Jepsen on 4/3/2011 at 14:15
Flip Turn
Always clumsy, the way
inertia pulls my head forward,
down, as legs
flail above, feet
fumbling the wall
to plant, press and push –
untrained,
that first
right-arm pull
and rushed,
the quaff
of air to follow –
how awkward, this
afternoon dance
with myself:
Again
and again,
catching up to rhythm
only seconds before
impact
with the next wall –
a sloshing form
of too dense
mammalian limbs
that knows better,
yet still pretends
it’s all otherwise.
Tocky on 5/3/2011 at 03:14
I try to catch The Writers Almanac on NPR as often as I can. I've told my wife I want Garrison Keiller to do my eulogy if I go first because he could make even a reprobate like me sound like a right nice fellow. Anyway here is my contribution:
Spring peeks out the window
melted prints on frosted glass
barren nests of sticks and grass
bones of trees claw winter skies
radio man tells the usual lies
wind sweeps warmth into a crack
as all turn in or turn a back
another days unwanted ticks
empty hatfulls of ruined tricks
soggy socks and frozen locks
and clocks and clocks and clocks and clocks
till I pull into the drive
and see your face and come alive
I always sound like a cross between Dr. Seuss and Robert Frost with a little Slingblade poet DOT DOT DOT thrown in. I was trying to describe the feeling at the end of the day just before I pull into the drive in the dying light of winter. A poor effort but she liked it and that is my favorite audience.
theBlackman on 5/3/2011 at 03:48
Tocky better to be a reprobate than a remittance man. Nice poem there. And she should appreciate you. We do and we're not that close. :thumb:
Vivian on 6/3/2011 at 20:16
I write poems about action films. Heres one about Aliens:
Now that baby's beds have all been made
in the sallow hearts of us poor saps
what will occupy your time?
The warehouse lights
that ground out our headaches
blink out, one by one
the rips and scuffs you made with your imperious scurrying
will remain unrepaired, unpainted.
Will you be handymen?
I've seen you stare dumbfounded
at the controls of a microwave oven.
you seem offended by our tracksuits, our clipboards, our spanners and torches, our saturday night underwear.
the tack and circumstance of a framed spelling certificate is lost on you. What will you do?
the hours tick off these tedious metal walls
you listlessly fondle a pogo stick
and grind your impressive teeth
on my least favorite mug
...
maybe you could learn the piano?
Queue on 6/3/2011 at 22:10
Quote Posted by theBlackman
The good lord decided that the world would have a few assholes scattered around in it. It's no surprise to see that one of them posting on TTLG.
Well
someone has to give you something to over-react about.
Quote Posted by Sg3
I didn't write the line. But, technically, either one could work. "Heaven-born" (born of/in Heaven) makes more sense to me in that context than "heaven-borne" (carried from/by heaven) does. I don't know for sure how Mr. Gilbert spelled it, but Google consistently shows up "born."
I don't know which tickles me more: the fact that you took the time to Google search it, or that your stated source is Google and not Strunk and White.
...I'm sensing another Google search coming.
Traditionally, "born" should only be used in passive constructions when referring to actual birth: I was born in Michigan. So, technically, no, only one would work--not either.
Sg3 on 7/3/2011 at 01:25
Quote Posted by Vivian
I write poems about action films. Heres one about Aliens:
Ha! That's good.
Quote Posted by Queue
I don't know which tickles me more: the fact that you took the time to Google search it, or that your stated source is Google and not Strunk and White.
Oh, I meant a Google search for Mr. Gilbert's actual lyric. I don't think that a style manual would have examples from Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. And if it did, it'd be difficult to locate them within the text.
That said, yes, I do use Google for looking up grammar questions. I suppose I should feel guilty for being lazy, but I don't see the need to waste anywhere from ten minutes to several hours locating and digging through a book when I can get the same information on the great Internet in a minute or two. Books for longer sessions, Internet for quick reference, I say. Anyway, I do enough poring through stuffy academic works for college; no need to diminish the dregs of my old book-love even further.
Quote Posted by Queue
Traditionally, "born" should only be used in passive constructions when referring to actual birth: I was born in Michigan. So, technically, no, only one would work--not either.
Hmm, I don't think that's right—(
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/born?show=0&t=1299454342) www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/born
Fingernail on 7/3/2011 at 11:07
Don't worry; it's fairly irrelevant since it's a quote from Gilbert and Sullivan. This is like complaining that Shakespeare doesn't spell properly.
Language, and particularly in poetry, doesn't necessarily conform to prose "rules" - not that they are rules anyway, just conventions that have been repeated often enough.
And Shakespeare, for what it's worth, uses the exact same construction:
"...for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth."
Sg3 on 7/3/2011 at 23:06
I finished writing a poem a few minutes ago. Free verse. This is, I think, the fourth free-verse poem I've ever written. In spite of my months-ago promise to myself to stop writing poems, quitting is proving to be more difficult than I thought it would be. Maybe if I refuse to let myself write free verse ones, I'll be less inclined to write poetry again.
I remain perplexed. The more "expressive" my poems are, the less articulate and ... "artistic" isn't the word I'm looking for, but I suppose it will have to do—the more expressive one of my poems feels to me, the less articulate and artistic it appears on the page.
I feel like I'm going backwards. Instead of improving in quality, they're starting to slip dangerously toward the realm of crappy bloggy emo poems. To me it looks kind of like the incoherent mumblings of T.S. Eliot minus the critical laurels and the cartloads of esoteric mythological references. (I am not a fan of Eliot's work, although he has written a few lines that moved me.)
theBlackman on 8/3/2011 at 06:22
Quote Posted by Fingernail
[...]
And Shakespeare, for what it's worth, uses the exact same construction:
"...for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth."
The only problem with your argument is that Transliterated from Shakespeare to now. Shakespeare said that No person birthed of woman shall harm.
He is not using Birthed (Born) in place of Carried (Borne).
The line re: poetry is reference to born of the Gods not Carried in the heavens. IE, one of the MUSES born in/from the mind of a God.
reizak on 8/3/2011 at 06:30
Eliot's not all about obscure Golden Bough references, although the Waste Land might give that impression and that's what he tends to be judged by. Have you read the Four Quartets? It's a very different beast, and even contains a bit that your thread reminded me of.
Quote:
So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
