Poetics and Poetry Discussion

Mummy says I should put this piece on:

None Committal Poet

The serious bard
Wrote rhymes that were hard
With iambic pentameter mad
When not understood
He complained they were good
And when criticised just blamed his dad

This principled bard
Was oft on his guard
And although mostly crap, he had some
That were easy to read
So he forthwith decreed
He'd developed the skills from his mum

His Mum and his dad
Berated the lad
And said if he had to compete
He shouldn't just pout
And for absence of doubt
Should stand on his own poets feet

The petulant bard
With little regard
Has invented a new point of view
He won't take the rap
If his poems are crap
Then he now simply blames Auntie Sue

Ok...lets do a test...I'll re-post my comment..(best as I can remember it....since I pulled it right out of my passt) and see if mgt wipes it (I'll wager they won't....not without help anyway) ....ready......
The Ted
Poetry that can't be edited?
no p@@@y that he can't ed it....Ted
chew on that if you're a mind to

I think I changed the last line but who's counting.., .not me

what happened to the poem that was posted here?...
.I liked it and went on to read more by the same poet...(wasn't written by one of us'n's.....)
was it removed by " management" because of the responses it received, (in an effort by thems that adhere to the code of excising) to get rid of not particularly veiled comments which were meant to be construed as exactly what they were....
.ah, mysteries...nonsense tickles me...(at least some of the time it does.....)

A Brisk Walk

Midnight on a winding street
air still as the grave
no danger lurking
no signs of wake

You swagger on
curving gingerly to the left
then suddenly—
a hand is in your hand
hot breath against your cheek
a whisper in your ear:

“My love, my light
come lie with me.
We will meet at great heights
where I will set you free,
from the hands that bind
and a mind of remiss,
so you won't but mind
as you float down the abyss.”

With no note of dissent
no sigh, no frown, nor shake
you are whisked away,
taking steady steps, with deep breaths
to the hole where you shall lay.

When finally you do arrive
you're beckoned to lie down
you stumble in, burrowing
careful not to make a sound.

Morning comes, but not the sun,
Eyes search, but nothing found.
Hands grasp at dirt, nails rake on stone
at this new burial ground.

Now screaming will do no good
nor fight, nor will, nor pain
you are here and here for good
because doth wed the night
and the night doth betrayed.

“Away now morning light,
Farewell bitter day!
Soon we will reunite,
perhaps from inner fray.
So beat your drums
and live in spite
measure all your sums
and we'll forget this little slight
until tomorrow comes.”

So lie down,
calm and secure
make most of this fine bed
that you've dug yourself out of
time and time again.

If I Had Ten More Minutes

If I had ten more minutes
And my voice was not faint
Nor my face so devoid
Or my mind so blank
I would profess—

But I'm afraid of words
Which might betray lips,
For what is kept
is of my eyes,
that impulsive organ,
I've attempted to stray:
hooded, hazed.

Construing a montage
ever playing:
concerns, worries
fears, and doubts,
Come to life
in bursting light
whilst straining in the dark.

And if such creations
could speak—
or better
could be heard—
through the mist of passion
And masks of pride,

I would profess
All in my heart;
Every quaint murmur
Forsaken night and night.

I Seek Thee



Nothing will compare to the oasis I now seek

These arid eyes betray the fountain it seeks

Submerged in a desert dust, of cries


I seek high and low, as mountains greet the sky

And seas search their depths

I seek thee, as a song demands a humming melody

I seek thy presence as how wise men follow reason

I seek thy ways as lord Justice seeks to right

Oppressors’ wrongs

I seek all pleasures as how an addict demands ecstacy

I seek thy faith as how the righteous surrender their praise

I seek thee greatly, as much as the eagle desires

to roam the vaccant skies


Precious love!

Where have thou fled?

Far away from natures divine creed?

Absent from thine own heart’s desire?

I seek lost understanding of life’s cruel ways

I seek to find, as the river seeks the sea

Love! I seek thee still

Just as the light intends to tame the shrewd of the night

I seek hoping to find, causing my will to die

I seek thee to be calm and be at peace


Oh Dear, Sweet, Precious Love

I pray that you relieve me now -

For all there is to be - I do find in thee

And with your Love I can now see


copyright © 2013


Godfrey Morris

Negativity sucks. Reaction to negativity is an ineffectual use of words, a senseless depletion of positive spiritual energy……a tossing of priceless artwork into fast lane highway traffic amid rush hour.

Rest in pieces Margaret Thatcher to tune of: 'ding dong the bitch is dead'

HUggles from Txx for Dxx on Hxx 4.4.13

Copyright Dr Tara K Sanderson

We mourn
For that soul,
To be great, grand, accomplished, ever-spreading
The wisdom of a humane heart never-ending
That, forlorn,
We see
The pre-emptive end
Was destiny:
To not be so...
Do we know?
Dead, gone, done...
The most beautiful human being
Dead, gone, done...
Ashes. Ashes
From dust, to dust
a flash
in lives that brightened.
Death won,
As though it must
Always take the best
And leave to be the rest...
My anger at the world
Churns up...
I DO wish someone else dead,
I wish it were them instead,
(And I don’t care if this is nasty,
Take me, as all, as you find me)
But I loved, as if a father,
Or as if, perhaps, an older brother...
The darling who has gone,
But found happiness in one.
..............................................
Yet so much more to be said:
Dead
in physicality,
The master of HER memory...
And ours, so very differently:
.............................................
We shed tears. Through the years:
We will miss
What could have been,
What should have seemed
The obvious answers to obvious questions,
The unthought-of answers to inquisitions:
............................
And D writes... so passively, to me,
And I so gratefully, receive, and SEE,
‘Memories live amongst the tears’.
.and will (sigh) ‘ do so through the years'.
......................
Oh, darling D,
As it seems to me,
How I wish, how you wish, how H would have wished
That those tears would not come but for years:
The memories there yet to be built
Of satin, sand, and aged silk...
You gave him the elusive, the all-consuming,
The simply over-powering,
That thing he did not, before, know:
Love.... (what, what, does that little word show...?
..............................................
He was, at once, in peace.
He rests, indeed, in peace)
........................................................
And D, left here, to weep,
Not sleep,
... empty now
that your man of all time
And for all time
Has gone.
..............................................
Your empathy,
Your h-for-me,
Your brilliance,
Your tolerance.
Your...
Shock,
your tears.
Do not, D, fear.
So.... unjust, unright, unfair of the world,
Unfair of the planet, and of the gods,
Of Jupiter, of Neptune, of Venus, too
The god/dess of love and beauty, .. that’s you...
The goodness that you have, honestly, told me
It is, and will be, an ongoing story...
............................................................
And I have seen the pictures, seen them all,
And feel a hollowness, and emptiness,
I stand tall, bereft, I seek the homeland that you seek,
And it is always possible,
Though it escapes the mind,
to the humble, the bereft, the scared, the meek
As if for current moment
You have walked, left it behind,
With the image just implanted there
And never to withdraw.
.....................
Sheer love.
...............................
Could any person ever ask for more
......................................
And yet so cruelly left, finished.
But NEVER, darling D, to be diminshed.
And you, D,
And you...?
Let them not rule your heart:
Let
One beautiful heart especially
Will cry throughout the years..
A tunnel of blackness
Where her soulmate had been:
And necessary.
Do we mourn,
When the life lives on
Through poetry in motion,
A new-found devotion,
A liberation,
A true equation
That D + H equals... two...
Nothing very new
Yet oh, so special... unique...
What always, elusively, H tried to seek...
and found
his feet on the ground
with
YOU.
.............................................
Your happiness has an injection
A projection
From our Dr H...
Let his syringe of love take you over,
Let it never
End,
And let you never fall apart,
As H cherished your heart
And continues.
And continues.
And continues.

I read Eric Burger's " The Design" in the Indiana Review, and I want help interpreting the exact meaning of his poem. I pasted the poem and some thoughts I on what I think it means:

a poem from Issue 34.1

The Design
by Eric Burger

We treated the ghost like a member of the family—fed her cookies and left the video game console on for her at night—but still she proceeded to haunt us. Not with chains and moans but with small, disturbing things. Two of Molly’s socks grew rat heads. A speck on a carrot stick, on inspection, turned out to be a nearly microscopic severed finger. All my unemployment forms were filled out in Dutch. And, as if she had thrown some kind of filter over the whole property, stars were no longer visible from our yard at night. Then nothing was visible from our yard. Just black nothing. That was it. I was fed up. I went upstairs to the attic and sat on the old chest. The ghost appeared in a Victorian-era dress and a pair of stylish, contemporary sandals. Her eyes seemed greyer than before. She sat on a box. “What I want, ” she said, “you can’t give me. No one can.” “Then why all the haunting?” I fired at her. “It isn’t haunting, ” she explained. “I’m a ghost, a rupture, a non-thing. Everywhere I go I destabilize the material world.” I blinked and was suddenly looking out of her eyes. It wasn’t scary, just a shock. A double-take moment. There was a cheap oil painting on the floor by the chest that I hadn’t thought of in ages. A palm tree in a purple and pink sunset. We couldn’t take our eyes off that sunset and felt an airy sadness in our chest, a fidelity.

My interpretation: The Design is a reference to the main character's strategy to convince an old woman that she is dead, in order for him to come back to life. I think its classic irony. The ghost is actually a member of the family- an artistic type who likes to paint (the cheap, oil painting on the floor) . The family locked her away in the attic thinking she was insane. Throughout the poem, they try to convince themselves that she's dead, when its actually Molly who decays (the rats in her socks) and the dead main character loses his mind (he gets fired- unemployment forms and ends up writing in another language) . The so-called ghost, or Dutch ancestor has a conversation with the dead main character, in which she shows the errors in his logic and makes him accept that he no longer has a place in the world.

The parts I sense have meaning but can't figure out are: " her eyes seemed grayer than before" - so he's seen her, but where?
The " fed her cookies" line makes me think she represents Santa Claus to them, but I don't know how that fits into my theory. " The video game console reminds me of the movie Poltergeist, as if they wanted her to come through in the television, but that could be too far-fetched. I think it's connected to her " stylish contemporary sandals, " and ability to function in the modern world (use technology / gaming equipment) . I think the Victorian era dress is just evidence of her unusual taste, which could have gotten her called crazy and locked up in the attic. Lastly, why does the main character sit on an antique chest while the so-called ghost sits on a box (probably cardboard) ? " Somebody please help me with this!