Larry Lies

[Alexandrite]

Hi Larry--- this is a powerful thread-- one worthy of more than the cursory visit
I'm able to give. This need days, if not weeks, to absorb and enjoy.

Standouts--
Hair: "mass delusion// painted many times over"
Missing: these images are brilliant "grin", "moth", "trinkets", "nothing with nothing"
Notes: "level the sun/ with the moon
Run, Child: every single word

This entire thread is a lesson in language used to evoke the part of us we didn't know
was there until we read it on the page.

Stunning!

[larryrap]

Alex, I'm very happy to have your vote of support and very lovely comments.

[larryrap]

20th – The Noise

First there was a drawing back,
a lull in our hearing – not an absence of sound
but a shift in the medium in which sound travelled,
our cries crisp and isolated
like at the top of a roller coaster climb
or before the sea swallows the shore.
We glanced at each other but faced
only mirrors. Then came the first loosening,
a whistle slowed to groans and ticks
like one must hear before an avalanche,
and we were hit: a hundred angry orchestras
all playing together
like an iceberg twisting a ship's metal gut
or the scream of a man being lynched.
It lasted longer than we thought we could survive
then subsided, and we were ourselves again,
although another innocence had been stripped of us,
one of the last, we thought – wrong again,
for our lessons were barely beginning,
and we had much to absorb before we could measure
the harmonics and timbre of loss.

[larryrap]

21st – Four Poems

1. In Between

Marked for death
before we were born.
Tolerated
while tolerance is in vogue.
Trained to duck
or lie on the grenade.
Tuesday's siren says stand.
Wednesday's siren means run.
In between
we dress like humans
and hand huge prizes to the most amusing lies.

..........Day of Remembrance for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism 2015


2. Make Room

Have you seen his smile?
He's human, after all.
And how painful it must be for him
to see clearly what others fear to see.
You say his hands shake, his eyes are narrow?
After years of darkness light can hurt.
Make room, laggards,
make room. He is coming.

..........…we will come out and call all our people; and always tell the truth
..........until we can begin to hope that this truth will prevail. Till the day
..........finally comes when our words fall silent and action begins.
....................- Adolf Hitler, 1920

3. The Spill

Truth escaped from a highly guarded industrial container.
Thirty-four citizens required professional care.
The public was reassured.
Experts were sent to contain the problem.
The press was briefed to say nothing.
It was, all things considered, a minor distraction.
The president's popularity had only been higher
in the early days when expectations ran high.

4. Unsigned

We have taken over the space
that was held by the other poem.
It spun for hunger,
not for love. Sucked many,
feeding few. This poem
has no web. No body. No skin.
It will never age.
It belongs to us all.
It is the better poem.

[larryrap]

22nd – The Secret Society

1. Our Flag

Black, with a ghostly glow in its middle,
some say white, some jellyfish blue.
Nor can any agree on its shape:
it appears most clearly when the mind wanders,
but when you try to fix your eye on it
it's gone.

2. Our Anthem

The silent half of a heartbeat
trapped by noise.

[Dunc]

Larry

Hair - as I recall it, a mess of a play, more like a sequence of sketches/numbers that vary in quality and relevance. But under it all the sad tale of Claud and conscription gripping his shoulder. Its famous nude scene was cleverly relevant.

Notes towards Meeting - S2 in particular is kickarse.

Early to Bed - complex, clouded, full of warmth, a delight to read.

Run, My Child - surreal and sharp, and all in focus at the ending.

Aladdin's Cave - aw! a love poem. Its curiosities lead to a great finish.

When We Stood Tall - Grim, thoughtful, substantial, measured. Swapping places with the dead ...

The Musicians are Leaving - another sad musing with a powerful finale.

Four Poems - Particularly struck by 1 for its bleak clarity, 2 for capturing the hypothesis in such a creepy net..

The Secret Society - Two very sharp metaphors, conveying the basic despair of things futile.

Can't say you cheered me up, but you continue to have the voice, the tone, for the situation, and a way with powerful images and metaphors. Your thread has accumulating force.

Regards / Dunc

[larryrap]

Hi Dunc,

I feel lucky to benefit from your generous reading and judgment.

The Hair Musical which I saw (and enjoyed) was too chicken to follow the original Broadway play; it was heavily padded with Milos Forman's corny screenplay. The hippie mythology touches the core of quite a few contemporary political problems I struggle with.

[larryrap]

23rd


In Storage

Stacked, crammed into boxes,
packed with socks and balled paper,
collapsed and leaning to one side,
they lead a marginal life, aging substitutes
too useful to discard, too useless to use.

At first they resent each other,
the shared shroud of bubble wrap and tape,
the daily ration of dust.
In the end it's their jailor they hate,
the absent figure whose outline they are.

By the time muffled bids are heard outside,
they've hardened to a unit,
shoulder to cardboard shoulder,
determined, as though sheer will were glue,
to stick as one and learn the bitter end.



Coming Down

The jewel in my pocket
that lightened my day
turned to sediment stone.

[kristalynn]

I've been reading your thread this afternoon and there is so much good stuff here, I don't really know what to say about them individually. When We Stood Tall really stands out for me.

[Steven]

'In Storage' was really, really good. A poem as tight as the subject it's treating.

[larryrap]

Hi Kristalynn, my great pleasure having you here.
Steven, thanks again, very nice of you to return.

[larryrap]

24th – Late

The poem has flown as scheduled but you are late. The poetry gates are closed.
Fluorescent silence pours from the agency windows.
You will have to spend another night in Mondaytown,
the city that loved you, now turned mean.
Locals laugh in your face and call you
The Man Who Was Left Behind. This isn't me, you whine.
I'm the empty seat behind that mountain of clouds.

[larryrap]

25th – Memory of Fire

ash-grease cheeks
breath of smoke
ember eyes

we were shadow twisters
dancing forest
braid of stars

feeding our demon
blocks of darkness
as proud as we'd ever be

still unconsumed
burning
from a distance

[cookala]

Hi

you know, when I read you now I remember back to the time you were cutting your teeth in C&C and all of those scathing crits I did on your poems - and I have to say you've come so very, very far and have gotten to be so very accomplished in your poetic endeavors. it makes me smile to know that maybe I had a tiny part in that. of the last few, this last one, Memory of Fire, is amazing image and diction wise, but I am not quite sure what the deeper meaning is when I get to S3. something is missing, a clarity of what N intends to convey, I think, is buried a wee bit too deep. then again, maybe I just need to think on it for awhile. Late - clever! In Storage - not quite getting it, sorry. probably having a duh moment. too much napo, ya know?

[delph_ambi]

Some powerful writing here. The one I keep returning to is 'In Storage'. Great stuff.