Ph'tang Yang Olé Biscuit Barrel

[kristalynn]

Really like Soft Focus, beautiful the way you describe her. The "sway of light" "just pixels" and "the shadow on the rose" are the images I like most.

[5th column]

Thanks to Bench and Kristalyn. Lost Focus is actually about someone suffering from Alzheimer's but it seems I need to work harder on transmitting that which is great feedback. Maybe the title is the avenue. Thanks again to both.

[Andrea345]

consider longer line lengths for "Lost Focus"

Really

read it aloud and listen to your breath

[5th column]

Hello Andrea, there is that... But line breaks and the fragmented memory...and the breath and otherwise it comes across as twee

[prokopton]

kitten heels and ripped jeans.. sigh
oh how it takes me back!

gravity affects the path of light
images lost in blur

all good. It teases my brain to mix the metaphors.

Keep on rockin, you're just getting warmed up!

ffGoe

[beeswax]

Hello Neil. interesting work here and enjoyable. Let’s see:

Accented- I enjoyed the detail, place names, exotic-sounding forenames, and a dog named ‘cunt’!
That’s the icing on the cake for me.

The Tide is just lovely. You painted a fine picture in few words.

Haiku – I’m into practicing these this time round. I figure I must be able to find three lines even if the time available is squeezed – I sympathise with the struggle – harder than they seem. Yours was a nice image and loved the idea of spring ‘unfurling’ with the ferns.

The Safe. This is my fav. so far. I enjoy sifting through the various things with N and how the things became associations with the things.

Tiffany. Did I get the last two lines? Is Ms. T a magnet for fatal attractions?

[5th column]

Many thanks to Geoff and to Bees for the thoughts and encouragement. Fluff is a curiously strange thing to need in one's life don't you think?

I heard from my youngest on holiday in Rome this morning that she's become engaged to a fine young man. Makes NaPo hard to concentrate on.




a glint in the eye
the magpies are circling
on Aventine Hill

[Mimic_Octopus]

I love the aggression in 'Accented', 5th. There's this doggedness (arf) to it, and a momentum that gives it the feel of a memory being dragged to recollection.

[Steven]

'The safe' is a fine list poem. Really, really good. And I like how the safe itself is used as a conceit.

'Tiffany' is sexy. Very good description, and a punchy final line.

[5th column]

Many thanks to Kirsty (I hadn't read aggression in Accented but there you are, we really don't know our poems), and to Steven, (gold diggers always look good on the surface).

Not new, but a draft I've been working on and picked up again yesterday.


Foreign Tongue



We talk about what’s been mislaid
but never lost: from the view across the bay
and out to sea, to the two-stroke city
down below the balcony. She says
a heart beats in the brick, even the trees
now gone to rubble, blown across
the street. You find it too in memory:
a long passed aunt. Nobody eats!
the way they did, and nowadays
it seems we waste away. It's in hummus
and tabouli, and the mountains
in the spring, the dust across the shoe's
dry tongue. And you can hear it in the tone
of every word. Sahtein, sahtein,
and Smallah. For the baby in her arms.
Shukran, shukran gazillan.
For every kindness, Mabrouk! For the rose
gold ring, and the girls say Wallah? Wallah.
Like a breath. And the Adhan calls
for dawn but not for me, and the birds sing
songs but none I recognize and I can't tell
if I'm mislaid or if I'm lost. Open mouthed
I tilt my head back, wait
for rain.

[M]

5th column, I finally made it to your thread, and so glad that I did. Some excellent work here.


In Accented: "chimed a trail of seeds", a "snappy dog" (love that description) not named "cunt" but called "cunt" by default of mispronunciation, and I really liked that you were "in this life" telling of "another life" and something that seemed wrong when you were in the moment later seems like the way it should have been. There's something very poignant about that. It's one of those ideas that makes me say "damn, why didn't I write that???"

The Tide was lovely, and the ending was perfect: "wishing for nothing/and also for more". Good stuff.

My favorite, I think, is The Safe. I love the way it starts off seemingly ordinary, with things you would expect to see in a safe, and then does magical things. I really enjoyed "and whatever that reminds you of". Then, an expectation that will not be met (cinnamon is one of the most bitter tastes on its own) and an expectation that you don't expect to be met will be met (coffee very rarely tastes as wonderful as it smells). Good writing there. Also liked "sleep the temptation" and "the pause between lightning and thunder". Wonderful imagery here.

I'll definitely be back for more!

[anita.a]

5th Column, I love all your poems! Accented has great imagery, Tiffany has a good flow, but what touched my heart was 'Foreign Tongue' which is too good, great potential in it. Will be back for more!

[5th column]

Many thanks to M and to a.a for the kind words and encouragement.

I'm getting one day ahead here as the weekend is coming and it's one of celebration so I won't be around.


Losing It




At first, the night was damp;
a thing you could cut with the blade
of your hand or the axe of an arm
and I stood there (the heads
of trees below like so much fro)
hacking at it, like a madman
swatting wasps until the downpour
came, and for a moment I hesitated
thinking I'd scythed the canvass
of a watery moon, but then
battled on, heaving camels
and straws, rich men and needles
from the church of my lungs
into the deafening dark

[Janet]

Neil- Fond of Tiffany, and even more so, Losing it. Loved how the N stand above the fro-d trees, the lovely image of the watery moon, and N batting away heavy rain pellets as if doing so could make a difference. Fantastic metaphor, really enjoyed it.

[larryrap]

Hi Neil,

"from the church of my lungs/into the deafening dark" is striking. This and "Accented" and "Foreign Tongue" are alive and refreshing and make my senses thirsty. "The Tide" and "The Safe" do this too from a angle closer to home. I adore the box of matches with the black ones reversed, and also "this wish for nothing/and also for more" (which reminds me of my own small box of tricks). You're doing good work.