Re: a comment on Stripping the willow by ecargo	18-Jan-07/9:46 AM
That's funny--it didn't even occur to me that I used the Brit spelling for plough. I almost certainly did it because of the eye "rhyme" with sough. I agree that the word sough is obscure, but I like poetry because it does, on occasion, unearth odd words, and I think a love for words and wordplay is essential for writing poetry. So while I do usually strive for simplicity in word choices, I like the way "sough" looks here--but your point is apt and appreciated. This definitely has elements of "swords into ploughshares" but it's also about motion and time/lost ritual. Sickle harkens back to plough but it's also a reference to the moon. I think I was going for something along the lines of DH Lawrence's "Under the Oak" (this pales, obviously, in comparison to that!), but this really isn't about anything concrete, which is probably where it fails the most. It lacks a fulcrum or concrete focus. I'm not sure what you mean in your final comment about "conventional sentence structure in the last one"--despite the enjambed line, it is a complete sentence, as is the one that follows. Anyway, enough of me on me. Thanks for the comment and vote.
Re: I heart you by thetrev	17-Jan-07/12:32 PM
Pretty good, original. I like your nouns acting as verbs--they work in a weird and very cool way; it's what gives this a unique twist I think. Overall, focused, sharp, though the parenthetical bits distract, detract from the whole, I think.
Re: almost 12.30 by Dental Panic	17-Jan-07/12:26 PM
Hi DP. This is like an amuse bouche--tasty but leaves one wanting more. Full of suggestive (in a nonprurient sense) little oddities that seem to imply more, more--the last line lost me though. And I'm not sure what the tie-in with Genesis is (assuming that's why you referenced it in your amusing exchange with our resident longbeard/provocateur)--but I can be dense about such things.
Re: a comment on Same old rancour (a yellow stream of consciousness) by ecargo	16-Jan-07/2:03 PM
Hiyas Ranger! How's it going? Still in lovely Wales? I'm going to be there in April (hoping to get some paddling in Pembrokeshire if time allows; crazy water there)--also hoping to talk Z into Eisteddfodd (however the hell it's spelled) later in the year. Who knows--we may have to track you down. ;-D Kayaking's great--love the off-season. Gotta run, but hope you'll stick around a bit--I'm just back myself; we'll see what happens. Hope you're doing well! How's uni?
Re: The Mikado's Poetic List by Engelbert Humpalot	26-Sep-06/7:00 AM
Ha! Wow--it's better than Eric Idle's updated version, even (yeah, I'm a geek and had to see how it compared to the original and otherwise). Love how you kept to the original rhyme scheme in places but utterly subverted this. I have to say--yes, I have to say it--"what a real great write." ;) Very fun. Well done.
Re: a comment on Farmhouse, Southern France (storm on arrival) by Ranger	25-Sep-06/10:04 AM
Well, Ranger--no ringing medallions and no race results--as we rounded the first island, in big surf and winds gusting to 30mph, the marine police called the race because of conditions and sent the lot of us back. But it was great fun while it lasted, and the afterparty was great. Thanks for the encouragement--no doubt I'll write something about the experience. Lots of great kayaking in Wales, you know--some major BCU (British Canoe--Union?) centers and lots of top-class kayakers in some serious, serious water.
Re: a comment on Farmhouse, Southern France (storm on arrival) by Ranger	25-Sep-06/9:43 AM
To be honest, Ranger, I don't think anyone outside of a cartoon has ever actually said "leaping lizards!" But, yes, officially it's an American expression (olde tymey).
Re: a comment on In the hollow (rough) by ecargo	25-Sep-06/9:40 AM
How kind! ;) Pricker is a colloquialism (I guess) for a briar or a thorn. We called briar patches "pricker bushes" in my little part of the world.
Re: a comment on Shadows In Your Eyes by PoeticJustice	25-Sep-06/9:29 AM
Do keep in mind that the site is called PoemRANKER. If you just want to write about feelings and not have anyone comment critically on your poems, then this probably isn't the best place to post them. And I'm not being mean, just honest.
Re: Fun At The Gynaecologists by Edna Sweetlove	25-Sep-06/9:27 AM
I see the torch has been passed . . . well, it is in the 'ranker tradition, but you'll have to work at it a bit, sweet Edna, before you'll get the accolades due a Stephen Robins, let alone a -=DA=-P.I. Still, I appreciate the effort! You left out the part about the speculum (what I like to affectionately call "The Crank") stored in ice water and the lovely queef (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaginal_flatulence) that often occurs at the end of the procedure. I'd have to take off major points for those omissions, if I were to vote, Edna.
Re: Farmhouse, Southern France (storm on arrival) by Ranger	22-Sep-06/1:18 PM
Okay--back again. I do like this one a lot! Your meter works great, and the imagery is strong enough that the meter is almost an afterthought for the reader (which I always think is a sign that a poem is working--the "strings" are invisible and you forget the puppets aren't really people, so to speak. Yeats and Seamus Heaney are great examples of that kind of mastery--I've been so blown away by their language, at times, that only later did I realize that the form is a rhyming sonnet or whatever). I only stumbled a few places reading this: Are climes steep? I'd lose the parens here: "(and sloping glades of grain)" Maybe recast it so your sloping glades are steep or something. "which turned from diamanté lens to drear in clicking like an oaken farmhouse door." [not sure I get this--what turned? and what's "clicking" modifying?] "-It was no stream of sun – but skewing cloud" [replace weak phrases like "it was" with stronger constructs like "we lost the stream of sun, found skewing [?] cloud]--my replacement word choices are just illustrative; I'm not crazy about them either, but the point is that if you take passive, flaccid phrases like "it was" and make them more active and dynamic, it usually adds to the strength & vibrancy of the poem overall. And no-one seemed to know quite how it came to be so dark, or why it stayed so long [again, two "its" seems a lot and it's such an imprecise, nonreflective word here--I'd either recast this somehow or shorten the line and not worry too much about the syllable count] "The landscape threatened violence that day- as solar flowers threw their manes around [stronger, more threatening word than "threw" maybe? or maybe it's "flowers" that, er, throws me--I think the threat needs to be more implicitly reflected in this line; flowers just aren't threatening (unless they're creepy plant-things like bladderwort or Venus Flytrap.) ] with total disregard; the screaming slaves [what are these? workers?] in chain-gang rows. I told you it had left a ribbon track- [nice--sort of made me think of cut to ribbons, because of the earlier mention of glass in heaps] the scent of water in an earthen pitch, and lizards leaping like a joyful king. [I like the lizard/king analogy (and, no, nothing to do with Mr. Morrison)--I've had the Roethke poem, To a Young Wife, in which he begins "My lizard, my lively writher" in my head for days, so I loved that you had a lizard here. I think "leaping" might be something else though--it's too remniscent of "leapin' lizards!" (maybe that's an American expression) But still you watched the crackling, heavy orb, like insects passed too soon for storm or grace [what's like insects?] an eye cast downwards – fractured morning ice of hurricane and tempest’s broken tide. Very cool. So many good lines and strong images in this! Good poem.
Re: Farmhouse, Southern France (storm on arrival) by Ranger	21-Sep-06/2:22 PM
"solar flowers threw their manes around/with total disregard"--nice, especially the play on flowers/flares (in my mind anyway!). Didn't have time to do more than skim this (have a kayak race to train for and scant hours of sunlight left) but will def come back to it tomorrow.
Re: a comment on In the hollow (rough) by ecargo	21-Sep-06/2:20 PM
Thanks--it does need some cutting in places I think. I usually let rhymes fall where they will, unless I'm writing to a strict form (and even then I usually prefer slant/near rhymes)--it's fresher, less, stilted, to do so, I think.
Re: a comment on The Secret by ecargo	21-Sep-06/2:12 PM
Hmmm . . . weep like the Walrus weeps, you mean? http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walrus.html Ah, those dashing prawnes prawnatroopers of the last Great War, with their jellyfish parachutes and swordfish bayonets. Poemranker Tales (maybe it should be Follies?). ;-D I always did (mostly) like the self-referential stuff, when it was done well. Be interesting to see what you come up with!
Re: a comment on In the hollow (rough) by ecargo	21-Sep-06/2:07 PM
Also good points (as usual)--I broke the lines pretty indiscriminately. I think it wants to rhyme (or maybe I want rhymes--I'm never sure if I'm driving or along for the ride). Thanks!
Re: a comment on In the hollow (rough) by ecargo	21-Sep-06/1:57 PM
Good crits--thanks very much for the comment and the read. Hoping to polish this a little at some point.
Re: Soup Can by oneglove	21-Sep-06/1:51 PM
Was it earth all along? ;-D Sorry--just saw Planet of the Apes (the original, not the Marky Mark version) again. There's sort of an odd melancholy to this that works, though some of the lines fall a little flat. Why "Soup Can"?
Re: The Surfer's Prayer by flock	20-Sep-06/10:26 AM
This has a nice simplicity in rhythm and tone. Watch your cliches (e.g., sea of troubles).
Re: Fare Price (Final Version) by Wakeboarder20	20-Sep-06/10:16 AM
"Fare price" as in a pun on fair with the connotation of travel (i.e., to heaven)? If so, it might be a little overplayed with 3 repetitions as well as the title. It is a good topic for poetic examination. I wrote an Xmas poem once like this, something like "you'd think these shelves held souls--buy now! We'll throw in sanctity/and absolution, absolutely free!" So I get what you're saying here, I think.
Re: Staring through you by creepshow	20-Sep-06/10:12 AM
Wow--hope that released some of the obvious animosity. If you peel away some of this, you'd have the makings of a decent "fuck you" zombie poem.