Re: Leg by jessicazee	<~> 167.206.181.179	21-Oct-05/11:34 AM
nice.
Re: a comment on Marriage by Dovina	Dovina 69.175.32.104	21-Oct-05/11:27 AM
Good night, and sleep committed, romantic, and poetic.
Re: a comment on Marriage by Dovina	zodiac 217.144.7.195	21-Oct-05/11:23 AM
PS-Good night. "It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there" - William Carlos Williams
Re: The nymph steals the farm-son by <~>	Dovina 69.175.32.104	21-Oct-05/11:22 AM
"phantoms of future turn wooden on the lathe of fact." !!!
Re: a comment on Marriage by Dovina	zodiac 217.144.7.195	21-Oct-05/11:22 AM
Are you serious? One, I mean the HUMAN race. Two, if I had statistics for marriage in other countries, I'd use them; as things stand (and as we're both Americans), America's a stellar example. Three, I'm saying that because 50% of marriage commitments fail, maybe there's something wrong with the commitment. Four, no, pure endurance of anything has never been worth the cost of anything. Is that what you want on your tombstone? "I endured"? Five, scoff, but I don't have to change my very conception of love to fit some outside institution, or justify unhappiness to myself. THAT'S romance. Six, it's early where you are to be so drunk. Shame on you.
Re: a comment on Marriage by Dovina	Dovina 69.175.32.104	21-Oct-05/11:15 AM
Oh I see, you’re justifying it on the basis of race and Americanism. You’re saying that because 50% of marriage commitments fail, that it’s ok to fail. And you’re further justifying it on the basis that “pure endurance” is not worth the cost. But the kicker is that “romance” becomes the goal.
Re: a comment on Marriage by Dovina	zodiac 217.144.7.195	21-Oct-05/11:03 AM
Of course not. We do, however, as a race tend to make commitments we couldn't possibly know if we'll be able to keep, like LOVING someone until we DIE. Over 50% of the Americans who've ever been in married thought they could, and were wrong. I'm committed to love and my own and my wife's happiness, not to commitment itself. If any of those things goes, we've already failed. We will not set ourselves up to fail at pure endurance. What's the romance of that?
Re: a comment on Marriage by Dovina	Dovina 69.175.32.104	21-Oct-05/10:56 AM
5) We are not so obtuse as to make commitments we don’t intend to keep. I don’t know if you are romantic, but you seem uncommitted. To even consider breakup is non-commitment.
Re: a comment on Marriage by Dovina	zodiac 217.144.7.195	21-Oct-05/10:46 AM
1) I don't know if that's good or bad. Seriously. 2) Well, obviously neither of us is talking about leaving our partners because they're jerks for an hour. 3) It only took me a year-and-a-half. 4) I wonder what ever happened to 4? 5) I'd agree, with the following caveat: I'd only make commitments I could conceivably or comfortably keep. Most marriages don't fall into that category. That sounds weak, but going into marriage with both of our parents recently divorced, we spent a lot of time asking "If we ever did split up, would we feel that all the commitments we'd made were invalidated? If 'til death do us part' proved untrue, what would we be able to say WAS true?" You're going to call me unromantic. Go ahead. I'm more in love with my wife than ever. We didn't promise to love til death, we promised to love until we didn't love anymore, then get out before it was a travesty of love. That, for me, is romance. 6) "the kind of love must change". Granted. I'd add, the fact that it's love means it will change by itself, not by our will. Who ever manhandled love?
Re: a fat man on the dock by ay deee	Dovina 69.175.32.104	21-Oct-05/10:43 AM
Again, the first line (last line in your other poem) seems out of place, though it's a good line. I'd drop the first verse altogether.
Re: a comment on Marriage by Dovina	Dovina 69.175.32.104	21-Oct-05/10:33 AM
1) It’s good that what you used to think has changed. If I ever thought that being a servant self-negator made me better than he, I would no longer be a servant self-negator. 2) Seldom would the perfect man become a jerk in the long term, though a jerk for an hour is expected. 3) That’s the nicest compliment you have ever given me. 5) My commitment would hold even if he becomes undesirable because it is a commitment, and I believe in commitment. It would be the same with or without kids, though kids add strength to a commitment. Property be damned. 6) Your wedding vow statement, “You are united by a connection that is strong because it is flexible” is what I’m talking about. We change; and the kind of love must change. The extreme outcome of this is an act of faith, where I overlook the wrong, raising his desires over mine, every time, every day.
Re: a comment on a fat man on the dock by ay deee	zodiac 217.144.7.195	21-Oct-05/10:22 AM
The "the thread the nut tightens" line which Dovina commented on in your last post. I just meant it doesn't fit in but tries desperatle, like Jesus.
Re: a comment on Incommunicado blues (fixed, except for Dovina) by zodiac	zodiac 217.144.7.195	21-Oct-05/10:17 AM
I'll keep it if only to teach you to stop stopping at line-ends.
Re: a comment on Incommunicado blues (fixed, except for Dovina) by zodiac	zodiac 217.144.7.195	21-Oct-05/10:17 AM
Wild with a homebody bent is surprisingly true. How'd you do that? I don't fear religion, I fear becoming religious only for a language/anchor. That's a big concern for me now; my first six months here I'd say 30-40% of my vocabulary was somehow religious. The hazards of living in a Muslim country, yes, but I thought it was applicable in America, too. I'm constantly surprised - and grateful - I'm still married. The way it works is she's more of an adventurer/homebody than me. One-and-a-half months back in America and she's already moved out to Alaska.
Re: a comment on a fat man on the dock by ay deee	ay deee 204.90.50.252	21-Oct-05/10:16 AM
i'm not sure of your meaning there, am i overly critical of mortal beings? or is there a specifc line or lines that i abuse?
Re: a comment on a skinny man on the dock by ay deee	ay deee 204.90.50.252	21-Oct-05/10:14 AM
apparently some ninjas use short stocky pieces of wood called mai poles to train on. they stand on and move about these to gain balace, agility, precision, etc.
Re: Leg by jessicazee	Dovina 69.175.32.104	21-Oct-05/10:10 AM
It's uncertain whether the legs in the first part are yours or his. It's a sexy romp in any case.
Re: Leg by jessicazee	Dovina 69.175.32.104	21-Oct-05/10:10 AM
It's uncertain whether the legs in the first part are yours or his. It's a sexy romp in any case.
Re: a comment on Marriage by Dovina	zodiac 217.144.7.195	21-Oct-05/10:09 AM
1) I used to think that a successful relationship required each party to think the other one was way-better than him/her in practically every category. Now I'm not so sure. If we're only talking about LASTING relationships, I'm REALLY not sure. Not even sure that that kind of relationship exists in the real world. Then you have to add that the servant self-negator gets to think he/she is better than his/her partner for sacrificing him/herself to such a schlub (cf Crystal Lane Swift.) What I can tell you for certain is I've been in an amazing relationship with my now-wife for five years and I'm better than her at not overloading everything I cook with cheese and salt, and cleaning in a quick, superficial way. 2) How often do you think the perfect man abruptly changes into a jerk? Really. That was the serious part of this point. The not serious part is absolute power corrupts absolutely; maybe if you weren't such a servant and self-negator... 3) I think I got the idea early in our correspondence that you were a lot more iconoclastic than you actually are. You can probably tell from the way I'm constantly confounded by your traditionalism. I don't mean that as an insult to traditionalism, I just mean I'd have been talking to you differently if I'd known. 5) On that note - seriously, why would your commitment hold if you didn't find your man desirable? (Please assume that by 'undesirable' we both mean 'over an extended period of time without exception'.) Would you say the same thing if there weren't kids/property in the equation? 6) FROM ZODIAC'S AND MRS ZODIAC'S WEDDING CEREMONY: "Here, today, you stand side by side, excited and exultant, looking out into the future. It’s not clear what that will be exactly. You don’t know where you’ll be taken, or what trials, adventures, and new experiences await you. But you believe that you will be together, looking back across ten, twenty, or seventy years at yourselves, standing here on this day. What you believe, no sacrament or oath can make more real or permanent than the ones you have already made, the simple commitments you have chosen to live by... You are united by a connection that is strong because it is flexible. It endures because it is made anew each day of your free choosing. Your love is not the kind that is blind and unknowing; it is open-eyed and grown out of knowledge and desire to know more... You will settle for nothing, but instead will always pursue your dreams and each other’s. You will be open to new dreams, new goals, and new ideas. You will travel."
Re: a comment on Incommunicado blues (fixed, except for Dovina) by zodiac	Dovina 69.175.32.104	21-Oct-05/9:55 AM
Now if you'd just get rid of that irritating "late . . .ly" I'd give you a 9.