Re: a comment on Geometry for Dyslexics by zodiac	7-Nov-04/12:55 AM
All the dyslexic stuff came from really teaching a dyslexicon highschool geometry. It's not really a dyslexic joke, though. When I wrote this, I thought it was the most genius metaphor ever. Now I think it's just preciouse beyond bearing.
Re: a comment on A Better God by Dovina	7-Nov-04/12:50 AM
The way I see it, whichever you pick you have to believe God - the real God - isn't really perfect. For a), you'd have a rough time claiming your planet was better than the real God's, since he'd just say, "How can it be? I'm perfect and you're not. If you don't understand how I run my planet, maybe that's BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT PERFECT." And it's true: without perfection, you stand the big chance of your planet being a colossal mistake. If you picked b), you're screwed already, since being perfect would make you exactly like the current God (assuming he's perfect), and you'd have to decide to make a planet exactly like he did. And I can't go in for c). It just makes the word "perfect" kind of trash and trampy, while I believe in real (or at least some abstract notion of) perfection. I mean, if you're going to make up a word like "perfect" and make it mean something like "completely suited for a particular purpose or situation," or its even stricter (maybe) religious sense, then there's not much good in fucking around with it. In short, it's probably easy for you to believe in a God who's not perfect, since you don't seem to really believe in God anyway. But for a poem that presumes a (probably Christian) God right off the bat, even ironically, that seems kind of dumb. The way I see it, you kind of have to accept that if there's a God, or at least the Christian one, he's perfect. That's part of His definition.
Re: a comment on Fair Dianne by Dovina	7-Nov-04/12:37 AM
This dog I've seen here likes to run into traffic. It must have been hit about a half-dozen times, is missing a leg, ear, and teeth, etc. I imagine it thinks life is this same steady and unstoppable string of pummellings for everybody. The other dogs, the ones who don't run in traffic, don't say anything - or it doesn't believe them when they do.
Re: a comment on Fair Dianne by Dovina	7-Nov-04/12:33 AM
I don't know what you mean. I was being serious :-(
Re: a comment on Poemranker I Couldn't stay Away by Tara57	7-Nov-04/12:30 AM
You still don't get it. Listen, I'm going to make this really simple: The grammatical mistakes, logical mistakes, non-tracking metaphors, overabundant cliche, and the frankly kind of boring sensitive self-obsession in your poems makes them - your poems - susceptible to criticism. That's only right, and what we're here for. Your failure to do anything about them except feel hurt and misunderstood and snippy makes you - the poet, Tara57 - susceptible to criticism. That, too, is justified. Saying "Your poem is chock-full of grammatickal and other errors" is not an attack on you, Tara57. It's a criticism of your poem, which - well, IS full of them, like "I will drink it down possessed in this game". Saying, "You've been told dozens of times that you should pay attention to grammar on this site, and you've only gone snippy and bitter about it when anybody with a smidgen of sense would have tried to work on it and maybe improve a little" IS an attack on your person. But IT'S TOTALLY JUSTIFIED by the fact that you responded to the aboveposted criticism of your poem like a total dunce and whiny baby. IT's NOTHING AT ALL LIKE suggesting that my wife is "a sick Islam-baiting skankwhore," or whatever you said. So just stop, okay? Don't act like we're being unreasonable, like we've got some wack-ass vendetta against you, Tara57, or anything that moves on this site. If you're going to insist on thinking that way, after my patient explanation, I'm afraid I'll have no choice but to believe you're one of the dimmest people I've ever met. Please? Just think about it? I want us to be friends, Tara. Really. Thanks for your time, Concerned in Islamica.
Re: a comment on Poemranker I Couldn't stay Away by Tara57	6-Nov-04/11:30 PM
No, she's American.
Re: tomorrow is another day by hendrimike	6-Nov-04/5:19 AM
If you don't own a blacklight and at least one blacklight poster, I will eat my shmaagh.
Re: a comment on Poemranker I Couldn't stay Away by Tara57	6-Nov-04/5:18 AM
Hey, snappy comeback! And in only nine minutes! Guess you showed me!! PS-Your poem is chock-full of grammatickal and other errors. PPS-Oh God! I'm doing it again...
Re: Fair Dianne by Dovina	6-Nov-04/5:12 AM
Should be categorized "Barely Veiled Rant about Getting Your Poems Trashed on Poemranker". I'll be writing nentwined to have such a category created and all backlogged poems in this vein belatedly entered in it. You can be our queen.
Re: Beard my Homemade Negro Jesus (Improved! With AIDS!) by Everyone	6-Nov-04/5:08 AM
Still the best poem ever.
Re: Neil Simon is Living in My Lunula by MacFrantic	6-Nov-04/5:07 AM
This poem exactly reminds me that there's a turd (now vomit covered) which has been living in my Turkish toilet the last month and a half. It floats and has a few recognizable features. Kind of like Neil Simon.
Re: No More Autumn Poems (Edit) by Sasha	6-Nov-04/5:05 AM
The middle verse is overstated and a little poetick. The rest is pretty good.
Re: Poemranker I Couldn't stay Away by Tara57	6-Nov-04/5:00 AM
True story: This retard boy in our neighborhood followed my wife home from work last week and, right as she got to the house, abruptly tried to fist her through the seat of her pants. Naturally, we called our jaha, which called their jaha, and everybody had to go out to the police office the next day for a nice little sitdown together. Inappropriate attempted fisting is, by the way, a high crime here. The sick part is that even in the police station, confronted with something like 15 years in prison and the ruination of his, his family's, and all descendants of his family's reputation into eternity, he SERIOUSLY couldn't stop himself from staring kind of blankly and freakishly at my wife. His father, too. The police started to knock them around a little, you know, scare them some, and they were crying and apologizing and STILL staring at her. That's kind of weird, huh?
Re: A Better God by Dovina	5-Nov-04/11:38 PM
If you were a god, which of the following would you be? a) Just like yourself now, only with invisibility and creating-matter-from-nothing superpowers; b) Have invisibility and matter-creating powers, plus a +50 Cloak of Perfection (ie, also perfect); c) It's all the same thing, since if you were God whatever you thought or did would have to be by definition perfect - kind of like the reality (but not the idea) of Papal infallibility probably is.
Re: a comment on Ending by Dovina	5-Nov-04/5:13 AM
The statement "I like X" is not unsupportable.
Re: Perfect Time of Year by wilco	4-Nov-04/5:38 AM
I'm suspicious of poems which do that repeated-adjective-on-its-own-line thing. Call me screwy. And I don't like the last two lines at all.
Re: Grandma by Dovina	4-Nov-04/5:32 AM
I agree with richa again. I don't think older peoples' senses are sharpened. Considering how bad things are for young people with, say, childhood arthritis, it's easy to imagine old peoples' senses are dulled somewhat to pain. Honest question: What do you think is the difference between good works and goodness of the heart? Do you think people just accidentally do good works most of the time?
Re: 10.25.04 by oneglove	4-Nov-04/5:18 AM
It's weird that you say the moon is male and sun is female. Simone de Beauvoir would be shocked into dropping her French tickler. Maybe with a hollow thud on the rug and everyone would kind of stand around pretending not to notice while she stooped quickly and maybe unashamedly to tuck it back in place because she is after all Simone de Beauvoir and if she wants to walk around with one of those clamped in her trap well she probably knows what's best for Simone de Beauvoir, doesn't she?
Re: a comment on Bird (Yang) by <{Baba^Yaga}>	4-Nov-04/12:57 AM
I do. Just type "vagina" into the search-o-mat. You'll get gems like this one: http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=68450
Re: a comment on Ending by Dovina	4-Nov-04/12:36 AM
Now that you are actually talking about voices/whatever, here goes: In the poems of yours I've read recently, I don't get the impression you're creating some narrating character. Call me blind, but I HAVE spent the last seven years (ie, longer than you've been out of middle school) talking about narrating voices, so I guess I ought to know as well as anyone. Regardless, a neat trick to say something which could be read as self-righteousness is to obviously place a character in the poem to say it. That's all. This doesn't have anything to do with "any views that I do not personally hold", or whatever. Actually, it's better for views you DO personally hold, but are for some reason or another unsupportable, self-righteous, or open to attack. With views you don't personally hold it's safer, since people will be inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt and recognise crazy or ill-informed views as crazy and ill-informed. If you wrote a poem that went, for example, Walking through Colour Town, Down streets smelling of Chinamen, Down streets smelling of Mexicans, Down streets smelling of Blacks, Down streets smelling of Jews, I feel an unbearable ache And wonder Which street is yours? - people will probably not really think you're a racist, but rather that you're making fun of racists. Am I wrong? Sure you can put whatever the hell kind of view you want in the first person and make it a character narrating - or claim it is later - but it's a lot harder, and you don't need harder now. If that WERE the tack you wanted to take, I'd say you'd need to work to distance your persona - Dovina's - from the narrator's. An easy way to do that is to insert some doubt or flaw in the narrator's persona that the reader is unlikely to attribute to you, Dovina - because they'll think it's too honest even for Confessional Poetry (or whatever) or because it actually casts some doubt on your - Dovina's - real assertions. I mean like here: http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=85208 or here http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=83918 Anyway, it's just a suggestion. Considering that the moral certainty/whatever I've seen or imagined seeing in your poems recently is a terribly unhealthy thing for a real young lady to have, I hope you'll at least try it. Here are some decent examples: http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=98137 http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=85647 http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=113633