Larry, I feel I have not been appreciative enough of the time you spent in my thread. Not just this year but every year. I meant to remedy this by a full read through. But again my eyes are bigger than my alarm clocks. I almost made it though.
As far as I got, I offer quick impressions and lines quoted back. They all deserve deeper consideration, proof being that I called it a night when you really wowed me with 20, 21.
1
Our ship will soon sail with no flag on its mast
This suggests that the master will leave spokesmen and “the dull” behind. The late warblings can’t be parsed because on the other side the ship will be unmarked and there will be no last lesson.
2
Forgive us also,
our bright brothers, our cruel and perfect sons
Interesting that the switch from I/we to a deformed they pivots on the God strophe. Seems that God’s absence leaves a cycle of revenge.
3
the husk of a moth/…/a letter from the battered night.
This is beautiful
4
Such mornings makes misery seems like blindness
I have to believe the odd subject/verb agreements are intentional. I keep playing them on my tongue.
And chlorophyll bliss must certainly lead to swimming in air.
5
The baby is eternally falling. Is this Midrash? “The courtyard seethes with grievance” a phrase that could seat a thousand tales.
6
This anecdote reminds me of the poems of Kandinsky
7
Hairless, the Musical. Not a rock opera but a camp song. Ominous.
8
ASMR is an exciting idea. I suppose it can be learned. The mystery of the poem my be the content of the whispered trigger.
9
Stump City
The rage of cut flowers
10
It’s hard to read whether there is hope in this poem or resignation. But this image is brilliant
treading footpaths
that hold the earth together like cords.
11
Should a falcon waste any tears on the shell it once called a nest?
And you who claim to envy the birds, would you give up your fingers to fly?
12
though it would be hard to know from reading
that during the epic struggle to line up his vowels precisely right,
two hundred million were killed by starvation and war.
— The thing is, we almost never read without a context, even if the art is hermetic the content is filtered through biographers and our own haphazard educations.
13
“Youth faking youth, / yet young/…./Berger, seventy”
I bought the 5th Dimension’s Aquarius at a record sale the other day. Some things don’t age well, but should Peter Pan surrender to Hook?
14
Notes Towards Meeting the Other
Nice twist at the end
15
I’m fond of the word “let’s” in poems. This is a good example.
Let’s tumble like seals,
surprising the deep
with small packets of sky.
16
A difficult proposition for a poem, but it holds. Especially like “In celebration when you fabricate a smile” and the last couplet.
17
but a mind which unfolds as you enter
Is a great line. I’m pondering if this is about infidelity or possibly a metaphoric brothel.
18
to the only grave we were happy to sweat for
One of those unexpected lines that lifts the others. The” perhaps” leads to a nice closure.
19
Another good turn here, and a twist on 18’s musicians. A nice pair.
outgrown our need
to suffer the music, the music and the honey.
20 and 21
Larry, do you send your work out. Where can I find the work you consider finished? These certainly belong out in the world.
This poem
has no web. No body. No skin.
It will never age.
It belongs to us all.
It is the better poem.
embrace the eyeball ethic
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Originally Posted by billdozer
