Free verse № 113457
One True Instant
Directly in front of me
the one I call husband
Our eyes meet for one true
and necessary instant
Then turning away as a stranger does
back to his lifeâs recesses
Those places I have not been
and will never be invited
The taut lean torso
a silhouette in my doorway
The sure hope of his shoulders
standing inert
36 comments
As far as this poem goes, why did you say the shoulders were "standing", instead of some other, better verb? And why isn't anything here punctuated?
This is just bunk. And if those places and people do exist in any worthwhile manifestation, I promise you they're not talking or caring much about each others' writing, or very much interested in hanging out with the kind of person who goes in for that stuff. They're probably just smoking pots and giving each other really really hard times. Of course, they sometimes point out some glaring mistake in somebody's writing or, I don't know, make a suggestion or something; but there is no "ongoing discussion" or "pure forum for presenting and evaluating ideas" or whatever the hell you think, except among old dim gays trying desperately to act like they imagine "real" critics and poets acting and mostly being bored to death and doomed to neverending obscurity. If you're interested in those places, I'll in all honesty show you where they are. But please believe me, they're the most rarified homogenized orgies of self-glorification and utter boredom ever.
That said, I hope you don't think it doesn't occur to me occasionally to point out some problem I notice here. I get whims sometimes. For example, the "standing" thing seems rather poorly-considered. There are a ton of better verbs which describe what shoulders do; I'm sure you can think of some. Also, that lack of punctuation makes your poem seem kind of amateurish and affected when it might otherwise not. And also, you've got a serious bad habit of constructing sentences in a way that's probably what you imagine being artistic and eloquent (but isn't) instead of worrying about making them grammatical or even particularly intelligible. You might try being aware of it in the future. And before you say anything else, this is real criticism, or as real as it ever gets, sister. So SUCK ON IT!!!!! SUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKK ONNNNNN ITTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!11!1
Yours truly,
zodiac in Karak
Dim response. PS-your third stanza is very poorly (and superungrammatically) phrased. See if you can find out why.
"GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning."
I was far too old to serve in the trenches of WWI, but the poeme made me feel as if I was ACTUALLY there, and it had been one of MY comrades who had broken wind. Food for thought? Thanks for listening.
By the way, did you see that your old physics teacher was such a dunce he had to sit his GCSE Maths? I hope you never told people you went to a "public school" whilst at college and instead pointed out you went to a fee paying grammar school.
Surely you are not that husband. Thanks.
you were only talking about one. thats what got me. you can just
call me william and tea will be served at 5:00pm malady (SMILE)
The most important thing a poet can express in my opinion is an uncertainty or an excitement over a coming together of images. In that sense the reader does not need to know what the poem means as such, rather grasp some kind of imaginary order. The Dylan Thomas poem 'the force that through the green fuse lights the flower' for instance communicates a sexual excitement understood through water on rock, quicksand stirring etc.
As for the poem I believe zodiac's anger is driven by your lack of care. It is full of cliches - eyes meet, true, hope etc and seems unbothered that lines go by without offering anything ('directly in front of me the one I call husband' makes up a whole verse, it could easily make up one or two words, directly in front being redundant as it is presumed the narrator is paying attention).
People make different interpretations of certain poems because the lack of depth allows them to, not because it is a good poem.
I read a very short poem once that seemed to come from the same kind of thinking that had gone into some of my writing. I liked it because I felt a kinship with a man known for his heavy drinking and living part of his life as a bum. I was touched that two of us humans so different could come together on this poem of his.
ART by Charles Bukowski
âAt the spirit wanes, the form appears.â
I thought how my own spirit wanes after work, relaxing with a glass of wine and the appearance of forms that find expression in written words. It seemed he had caught the notion that the cares of life and business inhibit the creation of art, the very notion I was feeling. The poem inspired me because it expressed something I had thought, but had never been able to say as succinctly as his brief poem.
A year or so later I learned what the poet was thinking. He said that he wrote the poem because as the spirit wanes and becomes like a dead thing, a poet turns to forms such as sonnets, villanelles and the like to cover his lack and give the impression of having something to say. It was a slur on poets becoming erudite.
What Bukowski meant and what I interpreted were entirely different. I do not say that this is how all poems should come across, only that itâs a way they can. He had his meaning and I interpreted mine. I still think itâs a good poem.
I appreciate all your comments and agree that my poem is lacking in the expression of something that to me was a very significant.
A girl she made a
virtue of tinyness,
scampering while
we made breakfast,
until one day
her devious pa'
caught her in
the cookie jar.
- Ron Suskind
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