Waterloo and City

[Dunc]

Neil

Well-crafted melancholy, a fine title, and a twist of grammar at the end to spice it up. Nice work all through.

Regards / Dunc

[Donner]

Hi, Neil,

This one has some nice lines - "like Goldilocks, waiting / for the just so shade" and "they pad / from the rooms / of memory" I especially liked - but I haven't quite got a handle on what to make of this one. "on the hook / straddling" combined with "the clock runs / in reverse" and the padded memories made me wonder if "she" has Alzheimer's . In the US, Super 8 is a motel chain, BTW, which didn't make a lot of sense, so I googled "Super 8" and found that it's also a science fiction thriller, which made more sense. Just not enough yet.

Donner

[kristalynn]

Really like Dust Motes, especially "time stutters" and the beam of light at the end.

[5th column]

You Are Here: Terminal 1


A French horn is singing
and a ventilated steel bench.

(Surely this is nonsense, but). When
will the unbuckling begin? Is guilt this

roof, this weight of slate? Now and
now laces and a hard-wearing carpet

illuminated by herringbone. Still
the singing but at a higher pitch. Again

laces: zeds - two sleeps
absent a Capital and the heart taps on

- the submarine hull – dit, dit and more
dah - More. Now the melody dissolves

to a staccato of Sudden. In the Taunus. Between.
The fall of a foot. Step - (an echo announces

other flights are departing), but
the cartographer suffers over

amplification of treble and
will not speak of this again.

Run straight to acceptance. Do not
pass go or collect two hundred pounds.

The song is a wife who is
singing (This is the last call), and now

and now again, and for all future, now.
He is gone.

[5th column]

The translation I was reading:


Ich habe

die Pflaumen gegessen,
die im
Eisschrank waren

und die du
wahrscheinlich
fürs Frühstück
aufheben wolltest

Vergib mir,
sie waren köstlich,
so süß
und so kalt

[Donner]

Hi, Neil, glad you snuck in to play Sevens this month.

"You Are Here" - I must confess, I didn't start to piece this piece together until I got to "The Song is a wife. She is / singing (This is the last call)...and for all future now / you are not." I suspect that's the crux of a poem about separation after getting to that point and then going back over hints like "Terminal One", "this is nonsense", "unbuckling", "melody dissolves" and "flights departing". But I'm probably way off and don't have a clue. Some of the line breaks were a distraction for me. (The teacher in my wants to get out my red pencil and mark, mark, mark. )

"Nur Um Es Zu" is German for "Just to Be There". There's just enough here to make me really like this. Sound. A lot. Like a warning to be careful when dealing with forbidden fruit, even though, again, I'm probably way off. Loved "plaume (German for "plum") sound a lot like flame."

Donner

[5th column]

Hey Donner - thanks for the time and the comments. The first is a sort of elegy. It’s about receivibg the news of a death. It tries to put the reader in the shoes of the narrator. All that he sees / feels in the brief conversation. The line breaks are intentional (form being a part of the content), for what is not a coherent experience. The second is a reaction to reading a translation of ‘This is Just to Say’ by Williams, in German.

Thanks again

5th

[Dunc]

Neil

Terminal 1 ─ and even the title has pretty ambiguities. Laces, herringbone, zeds, nicely played off together, the horn, the steel, the song, the PA, a fine surrealism.

What if you dropped 'are departing ... hundred pounds'? Those words seem to me to be in another pitch, break the magic, as it were.

Nur Um Es Zu ─ fine play on 'in here', and the ghost of WCW's cold plums ('This is just to say'). An entertainment with a singular tone.

Excellent to see you here!

Regards / Dunc

[5th column]

Thank you Dunc

I think you're right about the Monopoly reference.

Good to be here!

5th

[kristalynn]

Now that I'm understanding the translation poem better, from comments here, I'm loving the last stanza, the comparison of the German word for "plum" sounding like "flame." I liked it before for the sounds.

[5th column]

Many thanks for all the comments!




You as Rodeo



As though an audience gripped
by a big screen.

As though a sail
waiting to unfurl, and the ship

harboring grenades is tethered
behind bars. As though a violet

red rosary tied hastily with a flourish
round the bouquet of the body.

As though a thunderous sudden
applause and the whirlpool. Sky.

As though a taste for grit, a love
of clowns was common.

[Dunc]

Neil

You as Rodeo ─ Another engaging title! A strong scene and 'As though a violet ... of the body' is a fine image among several. Not sure about 'grenades' (tone) nor about 'tethered' with 'behind bars', but it's cleverly done, not least the unseen N's self-deprecation en finale.

Keep 'em coming!

Regards / Dunc

[Donner]

Neil,

Ah, now that makes sense. Das ist nur zu sagen, adding the translation was helpful. (I knew those two years of German I took in high school would come in handy some day.) Maybe you could figure out a way to incorporate or reference it. The play on pflaume makes the piece.

"You as Rodeo" - N is in for some kind of ride there. What man wouldn't be attracted to a woman who's harboring grenades behind her sense of humor? This employs your trademark use of sound and wordplay. The repetition of the "as though" fragments works, almost like a countdown.

Donner

[5th column]

Thank you, thank you, Dunc and Donner.



Right of Passage


I guess that when all's said and done it’s all been
said and done before: the captain and his upper lip
amid the jaunty-angled chandeliers, have both been
sunk before. The ball, a fraction from the finger tip
won’t end up resting in the slick palm of the catcher
or the back. We’ve seen this play before. Thirteen
blackbirds on a telegraph line are a man and a woman.
A man and a woman watch while lovers fall in
then out of love, but like is not a tree from which
to slip. One for sorrow two for joy and eight is nine.
Seven: a shadow passes over. The mind must be flying.

Quiet, and without inflection, the blackbird sings:
It is evening and the river was flowing.

[Dunc]

Neil

Right of Passage ─ Love the Titanic in line 3. The stadium. WCW takes another bow, Together, then severed, and love that can come and go. Nice use of the blackbird again, and Auden's river well placed in the last line.

Dexterous marshalling of the elements to form the parade. You're having a great week.

Regards / Dunc.