Re: a comment on Affairs by Stacy Stewart	6-Jan-05/7:26 PM
"embers softly speaking" then. It was clear what you meant by downfall, just not clearly shown. Is an affair really a downfall? If so, how or why, or what emotions lead to that conclusion?
Re: Nightmares Of Yesterday by Zalev	6-Jan-05/5:12 PM
A worthy story, lacking interest because it's too directly told.
Re: Affairs by Stacy Stewart	6-Jan-05/4:40 PM
"embers softly spoken"??? "Tis love is . . . "???? The rest of this sentence is a lumbering flourish. The conclusion "Tis the downfall of man." is not supported or led up to.
Re: a comment on Math Poem 3 by Dovina	6-Jan-05/4:02 PM
Dandy, yes, and for him that was enough. How similar is it that people hold to astrology, for example, or to luck or the intrinsic "good" of belonging to a social class?
Re: For being shaken out of Bad Thoughts. by fevriere	6-Jan-05/7:52 AM
A fine comparison if you can know about afterlife (stars). The clockwork nature of sunsets (death) seems and the certainty of night seems stretched. Still a good poem.
Re: a comment on Math Poem 3 by Dovina	6-Jan-05/7:41 AM
This is no integration or “real math” but just simple algebra used to show how some people (make that most people) allot solid truth to certain maxims that seem to them truth-worthy on evidence.
Re: a comment on Math Poem 3 by Dovina	6-Jan-05/7:37 AM
You either missed the point, I failed to make the point clear to you, or you got the point, didn’t mention it, or didn’t like it.
Re: a comment on Poetic Profit by Dovina	6-Jan-05/7:31 AM
God, you can be serious sometimes. Maybe it’s the language barrier – English vs. English, or some cultural disparity, but “ganging up” was a joke as was my talk of wafts and belches. We both know that I meant a weak mixture of smells emanating from the opening door having tinges of beer and stuff. Call it a belch, but that’s too strong. “A barely detectable waft having properties of a belch” is accurate, but for a poem it seemed that “like a belch” just might do the trick for most readers. Maybe it didn’t.
Re: a comment on Math Poem 3 by Dovina	5-Jan-05/4:56 AM
The poem relates math to life using the unstated, but hopefully understood, notion that people hold certain truths to be inalienable, much as other people hold math theorems, granted on less evidence. The “oaf, as you unjustly call him, needed a very simple math example, else he would have doubts. Complex math can be just as convincing, but not to him. He did not prove his “theorem” but took it on abundance of evidence because that’s the way his mind works. I did not mean that the uncertainty principle implies there is no logic, only that it is the logic of probability. Gamblers and God may have similar propensities toward bending the odds by using slogans and hope and the notion that correct thinking affects the outcome. It gets back to the idea of being created in God’s image. Maybe God works partly by nudging the outcome a tiny amount here and there, causing great change in strictly probabilistic outcome – chaos as it is – so tiny we could never catch Him at it.
Re: a comment on Math Poem 3 by Dovina	4-Jan-05/3:21 PM
Can’t you see that it is not my intention in this series of math poems to hold rigorous mathematical standards? I want the poems to be correct mathematically, but not rigorous. The protagonist in No. 3 is not satisfying the demands that someone like Pythagoras faced in proving his well-known theory, nor should he. I’m trying to relate math to life, not math to philosophy or logic. And just in case you’re about to say that without logic, there is no math, let me add that much of the universe is running on chance to the chagrin of Einstein and others, and maybe the mind that made it that way likes the emotional tug of trying to outwit probability – “seven come eleven” and all that. No. 4 in the mill.
Re: a comment on Poetic Profit by Dovina	4-Jan-05/3:01 PM
Because it’s not the same. “Waft” is a weak verb, and I used it because the smell was weaker than a belch. I know it’s complicated, but try. I’m flattered that the two of you feel a need to gang up on this important issue.
Re: a comment on The Snowcone Man by Zalev	4-Jan-05/9:37 AM
Make that, "Dead are my smile and the snowconeman."
Re: a comment on My Wife by Dovina	4-Jan-05/9:34 AM
How, pray tell, is a fish any more ace, artistically speaking of course, than a crab, pig, bull, raven or flea, except that in this particular case it is used to reward seals for good performance?
Re: The Snowcone Man by Zalev	4-Jan-05/9:17 AM
It's hard to make everything fit into an acrostic, so a won't complain too much about the relevance of torn sneakers and old clothes to his giving you a snow cone. I agree with Shuushin, it's a good acrostic. Try "Snow cone" in line 5 and "Death is my smile and the snowconeman."
Re: Little Girl Sue by Zalev	4-Jan-05/9:05 AM
Good up through Verse 7. After that it gets strange. Fix "Was she being abuse,"
Re: a comment on Poetic Profit by Dovina	4-Jan-05/8:55 AM
Waft out the door like a foul wind, a burp, a fart, a belch. Similis all.
Re: a comment on My Wife by Dovina	4-Jan-05/8:45 AM
You are making an artistic issue of the fish, and just as well, since it can’t count and has no numeric value to compare with 1. I’m still not sure how my using it as a symbol for her smile and her reward to him in the poem relates to this.
Re: a comment on My Wife by Dovina	4-Jan-05/8:31 AM
You say that only because you know a woman wrote it. Look at the poem not caring who wrote it and then decide if it's sexist. If anything, it favors the man. I think the poem makes fun of the woman's naive insistance on training her man and making him behave according to her wishes.
Re: a comment on Math Poem 3 by Dovina	4-Jan-05/8:26 AM
No.
Re: a comment on Math Poem 3 by Dovina	4-Jan-05/8:25 AM
With tongue, lips and throat.