Poetry Forum

jisbell00 wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 22, 2024 10:07 pm

Hi David,

Nope, that is correct! Came here in 1974, aged eleven, left in 1993.

Ah, I wasn't too far out then. That's good.

Cheers

David

Great. Thanks Kris. I think you should write your own poem, or sequence. It would be much darker, of course, but at least you would at the end - I hope and trust - emerge into the light. And, if nothing else, it's a little self-therapy. Talking always helps, even if it's only with yourself. And it c...

jisbell00 wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 19, 2024 12:36 am

Hi David,

Yes, I suppose I am a relative outsider these days. Perhaps I always was!

Hi John. Perhaps I have misunderstood your status. I have always thought you were an American who had been partly, at least, educated in the UK. Did I get that wrong? If so, I apologise.

Cheers

David

We move toward the unrestricted air, not looking back, although the chances are that this is not goodbye but au revoir. Lovely. It's all great. I get the mummy reference, not the fishing. Dunno if you need those last 2 lines, or the brackets above them, blinking Lazarus a good place to end. Great. ...

Hi Ray Enjoyed the conversational tone of the piece. and the rhyming couplet at the conclusion. Tony Yep, me too. I think it does what you want it to do already, so doesn't need any tinkering. (If it were mine, with my OCD approach to symmetry, I'd want all the verses to be the same length, but I s...

Thanks Tony. I keep thinking I must start listening to these, but hardly ever get around to it. I did hear some of one about Elizabeth Bishop's "Moth Man", and was surprised - and quite impressed - at how much detail he goes into. I possibly need a long commute on public transport, but don...

I like it, Caleb. It spirals nicely. The repetition works for me as a device in the poem. It's a bit like "This is the house that Jack built".

Cheers

David

Hi John. This is a very nice outsider's (okay, relative outsider's) view of England. (As with Phil's "Bag", though, I would say it is crying out to be a rhyming poem.) I like "where rook and crow /attend to their responsibilities", and your use of "green as grass". And ...

Hi Tony,

It must be my electronic ignorance, but I'm not sure what the 32 and the 64 are.

Very nice last line.

Should be "no one knew"?

Cheers

David

This is from your mania MS, is, John? (If I can call it that.) The central section is an interesting insertion. As Phil says, the bathtub image is a striking one. The whole thing is striking, and - I think - effective. I wonder whether the last line would read more smoothly (if you want smoothness, ...

Sorry all, I missed this (apart from Kris's comment) over the festive period. Again, David, just lovely. Can't find fault with it. L3/4 made me chuckle, referencing things which others either don't get or don't find amusing will always be funny. Yay! Thanks John. I didn't get the reference but I lik...

Belatedly ... Or call the poem Klaatu barada nikto . Now there's an idea, John. Love the Sci-Fi filter. I wish you hadn't brought the saints into play. You're probably right, Phil. The saints are a personal idiosyncrasy of mine. A couple of nits with this one, David. Probably very reasonable, John. ...

I think this is very good, John. I can see the strength of the Pinocchio reference, but it seems out of place here. I would give it a poem of its own. You could omit it here and improve the flow of this one. S1 is tetrameter, unlike the rest? And do you want the last verse to be 8 lines? But my job ...

the stranger wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 24, 2023 4:20 pm

David,

Is the title a little nod to 'Gone Fishing'? I do hope so.

It is indeed. That was exactly how it felt to me.

Cheers

David

This seems like a great and generous vision, Tony. A welcome thing in this dark season of the year.

Happy Christmas.

David

(The final part of my medical adventure) They take me out, as if I were a bun emerging from the oven, nicely done, or one of Lord Carnarvon’s photographs. “I feel like the Mummy!” No one laughs. The nurse stands by, in case she needs to help me back into my reassembled self. My partner is still read...

ray miller wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 19, 2023 1:21 pm

Phil, spent the great majority of my career working with "long-stay" patients/clients, people who remained where they were and didn't tend to get better. Bit like us on Proleartthreat.

Okay, made me laugh.

I could go with either of these, Caleb. Each one has its own merits, and it's hard to choose between them.

Cheers

David

Some great snippets here. Fragments of dystopia.

This is someone's alter ego, is it not? The dark side, perhaps.

Howdy, stranger.

David

John, Caleb, I'm glad you liked this. (I'm starting to understand what you meant about the state of the forum, John.) I do want that sort of transcendental ending, John - rightly or wrongly. As to the two stanzas, to me this is just one set of fourteen lines but with the deep breath taken in the mid...

OK. Now I comment on every poem posted, which I can hardly expect of others. It is my sense of duty to a dying forum. Now, is that a fair characterisation of the forum's state of health? I had thought it was showing signs of life, if not exactly sitting up and taking a little chicken soup. Still, y...

Great use of debunked Yes, I like that too. And I think the poem, as a whole, is more successful than John suggests, so you can make that 3:1 in your favour now, Caleb. It's true, there are generalities in there, but I think you enliven them with your language / word choice. (Oddly enough, it's the...

Another room, but quite the opposite, as busy as a SciFi TV set in which a friendly and obliging crew in uniforms of deep cerulean blue, grouped round this alien hardware, slide me in so that the gentle probing can begin. Breathe in … breathe out … hold your breath … continue breathing … planet Eart...

jisbell00 wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 17, 2023 6:55 pm

Glad you're OK. That is a welcome Xmas gift! And you do write elegant rhyming couplets - your first love wasn't wrong.

Cheers,
John

Thanks for that, John.

David

CalebPerry wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 17, 2023 10:13 pm

Rhyming couplets -- I'll have to try them. Alicia Stallings does them a lot. It must make it easier to rhyme, as the work of rhyming two lines is over quickly, and then you move on to the next.

That's exactly it, Caleb. And they're fun. Give them a go.

Cheers

David