Re: The Devil's Carnival by Ranger	12-Mar-06/12:07 PM
Makes me think of Blackpool Pleasure Beach, all of those incredibly cool dark rides you guys have; a girl on a ride crying. Your repeating lines are pretty good, Ranger, and the imagery here is well done. Not sure about churl and merle, but otherwise, this is very cool.
Re: Gone Bad by faithmairee	12-Mar-06/12:10 PM
Hee--it's like every blues song ever written condensed into a handful of lines.
Re: Nightfall by Niphredil	12-Mar-06/12:34 PM
Beautiful. "And now that it is late and I am free, I cannot bring myself to turn and go . . ."
Re: Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	13-Mar-06/11:04 AM
My ex is a mathematician, and though I didn't come away from our relationship with much real knowledge or understanding of mathematics, I did come away with some appreciation of mathematical aesthetics (in part from long hours spent struggling with _Godel, Escher, Bach_ and the like). He had a knack for making me understand, if only superficially and mostly by analogy (not being math brained), why he saw such beauty in numbers (even if, as Erdos said, ". . . you don't see why [numbers are beautiful], someone can't tell you. I know numbers are beautiful. If they aren't beautiful, nothing is.") Your treatments, frankly, don't make me see that beauty. I'm not saying that to be a jerk. Maybe it's that you don't give enough information or make the necessary connections. Or maybe it's that your observations seem, I don't know, somewhat contradictory or superficial. For example--what's the significance of 183? It's not a prime (though you go on to extol primes). It's odd, true, but so? Maybe the problem is that I just don't bring the necessary math chops to the table, but I don't think it's that alone. You tap into a long tradition of seeing numbers as divinely inspired (I think that's part of what you're saying), from Gallileo to Erdos (not a believer, but he liked the divine analogy well enough) and beyond. And the reference to the the Platonic--abstract, unchanging truths--gives this some context it might otherwise lack. But some of it doesn't seem to hang together or perhaps just isn't fleshed out enough. I do think your subject choices are often unusual and ambitious, which is commendable. And you do have a knack for inspiring reaction!
Re: Endless Battle by rahson_s	15-Mar-06/8:30 AM
Don't want to be the punctuation police, but punctuation would help this, I think--make it more clear and accessible. It's got energy and a good narrative flow to it. Could tighten a few places (" . . . she penetrates my lies/and picks out truth: I lie too much, the damage has been done; I'm losing this battle with my pen." Maybe break there, too, and start a new line or stanza with "she knows me very well." Watch your cliches ("I'm living proof") and pay some attention to breaks, etc., and this could be even better.
Re: Birthday by Dhanesh M Kumar	15-Mar-06/8:44 AM
Clearer than some of your others. How is "a" morning dew moribund (on the point of death, but moribund also has the connotation of stagnancy, a lack of vitality, and dew, in contrast, changes to something else). Also that 'moribund' line isn't a complete thought, it just flops around limply. I think I see what you're saying here, but it seems a rather wordy way to say that age doesn't matter, and, yet, it does.
regarding some deleted poem...	16-Mar-06/7:48 AM
How nice of you to repost this as backstory to/inspiration of "Anal Beard." But an itchy pudenda is no laughing matter, sir!
regarding some deleted poem...	16-Mar-06/7:49 AM
Another fine addition to the 'ranker compendium of feculence. And a welcome change from God blah.
Re: Mango Pickle by amanda_dcosta	17-Mar-06/5:59 AM
Hey Mandy--the NY Times had an op-ed piece on Indian mangos. It called them "the King of Fruit, Indian masterpieces that are burnished like jewels, oozing sweet, complex flavors acquired after two millenniums of painstaking grafting." Looks like they'll be headed our way as part of the new nuke/trade pact. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/opinion/12jaffrey.html Yum.
Re: The Horror The Horror by Nicholas Jones	17-Mar-06/1:30 PM
"Mistah Kurtz—he dead. A penny for the Old Guy" Lots to work with here--many good lines and thoughts. Leans a little to the side of polemic though.
Re: The Peccadillary by -=Dark_Angel=-, P.I.	18-Mar-06/10:42 AM
It's all got me feeling quite delirious. "To deliberately pluralise 'sheep' as 'sheeps'" is no mere peccadillo, though--it's an abomination! I'd love to see your take on an abcedarium.
Re: Dashboard Jesus by wilco	19-Mar-06/5:48 PM
in the pines, in the pines, where the sun don't ever shine . . . Nice ditty.
Re: Old ways by ecargo	19-Mar-06/7:13 PM
*Arrgh! For "alters," please read "altars."
Re: Outside the Perfection, Into the Yellow by Sunny	22-Mar-06/10:11 AM
Hey Sunny--this is really good. Nice sounds, strong images, good flow from stanza to stanza. "cuts off wind from the sky, and the sky itself. A sour smell/glass door, raw and white"--this is great. Suggest losing the ellipses (everywhere) and dropping the "so white"--don't think it adds anything to the line. Also sugg: dropping "all" in the "Outside, spring (should be lowercased) has conquered--it's just a filler word. I think your next stanza's probably the weakest--you don't connect it to the rest. Love the details in the last two stanzas and the ending (still in the dentist's chair?) Good stuff. Welcome.
Re: After The Snow/Diamonds And Rust by Ranger	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.
regarding some deleted poem...	24-Mar-06/6:21 AM
Nice! I like "cutting and blunt"; the soft Texas bread and the sneaking Tetons. That line though throws me: "I want to tell them . . . that they're sipping chocolate milk. . . . "--maybe "I want to tell them that while they're sipping . . . "? (I'm guessing they'd know that they're drinking the chocomilk w/out you telling them.) Second to last stanza's a peach (maybe start a new sentence w/ "Someday" though?) "One wire belly bombs?"? Wazzat?
Re: Sensually Literary Villanelle by bwaha	27-Mar-06/12:19 PM
Not bad, but some lines are a little awkard and you stagger back and forth with the rhythm, e.g.: "The girls waiting to have their legs spread/I like to walk . . ." "who have their tears shed"; etc. Most are easy enough to fix, really, by paying attention to the rhythm and watching for artificial-sounding inversions (e.g., instead of "who have their tears shed," could be something like "I pity the romancers who have shed/their tears when all they need is a good lay." That way, too, you retain the iambic pentameter w/out contorting the line. Clever, mostly, and fun.
Re: My First Hangover by mindsigns	28-Mar-06/6:26 AM
Heh--cute. There's nothing--NOTHING--worse than a gin-induced hangover. Ugh.
Re: Cohoma Scott King by rahson_s	28-Mar-06/7:01 AM
Not bad, very descriptive.
Re: Mirror by Sunny	28-Mar-06/7:14 AM
Some good lines and details in this. I like your showing what the mirror shoes, in people and in rooms--like "tousled sheets, clamped bodies." "Tango of the soul" strikes me as a little hackneyed. Really good overall.