New Poetry Thread

[Parson]

That's what Parson's do: they encourage, remind, and renew in any way that God let's them.

 

[crow.]

Hope,

This is just a proofread--no copy editing I'll post substantive feedback below.

Today, I grieve for those I've lost:
Friends, gone beyond my reaching hand.
I cannot bear to sum the cost--
uncounted lie time's slipping sand.

Friends gone beyond my reaching hand, [unless you intend the reader to supply "are"--totally fine if you do.]
memories discarded on the shore
Uncounted lie, time's slipping sand,
Abandoned. What will be, no more.

Memories discarded on the shore
can yet again be claimed.
Abandond what? Will be no more
those happy memories save?

Can yet again be claimed [note: consider "can yet, still, be reclaimed," with the comma]
those lost that I grieve so?
Those happy memoiries saved,
thought lost so long ago?

Those lost that I grieve so,
I cannot bear [probably a typo, but if not, leave it "bare"] to sum the cost.
Those happy memories saved . . .
Today, I grieve for those I've lost.

 

[crow.]

Sorry, I missed this:

"Those happy memories [vs memoiries] saved"

Now, I suspect "memoiries" is intentional. If so, keep the original text.

 

[crow.]

Hope,

To the substance, what you're writing is an iambic tetrameter, the so-called "natural form." Problematically, and this is just an expository note, the form is prone to so-called "doggerel."That is, bad tetrameter flaunts its badness.

I'm with Parson. This is very, very good. Implicit in his feedback is, what's gonna make it great is eliminating all traces of doggerel. Everything needs to be focused and sensible. Vary your rhymes. Name it for a specific person you've lost. Don't allow yourself a single typo.

A quick micro note: I missed "Abandond" vs "Abandoned."

The strength of your poem is that it makes sand into currency, so that a person in the world of your poem could intelligibly say, "What a waste of sand." Big issue with "lie," then: it's ambiguous. It could be a falsity or, like, something lying around all day. Either seize and use that ambiguity, or use a different word.

Follow through with currency notion, and talk about memories can yet be redeemed. I don't have to block out the good things just because they ended bad. I think that's what you mean, anyway.

The final stanza has a villanelle quality that's hard to go with. I'd say, rather than it repeating the opening stanza, let it resolve the "time is money"-"memory bank" issue. Talk about the sandy bank of a river and things moving on toward the sea, or about not needing to count the things you count on, or about being less thrifty with the memories you've been saving up. There's a way to flourish at the end. I think once you find it, you'll feel thrilled.

 

[crow.]

Monsterchic,


[name],

This is a high fantasy freeverse poem with an iambic trimeter sympathy. The strength of the work, and I would hazard to say definitively, is your metrical instinct. The words stretch and narrow with deliberated force: they take up space rationally.

The primary weakness is diction and flow; the minor weakness is occasion.

First, the minor.

I'm on a first-person odyssey with someone who speaks old school. I like it. It's flowery, showy, and it feels epic. The redshirted narrator is going to be eaten by a siren by poem's end. Awesome. But . . .

So?

The diction cues my mind to epic events, but the poem's narrative isn't tethered to any specific occasion.

Not a big issue. Call this poem a sketch, no problem.

The bigger issue is diction and flow. I'm going to grab the most illustrative stanza:

[Stanza 4]
Bending like the rushes on her perch,
Her hair flows down her back like Turner’s Falls,
Flooding the grey slate below her with chestnut

Again, metrically masterful. A loose, trochaic line 1, flirting with dactyls, is followed by the mesmerizing spondees on line 2, finalized by a dangerous-feeling hybridized line 3--it suits. Form follows function.

But I'm not plugged in: hair doesn't bend; I don't know Turner's falls and the ref to a non-Greek-sounding waterfall breaks the fourth wall; hair can "flow" down a back, but not like a waterfall; flooding the grey slate means the hair is really long, but that doesn't make it siren-ly. Further, there's lots of clutter: "like the" is understood, as is "on her," "down her," "like," "below her," and "with":


Bending rushes perch,
Her hair flows back, Turner’s Falls,
Flooding the grey slate chestnut.

As a reader, I've lost very little. Revised again for the above concerns yields:

Rushes,
Her hair, flows back, water falling,
Flooding grey slate chestnut.

I haven't added anything. I just took out stuff.

Do that with your other stanzas, then build the poem back up, and I'll bet it's twice as good.

 

[crow.]

One of mine:

The Titan Tree
The one true flower on the Titan tree
Is small, frail, purple-veined and white.
The rest, pink buds opening golden eyes,
Nod, breathe perfume, and, wreathed by bees
Bring narcotic fruits which swell, swing,
And are eaten by bats, birds, badgers, ants, rats.
The flesh of these fruits gives easily, to the rinds,
Which house, for all their ardor, no seeds.

The one true flower is pollinated by
The hermit moth, which tip-to-tail runs
Fifteen inches. Rusty red, the moth flies
Overhead, past the sun, where it takes
Some long hours to negotiate the wind
Until finally it finds her, high above, undefended.

 

[BolusOfDoom]

Hello, this is my first post here and my first poem out of the very few I've written so far. I've posted earlier revisions of it to a couple of other sites for feedback, but I think the style and subject matter might be a better fit here. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read it.


High-Water Mark
For the 40th anniversary of Apollo 17


I

Soon after brutal apes were graced
With cunning minds and nimble hands,
We grasped both word and implement
And sought more fruitful far-off lands.

Devising hieroglyph and rune,
We logged the stars and wielded tomes
To guide our craft across the deep,
Subduing wilds to make new homes.

Then clad in fragile armor, we
Assailed the sky and braved the void
Between the Earth and distant Moon,
Man’s highest boundary destroyed.

II

Our race's ardor tried and spent,
With thinning purse and swollen fame
We shunted wealth to mend the poor,
Make well the old, a carnal aim.

We climbed down from our highest mount,
Resigned the goal, shook off its dust,
Surrendered gear as monuments,
Consigning all to moth and rust.

Then christening metallic thralls
To spare our flesh from distant woe,
We coasted shallows in their shade;
Paid absent heed; remained below.

III

In time, a ghost loomed into view
Discerned through artifice of glass;
Grim omen of a monolith,
Far portent of some deadly mass.

With former prowess at its ebb,
We forged new arms to meet the bane
And flung our shafts against the foe,
Contesting blood and home in vain,

For they who gauged the skies foretold
The writ of doom would not be stayed.
Our scruples fled; we furled the law
And sundered oaths; all cried, some prayed.

IV

At last, the mortal blow struck home
To cleave Earth's crust, to cast its plume,
And every vale was made a pyre
Of leaden ash and choking fume.

Bereft of drink, of grain, of kine,
Stark hunger reigned past any ban.
Each set his face against those dear,
Ate brother's flesh, devoured clan.

Dim sunlight shone through fatal clouds
On blasted pillars, fallen thrones,
On mounds of bodies bound in earth,
Souls humbled to mere sums of bones.

Epilogue

If strangers from a far-flung sphere
Should trace and track our trail of wit,
Then sailing to our furthest shore
Would come to find upon it writ

Small furrows dug by dust-shod feet,
Bleached banners of an Earth-ward land,
A fleet exalting ancient gods,
Its headless vessels now unmanned.

If they could solve a distant tongue,
On ancient fragments they would find
Our sentiment made epitaph:
"We came in peace for all mankind."

Sole witness now, this sterile orb,
Proceeding 'round through ageless span-
Bleak herald of the tomb below,
A stone to mark the grave of Man.

 

[jastius]

bolus you shame me with your excellence.
i just write silly things, like..

naps
are for cats
in they creep
on little feet
breathing purrs
with soft whirrs
guiding you
to sleep.

with soft whiskered sighs
they watch your eyes
and entice
your dreams
to weave a shield
for you to
rest behind
safe
for a time
to keep.


see? silly little buggers aren't they.?
but if i don't write them down they flutter and dance about my brain like drunken pixies

 

[Parson]

BolusOfDoom: That's a wonderful poem, but it's thought is much too bleak for me. I would rather see the Apollo program as the start of something wonderful, if painfully slow.

 

[BolusOfDoom]

Thanks, jastius, though sometimes short and sweet is better than a rambling epic.


Parson, I hope someday the sentiment in the poem is completely invalidated by further achievements, but you have to understand I'm a former Calvinist. I dropped the religion, but kept the pessimism, so I'm sort of a secular misanthropist.

If someone alive 40 years ago when the Apollo 17 lunar ascent module took off were to see the future with a crystal ball, our manned space-flight situation today would look pretty bleak. For 40 years, no human being has been beyond low orbit, and the flags planted by each Apollo mission have been bleached white by UV flux into symbols of surrender.

The poem could have been more bleak, though- I took a stanza out of the epilogue referring to the lunar retroflectors that I thought few readers would get, plus the poem is too long anyway:

Last record of our searching mind,
Bright gems reflecting glint and gleam-
Ulysses’ dog in polished quartz,
Still waiting for its master’s beam.

That reflector eternally staring back at a ruined Earth, waiting to return a man-made signal that will never come...

 

[lauren$77]

I wrote a love poem - I'm desperate to add some poetic power into my novel but pretty sure there isn't a poetic bone in my body. Still thought I'd give it a shot

Darkened days before we met,
Shrouded memories to forget,
The silent witness of your gaze,
And I longed to change my ways.
Faint remembrance silhouette,
Tinged with sorrowful regret,
Pale lips parted in lights haze,
My heart loss within your daze.

 

[Parson]

Thanks, jastius, though sometimes short and sweet is better than a rambling epic.


Parson, I hope someday the sentiment in the poem is completely invalidated by further achievements, but you have to understand I'm a former Calvinist. I dropped the religion, but kept the pessimism, so I'm sort of a secular misanthropist.

If someone alive 40 years ago when the Apollo 17 lunar ascent module took off were to see the future with a crystal ball, our manned space-flight situation today would look pretty bleak. For 40 years, no human being has been beyond low orbit, and the flags planted by each Apollo mission have been bleached white by UV flux into symbols of surrender.

The poem could have been more bleak, though- I took a stanza out of the epilogue referring to the lunar retroflectors that I thought few readers would get, plus the poem is too long anyway:

Last record of our searching mind,
Bright gems reflecting glint and gleam-
Ulysses’ dog in polished quartz,
Still waiting for its master’s beam.

That reflector eternally staring back at a ruined Earth, waiting to return a man-made signal that will never come...

Interesting you should say that you kept the "pessimism" of being a Calvinist. I am a pastor in a severely Calvinistic tradition. I don't see pessimism. I see an honest evaluation of the human race, but nothing that says that we as a species can't strive and accomplish great things. (Not the best, that's God's alone, but great.)

You are right. There are many who would not have gotten the lunar retroflectors line, but in the rarified atmosphere of Chrons; I'd bet most would have understood. I'd not known that the flags were bleached out, but upon "reflection" it makes perfect sense.

 

[jastius]

I wrote a love poem - I'm desperate to add some poetic power into my novel but pretty sure there isn't a poetic bone in my body. Still thought I'd give it a shot

Darkened days before we met,
Shrouded memories to forget,
The silent witness of your gaze,
And I longed to change my ways.
Faint remembrance silhouette,
Tinged with sorrowful regret,
Pale lips parted in lights haze,
My heart loss within your daze.

ever cool lauren.. you are a poet

i love it.

 

[BolusOfDoom]

Interesting you should say that you kept the "pessimism" of being a Calvinist. I am a pastor in a severely Calvinistic tradition. I don't see pessimism. I see an honest evaluation of the human race, but nothing that says that we as a species can't strive and accomplish great things. (Not the best, that's God's alone, but great.)

I remember way back in my church-going days having discussions about whether it was right to have a manned space program, since we would be spreading Sin to other worlds as in C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy.

 

[Parson]

I remember way back in my church-going days having discussions about whether it was right to have a manned space program, since we would be spreading Sin to other worlds as in C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy.

Ouch! That's not only short sighted, it's positively unbiblical. I can't think of a single way that it would be possible for a human to bring sin to other worlds. Christianity would say that the universe was corrupted by humanity's fall into sin, but that's a far cry from saying we shouldn't go into space because we were spreading sin. Sin is already there, it would be easier to make the opposite argument that we should fly manned missions in case we should meet with aliens who had not heard the truth about Jesus. (I wouldn't argue this, but it would make more sense than the former idea.)

[If you would like to discuss this further maybe we should do a PM (Personal Message) or start a new thread. We are in danger of highjacking this poetry thread.]

 

[lauren$77]

ever cool lauren.. you are a poet

i love it.

She blushes... why thank you Jastius
I really liked your poetry too... very sweet!

 

[BolusOfDoom]

I wrote a love poem - I'm desperate to add some poetic power into my novel but pretty sure there isn't a poetic bone in my body. Still thought I'd give it a shot

Darkened days before we met,
Shrouded memories to forget,
The silent witness of your gaze,
And I longed to change my ways.
Faint remembrance silhouette,
Tinged with sorrowful regret,
Pale lips parted in lights haze,
My heart loss within your daze.

I think it's great that you're giving it a shot, because like everything else, it takes practice. I'm not that far into poetry myself, but my suggestion for your next one (or if you re-write this one) is to compose without rhyme, and then go back and add it if possible. Not rhyming really forces you to rely on other tools, such as wordplay, novel concepts and concrete imagery.

Plus, I tend to think that if I write something without rhyme and it's not up to snuff, adding rhyme probably won't help. You also avoid writing something just to fit a rhyming word you've already chosen. If it's a tough rhyme, it's more likely the rest of the line will be convoluted to make it fit.

Since this poem has a kind of meter, for example:

the SI/ lent WIT/ ness OF/ your GAZE

for your next one you could try blank verse, which is unrhymed iambic pentameter; the pattern of stressed syllables per line is da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM.

In any case, you should definitely keep writing.

 

[BolusOfDoom]

An industrial accident involving ammonium nitrate fertilizer is kind of a strange topic for a poem, but my mother and grandparents lived a few miles away from this explosion that took place in 1947.

Texas City Disaster

A stocky ship lies moored in port while crews
pile up a restless fuel for growing grain.
Air shimmers just above the close-packed freight;
its warmth begins to forge a fatal chain.

First signs of trouble down below emerge-
a glowing abscess weeping smoke, and steam
erupting from a broiling hull. Men bathe
the orange embers with a meager stream,

but their neglect has spawned a horrid loop-
a high school chemistry mistake writ large,
as heat begetting heat begetting heat
makes sparkling fuses shrink towards their charge.

The crewmen seal the hold to choke the blaze,
but pressure forces decks to bulge and rip.
At last, when metal bulkheads start to split
the captain screams, “All hands abandon--

Then null. Inside the crushing, tearing core,
the blast is noiseless, lightless, sterile, numb;
for all on board that mark the piercing burst
are shattered; rendered earless, eyeless, dumb.

Above, two circling aircraft’s wings are shorn.
Below, a wall of brine floods church and store.
The anchor, plunging miles away, impales
itself in prairie grass, not ocean floor.

Close by, longshoremen dazzled by the flash
and sudden thunder leap behind their freight
to flee the fiery cloud and clanging hail
of twisted chunks of hull and iron plate.

A schoolgirl peering out her house to watch
the smoke is shotgunned by her window panes.
She cringes, shaded by her hands, both cheeks
made bloody brooklets over jagged grains.

In time, they douse the flames, and corpses clothed
in oil and silt are piled and tagged. Around
the wreck they gather orphaned, nameless limbs
to number, bless, and hide beneath the ground.



The house my mother and grandparents lived in had its windows blown out, and a palm-sized inch-thick steel shard from the ship's hull landed in their yard. It was horribly twisted by the blast, and they used it as a doorstop for many years afterward. My mother still has it.

 

[crow.]

Darkened days before we met,
Shrouded memories to forget,
The silent witness of your gaze,
And I longed to change my ways.
Faint remembrance silhouette,
Tinged with sorrowful regret,
Pale lips parted in lights haze,
My heart loss within your daze.

Lauren--the line breaks are set off with commas, but that obscures the grammatical sense. Try:

Darkened days before we met,
Shrouded memories to forget
The silent witness of your gaze,
And I longed to change my ways.
Faint remembrance, silhouette
Tinged with sorrowful regret--
Pale lips parted in lights haze--
My heart loss within your daze.

Also, there might be some typos, etc. consider this edit:

Darkened days before we met:
Shrouded memories to forget
The silent witness of your gaze,
And I longed to change my ways.
Faint remembrance, silhouette,
Tinged with sorrowful regret,
Pale lips parted in lights haze,
My heart's lost within your daze.

Lastly, the semantics don't add up. Can something be lost in something else's daze? Can something be twinged with sorrow? There's a narrative here: before you, I was sad; after you, I'm confused. Play with that and tighten.

Good work, though!

 

[crow.]

The Last Scene; The Prologue

The Last Scene; The Prologue

Dead-eyed involucres writhe and breathe,
The bride-ends scream Whitey Pete,
Ricin, mustard, sugar red, Delacroix Mead.
The xy blossoms sing piperine
At raw foundations, burp mercury
Vapors housed in glazed strawberries.
Mastic heads lick heat. Soft-hogged beans
Pop purple, cambered pink. Red lace clings . . .
They bead him, unnettled, unfazed, unbeaten, sheet

The air with antlers. He doesn't blink.
They wither, stinking green. He walks on, into
The wishing chamber, sees the light beyond
The suffering. His skin crawls upon
The air, sublimates to mist. Naked,
The man, clutching three sheets takes

Position, stretches out a clue.
The world waits, hopeful,
He says, "This," unfolds the blues,
And blinks out of existence