Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	22-Mar-06/9:56 AM
>>I have no conscious creativity anymore<< Please. Your off-the-cuff comments are more creative and thoughtful than many poems posted here that draw popular-vote nines and tens on a monotonously regular basis. To wit (with some liberties): The unconscious mind? Repressed fantasies, unacceptable desires and traumas, a receptacle for messes, the unresolved psychological kind that rules lives. A refuge for the Divine, with a cosmic order and creativity of its own, dreams are not pointless; they tell all you wish weren't true about yourself, your nature, existence--- those recent strange dreams you remember. Write it down, break lines, don't worry so much about it. Here's hoping you find your way back.
Re: Old ways by ecargo	19-Mar-06/7:13 PM
*Arrgh! For "alters," please read "altars."
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: a comment on Mid-July by Ranger	19-Mar-06/5:44 PM
Holy mackerel, Ranger! Well, if I remember the proper scoring method when using the Pimple Checklist, I must score 10 or the number of checked boxes, whichever is least. So, er, let's see--that's 10! Which I'd give you anyway--nicely gothic and ghastly and the rhyme scheme is dead on and a credit to Poe worship. Very cool.
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: a comment on Indiscrete by ecargo	18-Mar-06/10:35 AM
You're dead on. Although I had a hotel room in mind with "brocade." I spelled the title this way deliberately, to imply a lack of separateness, doing things out of a need for connection, connectedness (my ancient Webster's has one meaning as "not separated"). Whether it works is another matter! (I think it does for the first verse; for the second, it's more of a stretch.) I've no dibs on the word, so feel free! ;)
Re: a comment on Indiscrete by ecargo	17-Mar-06/1:57 PM
Actually, I was away for a long time too--we all seemed to split around the same time. Things got a little wacky during the Ornella Muti fiasco and whatnot. But, yeah, I was HH. Not thick at all--no reason you'd know. And right back atcha! About to end my workday and go find a nice Jameson rocks somewhere, in honor of the occasion. ;) Here's lookin' at ya!
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: a comment on Indiscrete by ecargo	17-Mar-06/1:19 PM
Fried eggs! Exactly! Well, no, I'm kidding. I never thought of eggs, not once. But it's interesting how you got there. Ah, yes! The King Edward potato! ;) Ummm . . . A little research yields that "King Edward potatoes have been the true British potato for centuries." http://gardenaction.co.uk/fruit_veg_diary/fruit_veg_mini_project_november_1_potato_kingedward.htm Maybe he or she is just a true potato patriot.
Re: a comment on Settling in by INTRANSIT	17-Mar-06/1:08 PM
Not sure what changed, honestly, but here's a revote. Just curious--what made you choose tercets?
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: a comment on 3/12/06 by cronus	16-Mar-06/7:44 AM
Good god, Ranger--don't invoke the man from Misery (PAKI)! Sheesh. That's all we need.
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.
Re: a comment on Endless Battle by rahson_s	15-Mar-06/8:35 AM
Yeah, really. Sometimes I wish it were more like Garageband.com--you have to give something to get something.
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: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	15-Mar-06/8:24 AM
And then there's Einstein's marvellous take on it all: “The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms-it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.” Works for me.
Re: a comment on Climbing the Wall by ecargo	14-Mar-06/5:52 AM
Excellent, R! Both of 'em seem good "read aloud" poems. Bookends rhyming (and a Horseshoe's cultural cornucopia). Good for you for getting up there, 7 people or 70. I hate the idea of doing readings, always think I'll be shaky voiced on the rare rare occasions I can bring myself to do 'em, but then it's never as bad as I think.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	14-Mar-06/5:36 AM
All very well and good and obvious and only tangentially related to what was actually said. Ace! You win again.
Re: a comment on Settling in by INTRANSIT	14-Mar-06/5:33 AM
Hee--you know this one. Oliver! "Consider yourself . . . at home/consider yourself part of (par to?) the furniture . . . ". Cool poeme, bwonging and all. I agree with Dovina re: adoring floor--it jarred me out of this for whatever reason. Good sounds in this--"whirrs and tinks a sconce."
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	13-Mar-06/2:50 PM
Heh--a much more productive use of time. Though this did make an uneventful Monday fly by. So much for not getting sucked into the 'ranker comments feature again. Sigh.