regarding some deleted poem...	zodiac 209.193.18.47	3-Feb-06/9:29 AM
I'm white inside but that don't help my case That's life can't hide what is in my face How would it end, ain't got a friend My only sin, is in my skin What did I do to be so black and blue? - Louis Armstrong
Re: A Walk in the Park by Dovina	zodiac 209.193.18.47	3-Feb-06/9:31 AM
"skirt fanned out as if it saw you" is good, but personally I think you should try to get over it. Happens to everyone, if we're lucky enough.
Re: stormcast (a true story) by FreeFormFixation	zodiac 209.193.18.47	3-Feb-06/9:34 AM
Damn those libraries with their endless library knowledge.
Re: Nomads by amanda_dcosta	zodiac 209.193.18.47	3-Feb-06/9:37 AM
There's no strict rules for writing haikus in English, as you'd all know if you ever read Kerouac instead of just pretending. Saying haikus are supposed to be 5-7-5 is just an easy way of saying you don't like this haiku. That said, it's better if you try to write your haiku 5-7-5, amanda, as it's not a very difficult thing to do and if you don't, people are always going to wonder about you.
regarding some deleted poem...	zodiac 209.193.18.47	3-Feb-06/9:39 AM
As a one-time college instructor I can tell you people always think professors take off for mispunctuating the title. It's never the case. Why is "dancing" in quotes?
Re: Even the elephants by ecargo	zodiac 209.193.18.47	3-Feb-06/9:40 AM
Bourne is an amnesiac super-assassin. You mean windborne. Good poem.
regarding some deleted poem...	god'swife 71.103.105.208	3-Feb-06/10:22 AM
It's perfect. The title, the words you chose, the last line. It's a beautiful metaphor for so many of lifes experiences. Watching my fifteen year old son comes to mind. Also the slavery to labor and money. And there's young love, first love; the older observer knowing she will never re-live that blind abandon and hopefulness ever again. The stone wall of artifice keeping us all prisoners. The title you chose, either wisely or by pure chance, adds all the richness of meaniing to these lines. Without it, the metaphors would have been much less accessible. As for the last line; it expresses the agelessness of hope, of desire. No matter how battered by time our bodies grow or how battered by fate, the heart can remain forever young, forever tender. Just to see some other being enjoying life and youth gives us the oppurtunity to relive that joy. To feel the thrill once again. I am so happy and grateful that I read this today. It has inspired me.
Re: Whales in Gastineau Channel by zodiac	Dovina 17.255.240.138	3-Feb-06/10:31 AM
"breaches" as in breaches the water, is an intolerable twist, I'm afaid. And you do need something before "Nikons" for grammar's sake or as your gramma must have said said. I suppose "purchase" means something in this context. And "yen" as in yearning is old usage misplaced in the new. And Earth's kiss, well, you've been in water and air up to now, why enter the earth?
Re: Whales in Gastineau Channel by zodiac	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	3-Feb-06/11:31 AM
Sounds like you're gettin' some in Alaska.
Re: A Walk in the Park by Dovina	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	3-Feb-06/11:58 AM
That's a strong ass rose. Maybe go with rosebush instead. I can't believe I'm saying this but your ending is actually not mysterious enough. Good imagery though.
Re: Whales in Gastineau Channel by zodiac	amanda_dcosta 203.145.159.37	3-Feb-06/12:05 PM
I loved this. Makes me nostalgic. where I come from, we had to travel by boat to go to Girls High - to the mainland. And on the way we'd see the porpoises jump gracefully. It was a beautiful sight. By the way, whats a Nikon. don't know that. as for anoraks, isn't it some kind of a thick jacket? good going zodiac.
Re: Nomads by amanda_dcosta	amanda_dcosta 203.145.159.37	3-Feb-06/12:18 PM
Zodiac...As you can see, I have been trying my best to understand haikus and yes, thanks a lot for your FINALLY frank remark ( or is there more to it?)...ha ha. No offence! I agree, I have to improve on my quality, but aren't I getting somewhere. Besides I've come across a phrase "In the kettle of tenderness the rain sweeps".... what could it most likely mean or imply. I've got quite a few ideas in my head, but I think I would go for a second opinion. Still no chance of chat?
Re: A Walk in the Park by Dovina	zodiac 209.193.18.47	3-Feb-06/2:31 PM
Your gift: Poets, if they're genuine, must also keep repeating "I don't know." Each poem marks an effort to answer this statement, but as soon as the final period hits the page, the poet begins to hesitate, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift, absolutely inadequate to boot. So the poets keep on trying, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their "oeuvre" . . . I sometimes dream of situations that can't possibly come true. I audaciously imagine, for example, that I get a chance to chat with the Ecclesiastes, the author of that moving lament on the vanity of all human endeavors. I would bow very deeply before him, because he is, after all, one of the greatest poets, for me at least. That done, I would grab his hand. "'There's nothing new under the sun': that's what you wrote, Ecclesiastes. But you yourself were born new under the sun. And the poem you created is also new under the sun, since no one wrote it down before you. And all your readers are also new under the sun, since those who lived before you couldn't read your poem. And that cypress that you're sitting under hasn't been growing since the dawn of time. It came into being by way of another cypress similar to yours, but not exactly the same. And Ecclesiastes, I'd also like to ask you what new thing under the sun you're planning to work on now? A further supplement to the thoughts that you've already expressed? Or maybe you're tempted to contradict some of them now? In your earlier work you mentioned joy—so what if it's fleeting? So maybe your new-under-the-sun poem will be about joy? Have you taken notes yet, do you have drafts? I doubt that you'll say, 'I've written everything down, I've got nothing left to add.' There's no poet in the world who can say this, least of all a great poet like yourself." The world—whatever we might think when we're terrified by its vastness and our own impotence or embittered by its indifference to individual suffering, of people, animals, and perhaps even plants, for why are we so sure that plants feel no pain; whatever we might think of its expanses pierced by the rays of stars surrounded by planets we've just begun to discover, planets already dead? still dead? we just don't know; whatever we might think of this measureless theater to which we've got reserved tickets, but tickets whose life span is laughably short, bounded as it is by two arbitrary dates; whatever else we might think of this world—it is astonishing. But "astonishing" is an epithet concealing a logical trap. We're astonished, after all, by things that deviate from some well-known and universally acknowledged norm, from an obviousness we've grown accustomed to. Now the point is, there is no such obvious world. Our astonishment exists per se and isn't based on a comparison with something else. Granted, in daily speech, where we don't stop to consider every word, we all use phrases such as "the ordinary world," "ordinary life," "the ordinary course of events." . . . But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone's existence in this world. It looks as though poets will always have their work cut out for them. - From Wislawa Szymborska's Nobel Prize acceptance speech
Re: Whales in Gastineau Channel by zodiac	ecargo 172.145.59.138	3-Feb-06/2:46 PM
This doesn't seem to hit its stride until the third stanza. The first almost seems like screenplay style scene-setting (I think I read a comment that you were working on a screenplay. A little genre-bending here maybe?) Nikons and anoraks works well (for me) as a flash image of the crowd. FWIW, "yen" is still pretty common parlance in my part of the country (so's hankering). Borne is spelled correctly. ;)
Re: Coney Island Fall by ecargo	Dovina 67.72.98.92	3-Feb-06/3:10 PM
We couldn't ride the Cyclone even at Christmastime a couple of years ago. Couldn't even buy a dog. Much less in February.
Re: Exodus of Babylon by SupremeDreamer	god'swife 71.103.98.44	3-Feb-06/6:24 PM
Holy shit.
Re: Even the elephants by ecargo	god'swife 71.103.98.44	3-Feb-06/6:43 PM
The 3rd stanza should be left alone, it works. 'Now the elephants know' clashes with 'they have learned the high places' you could put 'for' at the beginning of the second line or you could take that first line off the top and place it somewhere towards the bottom. Try reading it starting on the second line, it makes a much better intro. I don't think the sky could hide itself. Although it might work if it stood perfectly still in the corner with a lampshade on its head. If by 'hail' you mean bullets, I think you should search for a better symbol. 'Hard hail' sounds like hard hail, hail can kill afterall. The first line might fit nicely above the last two lines of your poem.
Re: Exodus of Babylon by SupremeDreamer	Dovina 17.255.240.138	3-Feb-06/7:40 PM
This sounds like some folks' version of Christianity. If you mean it as satire on that, then 10. Since I'm unsure, 7
Re: Taste Ghazni by eliastemplar	amanda_dcosta 203.145.159.44	3-Feb-06/8:26 PM
I don't know anything about Afghan style, this tells quite a bit.........or it is probably of just one area, like Calcutta being refered as India, though just a tiny part of India.
Re: I'm there by amanda_dcosta	some deleted user 204.97.18.221	4-Feb-06/4:58 AM
Nice Amanda. I think a different title could add to this poem, I'm not quite there with "I'm there." Something a little more profound maybe? Other than that I think this is one of your better posts.