Julie's Elixir, Read it Till you Burst! Julie's Elixir, the Best for What is Worst!

[M]

Julie,
So much to enjoy here! There's an urgency to some of your pieces (particularly MTC) that makes the reader keep reading and reading through to the end and then be intrigued enough to go back for the re-read to absorb. I second Howard on Drop in that it brings light, so to speak, to a darker issue in that for every beginning there is also an end. LTC was definitely inspired, and worth all 4 reads. Oh, and "Metaphor you are my bitch" is one of those "lines I wish I'd written". Very cool things going on in here. I also loved Vagabond. Kitty ditty, much? I'll be back around!

[Steven]

Strong work here, but my favorites were, 'Drop' (terrific lines to end), 'Killing Frost', and 'MCS'.

'Fool me' also has some really good images, and splendid use of rhyme.

[Julie]

On Firefox's Most Visited Button

I'll admit I've been afraid to click. There are times
when you want a little illusion about yourself, the way

your eyes stray always back to the same sites, not
from anything more than the hope of seeing a train

plow through someone's life. You click. You click.
The clock ticks forward and you click again and at five

you startle from that reverie and rush home to learn
what scandal you might have missed while the train

plowed through someone's front yard. You never learn
that there is nothing new, no one weird trick, you click

and the clock runs and you are forty five
and you shrug and think you didn't need youth anyway

not the way you feel when you are wasting time.

[prokopton]

I’m a sucker for sentimentality now and then, and Run actually choked me up at the end. I was sucked in by all the images and caught by the schmaltzy finish, I felt tears welling in my eyes. Nice job.

Now, I could cry if my kitty ran away, but you saved me from that with the humour. Vagabond is very readable. You painted a clear picture despite the dream metaphor.

The stream of consciousness dreamscape of Break is fun too. (Miss Linley was your Latin teacher?) The evolution from event to kaleidoscope to drama to attempted explanation to symbolic tableau echoes dreams I have had. I enjoyed it.

There seems an evolution from Drop to MCS, maybe you are just getting warmed up through the first week, but MCS is disturbing in the accuracy and clarity of your images, ordering the accession of awareness. Eerie, seems too real, suddenly I want out of the dream, out of the poem, safe in reality – if that isn`t a non-sequitur, it is certainly a paradox. Good work.

You must feel pretty good about this suite so far. I would.

G.

[Julie]

Crotchets

My knee is going now, that little creak
I think I heard when hauling my ass up
those last few flights, but if you give in
and limp a little, the other knee thinks
oppression, decides a little retribution
is in order, an echoing squeak
and your ankle appreciates the tip
and wobbles a bit on that last step
and your elbow gives a very happy pop
as you put down your bag and your neck,
no, let's not speak about your neck,
Ms N Tropy, you bitch.

[Julie]

M, thank you! I'll pencil you in for a metaphor t-shirt from avalanche!

Steven, thank you. I'm not rhyming as much this NaPo as usual. Maybe your words will inspire me.

Geoff, yes, Miss Linley is the Latin teacher. Thanks for coming by.

This forum has excellent fluffers!

[Bench]

Hi Julie

God, knees! Why did it have to be knees? And the life-wasting side of the internet is poignantly addressed. I'm trying to convince myself that immersing in poetry is a justifiable payment for decrepitude, and exploring the semantics of imagery (to put a flower on it) is a fine thing. You are right on course.

[Julie]

Thanks, Bench! Stupid knees. *grumble*

[Julie]

Scope

What were they?
Some tree detritus,
like cornflakes in
the bowl of the gutter
but softly under my foot,
gentler than leaves,
a small golden shushing.

I am heavy-footed,
a stomper really, jolting
up the street. My eyes
jiggle as I walk, I say
when he asks why I
never see the world passing,
just a clutter of tree
litter, a graffito painted
in letters too thick to read.

[Julie]

Holt

The den is thick with sooty smells,
that tongue-glaze of something old

and animal and the coughing
throat clench of fish and crawdads.

How does a man come to be
named for this place? An ottery

man, a man of sleek whiskeryness
and a land-awkward romp

of too-short limbs, cracking
shellfish on a hairy belly

and mugging for the cameras
with shining oceanic eyes.

[Julie]

Dementia

Grandma just sat in her shiny chair, oh sometimes her hands wrung, her mouth fretted, her diagnosis gave her granddaughter, me, a picture of someone Einstein-haired, axe-wielding, blood-painting, lamb-slaughtering, not calling for her daughter, her son, ignoring her granddaughter, me, her eyes glazing like a suckling pig's.

[Julie]

Voice

Yo vi mil Garzones que andavan cantando
Por aqui volando haciendo mil sones

It's always the ones you cannot sing alone
that stick to your tongue and refuse to be scraped
off on a molar. And the government
shall be upon his shou--and the government shall
be upon his shou--and the government shall be
and you are gasping (WONDERFUL! COUNSELOR!)
and laughing at the release of the four voices
all coming together, Sybil saying one brief prayer
at breakfast, over oddly liquid oatmeal,
please god, congeal. Congeal.

[Julie]

Rhododendron

I think sister you cursed it it felt
your glare as you passed learning

or remembering the family rumors
that one the size of a dumptruck

loomed outside your dining room and ate
all sunlight for miles around so mine

caught sight of you and your rage
and shrank and the oil green

leaves shrank and its will to live shrank
and it just sits withered and dies bloomless

sister that this one's cousin
distant cousin you live four states away

sister that this one looks like
a woody molehill to your one's mountain

or a pinkie toe to a leg but now
a pinkie toe with some odd nail fungus

like an offputting commercial
and I've never seen it flower at all

if I robbed a bank would you go
whistling to jail for me don't answer

that if you do not wish to give me ideas
I will not come and sneer at the stench

of your too thick lilac's perfume and you
can just come tell this shrub who's
a good boy he is he is.

[Julie]

... of the Apostles

Later, I blasphemed by thinking
John the Apostle was awful

cute, at least in the movie,
but before that I just puzzled

over what he and Peter were
gonna do with that axe seeing

as they didn't chop Jesus
down from that cross despite

all those chances (something
something about Romans
and lots of dice like Yahtzee)

but when you have a hatchet,
doesn't every tree look like lumber?

[beeswax]

Ah Julie. Engrossed I was you your thread this early morning.

I like the structure of Drop. Those couplets echo the painstaking prosaic actions – then that last line.

Killing Frost -- I enjoyed the image of the buds . . . newly dreaming/about popping their britches. Excellent!

Run -- you captured a scene/relationship beautifully

Vagabond -- what a apt image of a cat – Dick Whittington and cat rolled into one – and some cats are naturally vagabonds, no loyalty, as many homes as there are homes that will provide food to a sorry looking cat.

Fool Me is clever and made me laugh

LTC – Gosh. Reminds me why I definitely don’t want to go there. My kids have orders to make sure I get the happy drugs that see me off fast. Visceral stuff.

Crochets Ms. en tropy – Very funny! Loving how the body parts talk to one another. If you have a wee bit of a headache then you accidently bang your thumb with a hammer your headache disappears.


Holt is wonderfully atmospheric – I was there somehow. Rhododendron I didn’t get it all – but got the family all the seething at minor (or major) transgressions, holding on to resentments, etc – or maybe that’s just my family.

. . . of the Apostles I don’t think I saw that movie – the last two lines made me think.


Great thread