

I can't say I've been romantic lately since I moved 1300 miles away from my sweetheart, though, I still write. I'm a pretty simple poet and started out rhyming, but I'm still trying to get down this free verse poetry. I hate fragments and I'm a perfectionist when it comes to punctuation, but I know the poem below needs to be broke down. So, please, help me! Rip it apart!

I named the poem "Toxic", but I'm also thinking about "I Know". I could use some advice on this, too. Thanks!

I wake with red puffy eyes,
crave coffee with my sugar,
and my morning cigarette.
It'd be revolting to describe
the chronic cough with phlegm
every day that I live,
and now stricken with
acute bronchitis.

It feels like bones are breaking
in my body, and I know
it's not from aging.
My muscles; tense, tight
overworked, and stressed,
and I know it's my own doing.

The doctor warns about cancer,
emphysema, and a worsened
heart condition, hypoglycemia
that could turn to diabetes,

and I sit in his office
after putting off visits
with overloaded complaints,
fearful of tests,
my sugar mug in hand,
the vile scent of smoke,
and a body now toxic
so he says,
and my only reply is
"I know"

then walk away in tears.

well, saldne, this is a poem where you don't have to worry about the romance in it. and your punctuation is excellent. the only error i see is the semi-colon after muscles. punctuating properly in a poem is not something you need to drop if you feel comfortable about it. i think it becomes a problem only if you are inconsitent with it, and you are not in this poem.

i think this is of higher quality than the poem you entered in the contest. with this and your passion posts, it looks to me like you are trying to take a poetic leap, and i think the results are good – they flow well and are less like line-broken prose than some others of yours I've seen.

this poem is still a bit prosey in spots, but the phrasing is good. and i suggest you try to rely mostly on nouns and verbs to convey meaning; this is a bit too adjective-heavy to read as cleanly as it could, i think.

i think “Toxic” is a good title.



I wake with red puffy eyes, - the double adjective is unnecessary. you should pick one.
crave coffee with my sugar, - “crave” would be a good word to end line 1 with
and my morning cigarette.
It'd be revolting to describe
the chronic cough with phlegm this line could be trimmed down
every day that I live,
and now stricken with
acute bronchitis. the last two lines seem unnecessary. the meaning is there already.

It feels like bones are breaking
in my body, and I know ‘in my body’ is unnecessary
it's not from aging.
My muscles; tense, tight
overworked, and stressed, again, too many adjectives.
and I know it's my own doing.

The doctor warns about cancer, I think this whole stanza is not needed (except the “doctor warns” – how does it help move the poem along? – and it will all be surmised by the reader if the rest of the poem is right.
emphysema, and a worsened
heart condition, hypoglycemia
that could turn to diabetes,

and I sit in his office this last stanza is good, needs only minor tinkering.
after putting off visits
with overloaded complaints,
fearful of tests,
my sugar mug in hand,
the vile scent of smoke,
and a body now toxic
so he says,
and my only reply is
"I know"

then walk away in tears. it seems it would be more effective to end with “I know” and leave this to the reader. what is “unsaid” is as important as what is, and this line just says too obvious a thing, imo.

it could use some more eye-catching lines – which I won’t attempt in the trimming below. that’s up to you. but i think this signals a step to a higher level in your attempt to move from rhyme to free verse.

good luck with the rewrite.


I wake with red eyes, crave
coffee with my sugar
and morning cough. It feels

like my bones are breaking
and I know it's not age.
Muscles tense, overworked. I think this line should refer to some illness that’s “your own doing”
It’s all my own doing.

The doctor warned, and now
and I sit in his office
after putting off visits.
Overloaded with complaints,
fearful of tests.
My sugar mug in hand,
the vile scent of smoke
on a body now toxic.

He speaks, and my only reply
is "I know."

 

[Guest]

I wake with red puffy eyes, - the double adjective is unnecessary. you should pick one.
crave coffee with my sugar, - “crave” would be a good word to end line 1 with
and my morning cigarette.
It'd be revolting to describe
the chronic cough with phlegm this line could be trimmed down
every day that I live,
and now stricken with
acute bronchitis. the last two lines seem unnecessary. the meaning is there already.
(Okay, this is something to think about. I really want to get the message out there about smoking, and what it could do to you. But this is a good suggestion.)

It feels like bones are breaking
in my body, and I know ‘in my body’ is unnecessary
it's not from aging.
My muscles; tense, tight
overworked, and stressed, again, too many adjectives.
and I know it's my own doing.
(Ahhh! I was debating that darn line last night. I took it out several times and put it back in. I'm definitely going to take out "In my body". I needed another opinion. Kool!)

The doctor warns about cancer, I think this whole stanza is not needed (except the “doctor warns” – how does it help move the poem along? – and it will all be surmised by the reader if the rest of the poem is right.
emphysema, and a worsened
heart condition, hypoglycemia
that could turn to diabetes,
eek: I don't know how I could take this out without doing a complete rewrite) This was supposed to lead to doctors, some fears, etc. Thinks.....)

and I sit in his office this last stanza is good, needs only minor tinkering.
after putting off visits
with overloaded complaints,
fearful of tests,
my sugar mug in hand,
the vile scent of smoke,
and a body now toxic
so he says,
and my only reply is
"I know"

then walk away in tears. it seems it would be more effective to end with “I know” and leave this to the reader. what is “unsaid” is as important as what is, and this line just says too obvious a thing, imo.
Okay, this is something to think about. Someone had told me they didn't feel any emotion in this piece because they had missed that last line. The person does cry when she finally gets to the doc after putting it off, but rarely will she do anything he says. I'd like to end it quick like that because I agree: it makes the reader think.)

it could use some more eye-catching lines – which I won’t attempt in the trimming below. that’s up to you. but i think this signals a step to a higher level in your attempt to move from rhyme to free verse. Ah great! I think I stopped about 10 months ago. Every now and then I like to throw in some occasional rhymes in my free verse still.)

good luck with the rewrite. Thank you!


I wake with red eyes, crave
coffee with my sugar
and morning cough. It feels
I have to play with this a little. It sounds like I'm craving that morning cough. I'm sure with some rewording, it would sound a lot better. I do like how you ended the line with "crave".

like my bones are breaking
and I know it's not age.
Muscles tense, overworked. I think this line should refer to some illness that’s “your own doing”
It’s all my own doing.
Good suggestion.

The doctor warned, and now
and I sit in his office I'll play with this. I've got to take out the "and"
after putting off visits.
Overloaded with complaints,
fearful of tests. I growl at fragments, LOL!
My sugar mug in hand,
the vile scent of smoke
on a body now toxic. in or on a body...I like this.

He speaks, and my only reply More like screams. LOL!
is "I know."

Thanks bunches, Pat. I appreciate you taking the time to look this over. I'ma gonna go play now.



P.S.If this is better than my contest entry then I'm in big trouble. *grumbles under breath* I can take it. *slaps self*

 

[Guest]

I wake to red eyes, pale face, crave
coffee with my sugar, and my
morning cigarette. It'd be revolting
to describe the chronic cough
with phlegm every day that I live.

It feels like bones are breaking
and I know it's not from aging.
My muscles, tense, overworked,
chest hurts from acute bronchitis,
and I know it's my own doing.

The doctor warned about cancer,
emphysema, a worsened
heart condition, and my low
sugar count that could turn
the opposite, and I sit (I shortened this, so I think.)

in his office after putting off visits
with overloaded complaints,
fearful of tests, my sugar mug in hand
with the vile scent of smoke
on a body filled with toxins.

He repeats the same drill, (I don't know if I like this.)
and all I can say is
"I know"

then walk away in tears

I seem to write my poetry somewhat story-like. This is a very hard thing to change. Here, there are fragments, and I hate them. It may not be obvious, but it drives me nuts! I changed the structure. I wanted to keep to 5 lines per stanza until the end. What do you think? Should I still take out the cancer stanza? Ahhh!!

I would love to hear from other poets and writers. Luv2 get your ass in here, and tell me what you think, damn it! You're an excellent writer, too! Stop writing me mushy, lovey dovey poetry, and rip this up, would ya?

 

[Tzara]

I have a "poem" here, citizens, for critique. It is, as yet, quite young as poems go. The quick-witted among you will notice that it was perhaps written for the "Wasted" challenge (the title is one clue) and you would be right. However, feeling bipolar about it (does it have promise or is it mere sophomoric crap?), I thought I'd dump it on the Colosseum sands, cry "havoc" and let slip the dogs of war. If it's to be consigned to the campfire, I would rather break out the marshmallows earlier rather than later.

And yes, Patrick, if you're wondering, that means I am still terrified of free verse, your clever apologies for same nonwithstanding.

Yikes.

Here 'tis:

Wasted

for Chet Baker, in excess Deo

When he was young, he was something.

A beautiful boy, frankly.
Rimbaud or Tadzio
in a sharkskin jacket, delicate
under the lights as a
Faberge egg. His trumpet daintily
spitting little dabs of sound,
setting colors in the air that
he smeared like an Impressionist painter—
one of the minor ones. A Pissarro
to Miles’ Monet. Not quite perfect
but close enough to hang
on the museum wall, daddy.

And then that voice, that voice.

You ever hear someone
who couldn’t sing, but could?
Well, that was Chet.
Like there towards the
end of Valentine—
his voice
running up,
demi semi
quavering
all about the pitch,
straining
lunging
to just
hit
then
promptly
slip
desperately on towards the next note,
wobbling and under controlled;
just a novice on a unicycle.
A voice as earnest, as brave,
as ingenuous and innocent as that
of a seraph in the shower.

Purity was never more pure.

But then the picture in the
attic began to bubble and peel
and the dream turned all wrong.
Horse and coke and too many trumpets:
hocked, redeemed, hocked and hocked
again. The gyre spiraled outward
and he shuffled along, barely ahead
of what personal beast pursued.

Later, the dope
leached away his emotion. His
trumpet line, always lazy, kept
a certain narcoleptic charm, but
the voice thinned evanescent.
Listening to him sing then was
like listening to the dead
whispering in their tombs.

Finally, he pitched out the window
in Amsterdam like an old newspaper
smack to street, skull cracked,
the end. And so
good night to you,
sweet decayed prince.

It seems all such waste, that life,

body

wasted away those last years,
wasted by the drugs;
wasted life,
wasted talent—
wasted, wasted,
wasted.

Ah, but when he was young…

Oh, hell.
Let’s get lost.


Edited to correct the fact that, pissingly, I couldn't spell "Pissarro."
Check your Googling for validity of source, folks!

 

[*Catbabe*]

Wasted

for Chet Baker, in excess Deo

When he was young, he was something.

A beautiful boy, frankly.
Rimbaud or Tadzio
in a sharkskin jacket, delicate
under the lights as a
Faberge egg. His trumpet daintily
spitting little dabs of sound,
setting colors in the air that
he smeared like an Impressionist painter—
one of the minor ones. A Pissarro
to Miles’ Monet. Not quite perfect
but close enough to hang
on the museum wall, daddy.

-I think the first two lines are not both necessary for the poem. I would cut the second line because I think the first says things in a more interesting way. I dislike the word ‘beautiful’ even if it’s used to describe how others viewed him . It doesn’t measure up to the rest of the language in the poem.

- “…in a sharkskin jacket, delicate
under the lights as a
Faberge egg.” Love that, killer image.

-Can a trumpet be dainty? I know you are trying to link it with the egg image but it made me pause as a reader and I didn’t fully buy the connection. I am admittedly not a trumpet expert and I do know that they can sound soft and muffled but dainty still didn’t seem right to me

-I don’t think you need the ‘that’ after air or the ‘he’ before smeared. I would put a comma after air and maybe move smeared up a line because it’s a great word to end the line.


And then that voice, that voice.

You ever hear someone
who couldn’t sing, but could?
Well, that was Chet.
Like there towards the
end of Valentine—
his voice
running up,
demi semi
quavering
all about the pitch,
straining
lunging
to just
hit
then
promptly
slip
desperately on towards the next note,
wobbling and under controlled;
just a novice on a unicycle.
A voice as earnest, as brave,
as ingenuous and innocent as that
of a seraph in the shower.

-I thought the line breaks in this passage worked until the ‘then’ that stands alone. I don’t think that word can hold a line on its own. I think the poem would work equally well if you moved those words into more traditional line breaks with proper punctuation to make the reader pause where you wanted them to.
-I would replace the semi-colon after controlled with a comma and cut the word ‘just’ because it isn’t necessary.
-I understand that you are ‘listing’ on purpose but I think you could pick the strongest three of those four words and not lose anything but perhaps gain something in the internal movement of the poem.

Purity was never more pure.

But then the picture in the
attic began to bubble and peel
and the dream turned all wrong.
Horse and coke and too many trumpets:
hocked, redeemed, hocked and hocked
again. The gyre spiraled outward
and he shuffled along, barely ahead
of what personal beast pursued.

-do you need the word ‘then’ after but in the first line?
-I think this passage needs some tightening. I obviously have a ‘thing’ against semi-colons because I didn’t like this one either. I don’t think the third ‘hocked’ adds anything to the section.
-I don’t think the last three lines of this stanza match the rest of the poem so far in terms of the language and imagery being fresh and interesting. I particularly think ‘personal beast’ is an overused image.


Later, the dope
leached away his emotion. His
trumpet line, always lazy, kept
a certain narcoleptic charm, but
the voice thinned evanescent.
Listening to him sing then was
like listening to the dead
whispering in their tombs.

-I would move ‘leached’ up to end the first line. Have you thought about juxtaposing your earlier stanza that referenced colours to this time in his life when the colour was obviously gone? I thought that might be a way to continue your metaphor.
-“ narcoleptic charm” I love that image.
- For some reason my ear would rather hear, “the voice thinned to evanescence.”
-I don’t think you need the ‘then’ after sing and if you take it out I would move the ‘was’ down a line.
-“ listening to the dead
whispering in their tombs.” Good line.

Finally, he pitched out the window
in Amsterdam like an old newspaper
smack to street, skull cracked,
the end. And so
good night to you,
sweet decayed prince.

-does it matter where he went out the window?
-is the image of a newspaper consistent with smacking the street? Maybe it’s just because I live in a small town but our newspaper would fall apart, blow away scatter to the street but it probably wouldn’t smack. However, having said that, I like the image of him being thrown out the window like the old newspaper so I guess I just take issue with word smacked.

It seems all such waste, that life,

body

wasted away those last years,
wasted by the drugs;
wasted life,
wasted talent—
wasted, wasted,
wasted.

Ah, but when he was young…

Oh, hell.
Let’s get lost.

- I would probably fool around with line breaks in the last section of the poem but that would be mainly a reflection of my style so I will leave them be.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, if they aren’t clear just ask me and I will try to explain my thinking. I liked the poem and I don’t think it is campfire material but can I still have a marshmallow?

Cat

 

[Tzara]

Anyway, those are my thoughts, if they aren’t clear just ask me and I will try to explain my thinking. I liked the poem and I don’t think it is campfire material but can I still have a marshmallow?

My dear Ms. Cat:

I will happily build you a s'more: graham cracker, Hershey bar and, yes, marshmallow and we can pleasantly roast them over the flames of the extraneous words you have helped cut out of my poem.

You are absolutely correct in almost all of your comments. (You're probably correct in all of your comments, but I enjoy being tempermental and mulish. I don't know your time zone, eh, and it's late here, so I will respond tomorrow in more detail, assuming I don't have to do something like actually earn a living. )

Thank you for your, as usual, perceptive comments. I would offer my first-born, but he's (she's?) a turtle.

Wait--that sounds scary and is not quite right.

Oh, close enough. Deal with it.

Merci beaucoup,

tz

 

[Senna Jawa]

Pat, you have populated, even crowded, your poem "His Dresden Boots" with a gray army of pronouns. Until you do something about it I am not able to truly read your piece. Well, I did enough to see that the text has potential, that it is worthwhile to edit it.

You have a pronoun even in the title. I suspect that "Dresden Boots" would be a much better title.

Observe that in general each time a pronoun is used a chance for poetry is probably missed. Use synonyms, metaphors, alternate descriptions... have images, associations... let poetry happen. Poetry has hardly any use for pronouns.

Best regards,

 

[PatCarrington]

Pat, you have populated, even crowded, your poem "His Dresden Boots" with a gray army of pronouns. Until you do something about it I am not able to truly read your piece. Well, I did enough to see that the text has potential, that it is worthwhile to edit it.

You have a pronoun even in the title. I suspect that "Dresden Boots" would be a much better title.

Observe that in general each time a pronoun is used a chance for poetry is probably missed. Use synonyms, metaphors, alternate descriptions... have images, associations... let poetry happen. Poetry has hardly any use for pronouns.

Best regards,

SJ,

thanks for the read and thoughts.

i know where you're coming from. at one time, i felt almost that way about prononuns also, but i have come to believe that it is simply not true. and strongly so. though i do believe it is also possible to write very good poetry without them as well.

though i think that no piece of poetry is ever truly finished, this particular one has recently found an outside home, DMQ Review , so i've put it to bed, at least for a while. neither its acceptance nor my decision to leave it be for now is final affirmation that it's done, or even good. but at the moment, i see nothing i can do to it that i feel would improve the quality of the poem.

i'm sure i'll dig it out to mull over one of these days, and i'm sure i'll feel differently in one way or another than i do at present. right now, i have 'unminimalized' my writing, and it seems to be working...for me.

i've had that pronoun debate with many other writers of poetry. i'm sure it will never be resolved to the satisfaction of all, and probably shouldn't be. if everyone agreed, writing would be a science, not an art.

 

[*Catbabe*]

You want to keep 'daintily' don't you?

I will take the s'more and the turtle too because I currently only have frogs in my gardens. You must have made guinness when you gave birth to him/her and I hope for your sake, your youngster was not of the snapping variety.

-de rien, Monsieur Tz

My dear Ms. Cat:

I will happily build you a s'more: graham cracker, Hershey bar and, yes, marshmallow and we can pleasantly roast them over the flames of the extraneous words you have helped cut out of my poem.

You are absolutely correct in almost all of your comments. (You're probably correct in all of your comments, but I enjoy being tempermental and mulish. I don't know your time zone, eh, and it's late here, so I will respond tomorrow in more detail, assuming I don't have to do something like actually earn a living. )

Thank you for your, as usual, perceptive comments. I would offer my first-born, but he's (she's?) a turtle.

Wait--that sounds scary and is not quite right.

Oh, close enough. Deal with it.

Merci beaucoup,

tz

 

[Tzara]

-I think the first two lines are not both necessary for the poem. I would cut the second line because I think the first says things in a more interesting way. I dislike the word ‘beautiful’ even if it’s used to describe how others viewed him . It doesn’t measure up to the rest of the language in the poem.

Actually, I think an even stronger reason to get rid of the line is that the next line--specifically the "Tadzio"--says the same thing.

- “…in a sharkskin jacket, delicate
under the lights as a
Faberge egg.” Love that, killer image.

-Can a trumpet be dainty? I know you are trying to link it with the egg image but it made me pause as a reader and I didn’t fully buy the connection. I am admittedly not a trumpet expert and I do know that they can sound soft and muffled but dainty still didn’t seem right to me

I think Chet's trumpet style does sound a bit dainty, particularly compared to someone like Lee Morgan or Maynard Ferguson. But I put the word there to try and soften "spitting" and make is mesh better with "delicate." What I should have been doing was thinking of a better verb. "Spitting" doesn't work anyway, as painters don't spit paint onto canvas. (Well, some of the younger ones may, but I don't want to know about it if they do.) I may try something like "dabbing" or "daubing" instead.

-I don’t think you need the ‘that’ after air or the ‘he’ before smeared. I would put a comma after air and maybe move smeared up a line because it’s a great word to end the line.

That's an interesting suggestion. It detracts a little, I think, from the image of the trumpeter actively smearing the sounds around, but I'll think about that.

-I thought the line breaks in this passage worked until the ‘then’ that stands alone. I don’t think that word can hold a line on its own. I think the poem would work equally well if you moved those words into more traditional line breaks with proper punctuation to make the reader pause where you wanted them to.

Well, as you can probably tell, I'm experimenting with trying to evoke the rise-touch-fall that his voice sounds like. That's another good suggestion and, yes, I may scrap this whole way of trying to evoke the effect.

-I would replace the semi-colon after controlled with a comma and cut the word ‘just’ because it isn’t necessary.

Actually the break there was originally a dash and "just" wasn't there. I put them in because I thought the sentence was running on too long. I may just take out the "unicycle" line altogether.

-I understand that you are ‘listing’ on purpose but I think you could pick the strongest three of those four words and not lose anything but perhaps gain something in the internal movement of the poem.

I assume this remark refers to "...as earnest, as brave..." etc. I kind of felt there were too many words here too. I may cut it to two.

-do you need the word ‘then’ after but in the first line?

Of course not. I put this strophe in after the following one and was thinking about time and that things went wrong for Chet later in his career. I just need a better way of saying that.

-I think this passage needs some tightening. I obviously have a ‘thing’ against semi-colons because I didn’t like this one either. I don’t think the third ‘hocked’ adds anything to the section.

It's a colon, not a semi-colon, but that is actually a punctuation mark I don't have much feeling for. I tend to (mis)use dashes instead. The third "hocked" is there for rhythm, but the rhythm isn't bad if it reads "hocked, redeemed, hocked again" and it makes more sense.

-I don’t think the last three lines of this stanza match the rest of the poem so far in terms of the language and imagery being fresh and interesting. I particularly think ‘personal beast’ is an overused image.

It's supposed to be an allusion to Yeats' "The Second Coming" although to make that more clear, I should have had Chet "slouching" along rather than "shuffling" and have him pursued by a "rough" beast rather than a "personal" one. One of the problems with the poem (one of the reasons I sometimes feel it's sophomoric) is that there are too many allusions/references in it. I'll comment on that later.

-I would move ‘leached’ up to end the first line. Have you thought about juxtaposing your earlier stanza that referenced colours to this time in his life when the colour was obviously gone? I thought that might be a way to continue your metaphor.

Another interesting idea. I'll think about that.

-“ narcoleptic charm” I love that image.
- For some reason my ear would rather hear, “the voice thinned to evanescence.”

I tried that at one time too. I'm not sure either completely works for me. I'm also fretting that "thinned" and "evanescent" are at least partially redundant. Semantically evanescent/evanescence is just right, but the word may not fit rhythmically. (Memo to self--don't get married to particular words.)

-I don’t think you need the ‘then’ after sing and if you take it out I would move the ‘was’ down a line.

Yes.

-“ listening to the dead
whispering in their tombs.” Good line.
-does it matter where he went out the window?

No. It just happened to be in Amsterdam. You're correct in that that adds nothing to what I'm trying to say.

-is the image of a newspaper consistent with smacking the street? Maybe it’s just because I live in a small town but our newspaper would fall apart, blow away scatter to the street but it probably wouldn’t smack. However, having said that, I like the image of him being thrown out the window like the old newspaper so I guess I just take issue with word smacked.

Ours certainly smacks when it hits our front porch at 5AM. Wakes me up half the time. I put it there both for the onomatopoeia and to try and reinforce the theme of heroin destroying his life.

-I would probably fool around with line breaks in the last section of the poem but that would be mainly a reflection of my style so I will leave them be.

I need to work on this section anyway because while I like the sound of it, the semantics are banal.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, if they aren’t clear just ask me and I will try to explain my thinking. I liked the poem and I don’t think it is campfire material but can I still have a marshmallow?

I mentioned above the problem with allusion. I'm dropping in ready-made images right and left in this one (Death in Venice, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Hamlet, the Yeats poem I mentioned earlier, Rimbaud, Pissarro, Monet), which is lazy writing and explains why some of the images sound stale. I need to go back and re-work these.

I also see that I have a full platoon of the "gray army of pronouns" here, including two advance scouts in the first line, and I want to think about that as well, even though SJ's comment wasn't directed at me.

Thank you again for the scan, Cat. This one's heading back to the Poetry Garage for yet another rebuild.

tz

 

[*Catbabe*]

Ooops, sorry about that. I am either blind or perpetually in a rush or both. My comment stands the same. I don't think the use of either one ever adds much to a poem.

For what it's worth, I don't agree with SJ's defintion of poetry as being pronoun-free. That is one style of poetry, but it is not necessarily a defintion or the 'one way' to write. That's his opinion and it is one many share with him. You will also find just as many well-known published poets who don't agree with him.

It's a colon, not a semi-colon, ...


tz

 

[Tzara]

Ooops, sorry about that. I am either blind or perpetually in a rush or both. My comment stands the same. I don't think the use of either one ever adds much to a poem.

For what it's worth, I don't agree with SJ's defintion of poetry as being pronoun-free. That is one style of poetry, but it is not necessarily a defintion or the 'one way' to write. That's his opinion and it is one many share with him. You will also find just as many well-known published poets who don't agree with him.

I tend to use semi-colons way too much and colons not enough--at least when writing prose. You're right that they seem out of place in a poem. I'm still uncertain about how grammatically loose I can be (incomplete sentences, etc.).

I don't agree with SJ's comments either, but it gave me another thing to think about and I want to look around to see if I'm being lazy and using pronouns where another word would be better.

He's hers,
She's his.
They're ours--
What gives?

Oh, I forgot. You don't like things that end in a question.

 

[tolyk]

I would like to have my Same Title challenge "Wasted" ripped apart, have at it. (All I ask is that you are informative, I don't care how blunt you are or how cruel you might think you are sounding. Best way to learn, harsh criticism.)



We started off grand;
love was all around.
Then things began to settle,
become routine.
Passion faded and the true tests began.

Together we stood through
Years of hardships;
Hours spent just talking
through our troubles.

Only the happy memories
held us together

Memories faded away
left with brutal reality
nothing remained

Reconcile? we ask.
Reconcile what?
Nothing's left, it all washed away

Why must it have all been
wasted?

 

[*Catbabe*]

We started off grand;
love was all around.
Then things began to settle,
become routine.
Passion faded and the true tests began.

-grand is a vague, impersonal and uninteresting word. I would rather you choose a specific moment that depicted this ‘grand’ state
-what does love look like when it’s ‘all around”?
-again, what ‘things’ and how did they settle?
-passion is an overused word and ‘passion faded’ is a cliché, as is ‘true test’
*the problems I mention here run through the rest of the poem

Together we stood through
Years of hardships;
Hours spent just talking
through our troubles.

Only the happy memories
held us together

Memories faded away
left with brutal reality
nothing remained

Reconcile? we ask.
Reconcile what?
Nothing's left, it all washed away

Why must it have all been
wasted?


In my opinion, what you have here are some short lines that depict emotion and describe the end of a relationship. The story is stated overtly from start to finish and you do not use any poetic devices to deliver it, except a couple of clichés. Poems are not journal entries or stories cut into short lines.

I think if you want to move forward, you should start to define in your mind what you want the reader to see after reading a line in your poem. Readers don’t want to scan over language and expressions they have seen a thousand times. We want to be stopped by images that make us think and experience the writing. We want images that speak to us in a personal and direct way. We want to see your vision, which means that care needs to be taken with each word you choose, just as a painter would carefully mix his/her colours.

People may be touched by the emotion behind your words, but it’s not because they are necessarily poetic. I think that’s a difference you need to understand before you can make your poem stronger.

I quickly added the poem below to hopefully illustrate a little of what I mean. Even if you don’t read the whole poem, look at the first two stanzas. In the first one, he states exactly what he is doing-nothing special. Look at how he shapes our vision with the second stanza and makes you think. He has taken control of your eyes and your mind with those words. I am not saying this poem is amazing, but those two stanzas illustrate the difference between simply telling a story/expressing emotion in short lines and then calling it poetry and the real thing.




Japan

Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

It's the one about the one-ton
temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

--Billy Collins

I would like to have my Same Title challenge "Wasted" ripped apart, have at it. (All I ask is that you are informative, I don't care how blunt you are or how cruel you might think you are sounding. Best way to learn, harsh criticism.)



We started off grand;
love was all around.
Then things began to settle,
become routine.
Passion faded and the true tests began.

Together we stood through
Years of hardships;
Hours spent just talking
through our troubles.

Only the happy memories
held us together

Memories faded away
left with brutal reality
nothing remained

Reconcile? we ask.
Reconcile what?
Nothing's left, it all washed away

Why must it have all been
wasted?

 

[Tzara]

I would like to have my Same Title challenge "Wasted" ripped apart, have at it.

Hi, Tolyk. <--Blip, the bland destructor of ego says hello!

(I have an almost overriding presentiment that I'm about to insert one or both of my size ten Nike's in my mouth here, but let me forge intrepidly ahead.)

"Ripped" sounds a bit harsh. Let me try "probed." I am learning to comment on poetry at least as much as I am learning to write it, so feel free to feed these comments to your crosscut shredder--not that I need to worry about identity theft on them. I am not exactly Leslie Fiedler, God rest his cranky soul.

Ms. Cat, who is a very good poet, has already discussed a number of things about your poem. I want to look at a single line:

Then things began to settle,

If you toss out the connective tissue ("then," "began,", "to"), you're left with two words: things and settle.

Let's start with things. What does a "thing" look like? Smell like? Sound like? How much space does it take up? Is it big, small, or medium sized? In short, what the hell does it say?

Is it, in fact, a word that says anything?

Oh.

I hope you agree that no, it doesn't.

Thing is a non-word, a very generic word--it basically doesn't add anything (ooh, buried thing, there) to the imagery of the poem. It evokes nothing (yikes! thing again!) in the reader. It is merely a placeholder for a real and concrete word--a word that gives the reader some actual purchase on what you actually do want to say.

Settle, on the other hand has some potential.

Settle at least potentially has some concrete imagery associated with it. For example, say that you started out by likening your love to a new house:

Our love was a trim new house

You could then (after maybe talking about how the colors were bright and the appliances were new and shiny and everything worked really well) recast the line in question as something like

after some time of living
the foundation began to settle,
cracks appeared in the plaster
and the walls were no longer plumb.

I don't mean to hold this up as an example of sterling imagery, but it likens the deterioration of the relationship to something visual and concrete. Houses, like relationships, age. They may very well survive (my house was built in 1929 and, yep, the walls ain't true and there are cracks everwhere), but the feeling of things is different. A relationship may or may not survive this "settling" (in your poem, it doesn't sound like the one in question did), but the image helps present that to the reader in a way that is more than just telling them "we we're happy, then we got bored, then it ended."

Well. Pay or do not pay any attention to this. Like I said at the start, I don't know what I'm doing. But, hey, I do know this: Writing is hard, man. I'm sure the incomparable Billy Yeats was still kicking himself over some of hizzown lunkheaded lines when he passed into the great beyond. And he was a stone genius.

Peace out.

 

[SeattleRain]

Hey Tzara,

I did not read the other comments, so I apologize in advance for any duplications.

Overall, some catching descriptions, memorable-- the one with the newspaper thrown to the sidewalk, never heard anything like that line before. Good show.
"narcoleptic charm" damn that is a good one

My biggest nit on this is that for my taste, it gets a bit preachy. I am a firm believer in telling a story and letting the reader decide what is a waste, to be inspired to write their own public service announcement after reading a poem instead of having one embedded in the poem.

Cool connection to the arts, but I when I think of jazz I think of abstract art--picasso. I will have to do a bit of reflection on this one.... hmm I guess I can picture Pissaro bop bop boppin his brush to canvass while listening to Chet...

My desire when reading this poem was for the words to smack out a rhythm the approached a jazz tune, like you are doing in that one section where your lines are broken short. Were you listening to Chet when you wrote this?

Maybe read it out loud, or certain lines over and over while listening, see how the rhythm goes, play with it a bit.

I want to go through line by line. I am not sure how nitty pickety you want, but those are my main observations.

You are a damn good writer, thanks for sharing.

SR


Wasted

for Chet Baker, in excess Deo

When he was young, he was something.

A beautiful boy, frankly.
Rimbaud or Tadzio
in a sharkskin jacket, (question, who is in the sharkskin jacket, Baker or Tadzio)delicate
under the lights as a
Faberge egg. His trumpet daintily
spitting little dabs of sound,
setting colors in the air that
he smeared like an Impressionist painter—
one of the minor ones. A Pissarro
to Miles’ Monet. Not quite perfect
but close enough to hang
on the museum wall, daddy.

And then that voice, that voice.

You ever hear someone
who couldn’t sing, but could?
Well, that was Chet.
Like there towards the
end of Valentine—
his voice
running up,
demi semi
quavering
all about the pitch,
straining
lunging
to just
hit
then
promptly
slip
desperately on towards the next note,
wobbling and under controlled;
just a novice on a unicycle.
A voice as earnest, as brave,
as ingenuous and innocent as that
of a seraph in the shower.

Purity was never more pure.

But then the picture in the
attic began to bubble and peel
and the dream turned all wrong.
Horse and coke and too many trumpets:
hocked, redeemed, hocked and hocked
again. The gyre spiraled outward
and he shuffled along, barely ahead
of what personal beast pursued.

Later, the dope
leached away his emotion. His
trumpet line, always lazy, kept
a certain narcoleptic charm, but
the voice thinned evanescent.
Listening to him sing then was
like listening to the dead
whispering in their tombs.

Finally, he pitched out the window
in Amsterdam like an old newspaper
smack to street, skull cracked,
the end. And so
good night to you,
sweet decayed prince.

It seems all such waste, that life,

body

wasted away those last years,
wasted by the drugs;
wasted life,
wasted talent—
wasted, wasted,
wasted.

Ah, but when he was young…

Oh, hell.
Let’s get lost.

 

[Tzara]

My biggest nit on this is that for my taste, it gets a bit preachy. I am a firm believer in telling a story and letting the reader decide what is a waste, to be inspired to write their own public service announcement after reading a poem instead of having one embedded in the poem.

You're probably right about that. This poem started out as a "perfect 10" post that I rather liked. I had been thinking about trying to expand it into something longer when the "Wasted" challenge went up. So I started working on twisting some of the ideas I had for a longer Chet poem into something that would work for the challenge. I wasn't happy with the result, so I ended up doing something else for the challenge. The "preachiness" is mostly infrastructure that was left around from that and will very possibly just go away.

Cool connection to the arts, but I when I think of jazz I think of abstract art--picasso. I will have to do a bit of reflection on this one.... hmm I guess I can picture Pissaro bop bop boppin his brush to canvass while listening to Chet...

I would liken different jazz artists to different painters. The Modern Jazz Quartet, for example, is very cool and controlled, so might make me think of later Mondrian. Coltrane's later recordings sound like Jackson Pollock--huge energy flying around all over the place. I hear Chet's trumpet style as understated and "smeary," which made me think of Impressionism. The Monet and Pissarro line is probably coming out, though.

My desire when reading this poem was for the words to smack out a rhythm the approached a jazz tune, like you are doing in that one section where your lines are broken short. Were you listening to Chet when you wrote this?

I was when I was writing the original 10 word version, and did play different recordings at times I was working on this. The rhythm of the latter part of the poem is meant to evoke his physical deterioration--basically to shift from a kind of exuberance to a tired finality and then wink out. I'm experimenting. Some experiments work, some don't.

I want to go through line by line. I am not sure how nitty pickety you want, but those are my main observations.

The nittier and pickier, the better. I'm trying a whole lot of different things in this one that are uncomfortable for me and it is difficult to decide what I think works and what I think doesn't.

You are a damn good writer, thanks for sharing.

My, but you know how to get a guy excited. A swelled head is almost as pleasant as a swelled, ah, um, well, you know.

Thank you for the comments. They are very helpful.

You are a wonder, woman.

tz

 

[wildsweetone]

trying something... a little different


It’s an odd wind, the westerly
that blows down from the top
of the street. Sometimes a sharp
mint-vinegared scent
slips along the seal. Sometimes
roast dinners float
along the breeze, beguile
the mind and tempt the taste buds
into red alert mode flooding
the mouth with saliva.
But this time, my green eyes
spy the neighbour’s silky bantam
hiding under the shrubbery.

 

[Tzara]

Preliminary comment

trying something... a little different


It’s an odd wind, the westerly
that blows down from the top
of the street. Sometimes a sharp
mint-vinegared scent
slips along the seal. Sometimes
roast dinners float
along the breeze, beguile
the mind and tempt the taste buds
into red alert mode flooding
the mouth with saliva.
But this time, my green eyes
spy the neighbour’s silky bantam
hiding under the shrubbery.

!!

My first impression is that this is very good.

I do need to think before commenting, though. Just wanted to put a placeholder here and indicate that I had in fact read it.

I'll be back.

 

[wildsweetone]

no rush Tzara, thank you