Re: a comment on Call me Floyed by FreeFormFixation	FreeFormFixation 70.225.168.60	23-Mar-06/10:24 PM
yeah i dont know what they're talking about, but if it makes them laugh, amen to that.
Re: Squalid by Caducus	matt door 65.32.138.73	23-Mar-06/9:52 PM
Maybe just maybe, what we seek is less words from rhyming vultures, who pick at the bones of poetry - in search of something they found years and sentences ago?
Re: Sonnet by zodiac	matt door 65.32.138.73	23-Mar-06/9:35 PM
I like this - but it seems tired - almost easy - yet forced - like you're searching for something that's already there? Common "Zodiac" - same as you ever was - just enough talent - way too much time!
Re: Valentine by zodiac	matt door 65.32.138.73	23-Mar-06/9:15 PM
yawn
Re: a comment on After The Snow/Diamonds And Rust by Ranger	Ranger 62.252.32.15	23-Mar-06/3:48 PM
Hmm, that's interesting - you and ecargo have different views on this. Well then, rather than constantly edit this and infuriate people, here are the two passages as they originally were: 'Like a street scene in a Dickens novel Scarf and shawl - I sing "Qui etes-vous, belle dame?"' and 'Bound and still in awe, enthralled just like the guilt of Cain Eyes closed all in vain'. What are the preferred options? Polling starts now. Thanks for your views, Dovina - as always they're appreciated.
Re: After The Snow/Diamonds And Rust by Ranger	Dovina 70.38.78.229	23-Mar-06/3:24 PM
Your removing Dickens leaves the street scene with scarf and shawl alone to show us the old-time setting. Now we have to wait until "love arcane" and still wonder if the shawl was just a hippie immitation. Also, Cain was to Abel as she is to you. I thought that Cain's guilt was a good way of showing this. It's still a good poem, but not really an improvement in my opinion.
Re: Buddy by ALChemy	Dovina 70.38.78.229	23-Mar-06/3:01 PM
Yes, you've done it. Perfect ending. It's enough to make a bible-thumper take another look.
Re: Buddy by ALChemy	INTRANSIT 205.188.117.10	23-Mar-06/1:37 PM
Forgive your master. he's had a severe case of hammertoe and is busy cutting snowflakes at the moment.
Re: a comment on After The Snow/Diamonds And Rust by Ranger	Ranger 62.252.32.15	23-Mar-06/1:25 PM
Okay, edit finished. I'm keeping the nightingale (now you know why) but other than that I think everything else has been altered slightly. I still think it needs work...but I just can't figure out what to change.
Re: Buddy by ALChemy	Ranger 62.252.32.15	23-Mar-06/1:15 PM
Not even when the wind blows? I liked this.
Re: a comment on After The Snow/Diamonds And Rust by Ranger	Ranger 62.252.32.15	23-Mar-06/10:16 AM
Wow...that was epic! Probably the longest comment I've ever received - I'm not happy with the poem as it is, so this is exactly what it needs! The problem with writing it is that as I know all the events it's easy for me to associate the images (hence the reference to Dickens etc.) Plus, my surname is Nightingale, so again that seemed obvious to me but won't to most people. Errm, where next...ah yes. 'Storm of emerald...' passage. That was meant to get more ethereal (as in 'seeing' the ghost, the memory seeming real). 'Deep dark mattress vein' being the bed appearing shadowed like a grave in the moonlight, followed by the gallows image. The grammatical points I think you're right about...I tried twisting the language about a bit but in quite a few places it doesn't work. Time to get the notepad out and write all this down so I can redraft, methinks. Cheers for the suggestions, I need the advice for this one. Somehow I find glosas very tricky to write, particularly from songs (even if the songs are excellent =D)
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	23-Mar-06/10:04 AM
'It is easy to forget our times of knowing, to think they've been dreams or old miracles, one time. Nothing good is a miracle, nothing lovely is a dream.' 'The world is a dream, you say, and it's lovely, sometimes. Sunset. Clouds. Sky.' 'No. The image is a dream. The beauty is real. Can you see the difference?' -Richard Bach
Re: After The Snow/Diamonds And Rust by Ranger	Dovina 70.38.78.229	23-Mar-06/9:58 AM
Good use of the Glosa. You stick to the spirit of the original quatrain. "thorn words" and "cold door" - great. The last four lines really clinch it.
Re: Sea Words by ecargo	Niphredil 132.69.238.221	23-Mar-06/9:39 AM
Aye, for me too, forsooth. Your sea poems are terrific! Where do you live, I wonder?
Re: After The Snow/Diamonds And Rust by Ranger	ecargo 167.219.88.140	23-Mar-06/9:25 AM
Hey Ranger--nice job. Cool lyric to riff from. I like the wistfulness/tenderness of this. In general, I think it works pretty well. Some of the connections you try to make seem a little off to me though--Dickens? I don't get Dickens from any of this, the reference just distracts. Ditto for Cain--seems to come out of no where, and not in the "a-ha!" good surprising way. Lines that could use some work, IMO: Everything thereafter is gone from recall- [after, maybe, instead of thereafter, and I don't think you need "recall"; everything after is gone? More direct and more encompassing.] Lines a little "meh": The ending of a failed love, so soft to part Wind screams a melody, so terrible Shrill blood-iron voice to hail [the thuddiness of "blood" and the softness of "iron" work against "shrill", also, what's a "blood-iron voice"? Oh, heck, easier to just go sequentially-- No thorn words thrown ["thrown" doesn't seem to work with "thorn" though I like the play on sound] Lose the nightingale. Keats has forever claimed the nightingale, and the rest of us look like asses for imagining that we can use it. (Yes, there was a nightingale in a poeme I recently posted. Yes, that makes me a hypocrite and, likely, an ass.) Curtain of twilight [cliche] I like these lines a lot, though I think they need tweaked (as they'd say in PA) a little: As though somebody cried 'Love blinds its domain' I shut my eyes to make sure [of?] A scene, a dream of you, a figure once well known [maybe lose "a figure"?] Who spoke of gothic romance, love arcane [I dunno about "gothic" here--it's too obvious, and the term "gothic romance" makes me think of old Mills & Boons type books--the waifish heroine, the tortured, scarred, reclusive hero wrestling with broody ghosts; the crazy wife in the attic, all very _Rebecca_ ("Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter for the way was barred to me. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done. But as I advanced, I was aware that a change had come upon it. Nature had come into her own again, and little by little had encroached upon the drive with long tenacious fingers, on and on while the poor thread that had once been our drive. And finally, there was Manderley - Manderley - secretive and silent. Time could not mar the perfect symmetry of those walls. Moonlight can play odd tricks upon the fancy, and suddenly it seemed to me that light came from the windows. And then a cloud came upon the moon and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face. The illusion went with it. I looked upon a desolate shell, with no whisper of a past about its staring walls. We can never go back to Manderley again. That much is certain. But sometimes, in my dreams, I do go back to the strange days of my life which began for me in the south of France...)"] Oops, sorry, I have no concentration skills left. Enchantment, haunting song Bound and still in awe, enthralled [again, Cain ref seems off] Storm of emerald, ever irresistible [?] From this deep, dark mattress vein Grave [?] [Not sure I get this] uncertain sun, slow spindle [good image] And you haven't visited for a while, Jenni I still think you're beautiful [I like this, simple and wistful] Though I never was Little more than mortal mundane ["never was little more than"--grammar's off--never was more than or was little more than] Like a silver streak fresh from water's skin [water's skin I like, silver streak is too familiar though] Lying sunk in bedspread sprawl [nice] For the company of a broken mirror [for the? recast this line maybe? ] I was going to sit here this December in disdain [disdain, rhyme aside, doesn't seem like the right word to me] Just drink, then think of nothing at all ["and" instead of "then"? I like the ending, by the way] And you happened to call ["but" instead of "and"?] Okay, now that I've nitpicked this to death--I really like the loose rhyming throughout and I think that you maintain the mournfulness, the hauntedness, throughout. I really like this, period. Good poem. Terribly long comment.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	ecargo 167.219.88.140	23-Mar-06/9:22 AM
Good lord. This is the best comment in this entire benighted thread. "What the hell IS that god-awful smell?" All applause.
Re: Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	zodiac 209.193.18.62	23-Mar-06/8:31 AM
"Later he saw Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark, where he was not sure of his footing, where he suddenly might be walking on water and not know it and then suddenly know it and drown." - Flannery O'Connor
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	23-Mar-06/8:07 AM
I used to think God was like a very large ancient cat that made alot of noise at night until you got pissed and carried him out by his neck and booted him out the door. I'd slam the door and he'd look back at me through the window with an angry look. he'd pretend to roll up his sleeves and He'd dive straight through the window which happened to be open and you'd hear a scuffle and me hollering and then the door would open. There he'd be, the big cat, holding me by the neck and then a big boot to the rear. I'd be out the door. I'd get up, turn to the door to go back in and it would slam shut and lock before I got there. And there I'd be all night, outside pounding on the door hollering Willlmaaa!
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	23-Mar-06/7:55 AM
I would love to read that poem. I'd like to tell you what my God is like but I haven't finished creating him/her/it yet. A long time ago I wrote this down somewhere. "God spoke us into being so that some day we might be gracious enough to return the favor."
Re: Butterfly Belly, Orchid Face by Sunny	Ranger 62.252.32.15	23-Mar-06/6:39 AM
Gorgeous, again. You've hit a winner with the last stanza, it's one of the best I've ever seen! Personally I'd remove the brackets, and change 'lovely' (it seems a bit too...basic, perhaps, in comparison with the rest of the poem) and one of the 'suns'. Changing the first one would work well in my opinion, it makes me think of you looking at a mango as the sun rises behind it. I love the 'hazy-eye sky/London's smog' passage - I hate London for the most part but you've got this absolutely dead on. 'Exaggerated reality' - is that talking about the glorious image people tend to have of London when in reality a lot of it is, well, grubby? Top stuff, keep them coming!