Re: Abba by oneglove	14-Nov-05/3:53 AM
As if you needed proof of God's existence, the first initials of the band members in ABBA (Abagail, Brian, Bjorn, and Agatha) actually spell ABBA.
Re: Bread and blackthorns by Caducus	14-Nov-05/9:55 AM
"Imprisoned from my ribs"? I'm sure you have an explanation why you used "from" rather than "in" or "by". I'll save you the trouble. It doesn't work.
Re: Math Poem 4 by Dovina	15-Nov-05/12:57 AM
Take off that silly cape and stop flapping around Alpha Beta. You're not in Narnia. It's getting embarrassing to be seen with you in public.
Re: Two Mirrors by Dovina	15-Nov-05/2:14 AM
I just realized: Two mirrors exactly facing each other don't reflect anything.
regarding some deleted poem...	15-Nov-05/9:37 AM
Cute. Is vignette the right word? I mean that honestly; I don't know or have the computing power to check. I would have said epigram.
regarding some deleted poem...	15-Nov-05/9:49 AM
Good rhyme, good rhythm, good lyricism. Nice that you've gotten those images out of the way. Now you have no excuse for using them again.
Re: Beneath the Willow Tree by cyan9	15-Nov-05/9:50 AM
A very good movie summary. I'm guessing Phenomenon?
regarding some deleted poem...	15-Nov-05/9:52 AM
This first stanza is the best of what you've posted here.
Re: Us Sinners by BrandonW	16-Nov-05/5:25 AM
Question: Do you believe that if she is in heaven alone, she's unhappy from loneliness?
regarding some deleted poem...	18-Nov-05/10:11 PM
Calls to mind Wordsworth, maybe Byron. Seriously.
regarding some deleted poem...	18-Nov-05/10:12 PM
Good writing, but nothing new. All of these rhymes have been used in other poems about fairies.
Re: Gerry's Song by ALChemy	18-Nov-05/10:15 PM
Nice. The second-to-last line tripped me up, but for a poem meant to be read in the accent of Groundskeeper Willie, that's no biggie.
Re: soon i will travel by ay deee	18-Nov-05/10:16 PM
Agreed.
Re: A daisy chain for Nina by Caducus	18-Nov-05/10:30 PM
Here is a story I never told you. Living in a rented house on South University in Ann Arbor, long before we met, I found bundled letters in the attic room where I took myself to work. A young woman tenant of the attic wrote these letters to her lover who had died in a plane crash. In my thirtieth year with tenure and a new book coming out, I read the letters in puzzlement. She is writing these letters to somebody dead? There is one good thing about April. Everyday, Gus and I take a walk in the graveyard. I am the one who doesn’t piss on your stone. Oh, winter when snow and ice kept me away. I worried that you missed me. Perkins, where the hell are you? In hell; Everyday, I play in repertoire the same script without you, without love, without audience except for Gus who waits attentive for cues like a walk, a biscuit, bedtime. The year of days without you in your body swept by as quick as an afternoon. But, each afternoon took a year. At first, and most outright, I daydreamed about burning the house, kerosene and pie plates with a candle lit in the middle. I locked myself in your study with Gus, Ada and the rifle my father gave me at twelve. I killed our cat and our dog and swallowed a bottle of pills knowing that if I woke up on fire, I had the gun. After you died, I stopped rereading history. I took up Cormick McCarthy for the rage and murder. Now, I return to Gibbon, secure in his reasonable civilization, he exercises detachment as Barbarians skewer Romans. Then, Huns galloped from the sunrise wearing skulls. What’s new? I see more people now. In March, I took Kate and Mary to Pierre’s. At the end of the month, ice dropped to the pond’s bottom and water flashed and flowed through pines in Western light. The year melted into April and I lived through the hour we learned last year that you would die. For the next ten days, my mind sat by our bed again as you diminished cell by cell. Last week, the goldfinches flew back for a second spring. Again, I witnessed snowdrops worry from dead leaves into air. Now, your hillside daffodils edge up and today, it is a year since we set you down at the border of the graveyard on a breezy April day. We stood in a circle around the coffin and its hole under pines and birches to lower you into the glacial sand. When I dream, sometimes your hair is long and we make love like we used to. One nap time, I saw your face at eighty with many lines, more flesh, the good bones distinct. It is astonishing to be old. When I stand after sitting, I am shocked at how I must stretch to ease the stiffness out. When we first spoke of marriage, we dismissed the notion because you would be a widow twenty-five years or maybe I would not be able to make love while desire still flared in you. Sometimes now, I feel crazy with desire again as if I were forty, drinking and just divorced. Ruth Houghton had a stroke. Our daughter sent me the album of the photographs Roger took in his documentary “Passion”. Inside and outside our house, every room, every corner, one day in September 1984, I howled as I gazed at that day intact. Our furniture looked out of place as if vandals had shoved everything awry. There were pictures on the walls we put away long ago. The kitchen wallpaper shone bright red in Roger’s kodacolor. It faded as we watched, not seeing it fade. - Donald Hall, about Jane Kenyon
Re: i remembered by skaskowski	18-Nov-05/10:32 PM
No comma after "greed"; no period after "plight"; no comma after "cry"; comma rather than period after "try". Oddly good.
Re: rubble rooster by FreeFormFixation	18-Nov-05/10:37 PM
Tread along, tread along, tread along, yeah. You're like a stick of macaroni in bed. Eat the ritual food, my friend, So that your macaroni will be steady in bed. Bling-blabling-bling-bling! - Bunny Wailer
Re: Gerry's Song by ALChemy	18-Nov-05/11:10 PM
PS-I'm glad you're posting. I was afraid we'd scared you off it.
Re: Amber's Witness by cyan9	21-Nov-05/9:15 AM
My one suggestion is to avoid overloading your poem with adjective phrases (ie, "dwelling in the rust", "injecting the pathway", "ascending to the fire", etc.) Change almost all of them to other formulations, give it some grammatical variety. I like that you use tons of great verbs in your poems - one of the great weaknesses of this site's users is verblessness - but by making them all -ing, you make them a lot more passive than they should be. Off the top of my head, I'd say make the first line "It dwells in rust that gilds the woodland floor" and go from there. No, that's not the best possible way to phrase that line, but it's heading in the right direction, and this isn't my poem to edit, anyway. Suggestion #2: Consider dropping about half of the "the"s.
Re: Due Consideration by Dovina	21-Nov-05/9:51 AM
Well, at least ignoring reason ignores any ways of determining whether you're better off unreasonable except the unreasonable ones.
Re: Night song of Pattaya by Caducus	21-Nov-05/10:04 AM
"Masterpieces" seems an extremely poor word choice. Not only does it add nothing of significance to "painted", but "painted" doesn't add anything significant to it. They're not redundant, but they're the closest thing. And aren't these kids much more comparable to bagatelle or objets d'art, something cheap, mass-produced, and marketed for the poor unaesthetic masses? Even better: painted-tin Virgin icons!!!