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Thread: Béla's Who Am I Kidding Thread (now Image-Friendly!)

  1. #91
    Sorella is offline Fun and felicitous PFFA patron
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    Bela,
    Burlap is stark (the cleaner's story) and overwhelmingly rich (the zillions of satisfactory sonic fabrics) -- do I see a face mask in the design of the poem?

    Paper -- I absolutely love that topic, and your treatment of it: exactly how it feels to print a poem draft and stick it on with a fridge magnet. I really hope that shopping trip is for ink (who keeps toilet paper in the refrigerator, after all?)

    The favorite so far: A step removed. This poem has everything: A setting , a story, all the senses, words that sit comfortably as a new mug in your grip.

    Good to wander round your thread, such riches!

    Sorella

  2. #92
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    The shrinking in of life, the zigzag course of hopes and our fortunes, and a sweet dog to make it all well.

    Damn you, taking us to a briefing of the idiot; nice handling of the red and blue. Speaking of which,
    it's been about that long I haven't fed my printer, either, and I'm on my third computer, so I'm sure they'll never speak.

    All those lovely fabric names, how to choose? First world problems for insouciant world travelers leaving a trail of death behind them.

    Reunion
    is funny, considering we are all currently wondering if comedians broadcasting from home are wearing pants. Will that become the norm?

    Animals are the best medicine. I think they know that, little shamans.

    I can see like a film the action in the barn; you make the scene live like the clay on the wheel.

    We all know, there's no place like home, where we know the voices and the leaves of morning.

    The robbery is a chilling moment, as is the realization of our impotence in the face of our bodies' weaknesses.

    Here's an image to decorate your NaPo fridge, finger painted in sentient pesto.

  3. #93
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    Dunc, Brian, bop, Sorella, new leaf -- thanks a million for visiting and for your comments.

    Brian - the form is an attempt at some variation on the theme of WCW’s “triversen”, but without the skill. I’m trying, and generally failing, to simplify my language and to wean myself off of iambs. This middle-of-the-road structure seems to help.

    New leaf - thanks for the sentient pesto pic. Perfect.

    Avanti!
    Anyone can make bad poetry, just as any monkey can make noise come out of a piano.
    Who wants to listen to a monkey playing the piano?

  4. #94
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    April 16


    It's very, very unfair


    Fleming would have conjured up a brilliant villain

    with a remote, jungled island,
    brutalist architecture,
    exotic, toothy housepets,

    terrifying henchpersons
    of striking physical otherness,

    a distinctive sense of style,
    volcanic passions, dark wit,
    astounding attention to detail

    and a sobriquet that carried an air
    of true mystery:
    Le Chiffre, Drax, Goldfinger, Dr. No.

    Their mad compulsions would crave
    a grudging admiration, even awe.

    A worthy catalyst
    for the world's end,
    this putative scoundrel,

    an elegant harbinger
    of ultimate catastrophe,

    a fitting concluder of fate,



    But we're saddled with
    a bloviating simpleton
    named for the passing of wind.
    .
    .
    .

  5. #95
    JFN is offline Fun and felicitous PFFA patron
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    Bela, the villanelle is a poem for our time. The use of the corpse line for one of the repetends works well to build the numbers.

    I love the head-tilted rescue dog. They do possess a certain ability to right any situation. I like the payoff too all that gentle trust building, and now it's their turn to make N feel calm.

    Your Excerpt… is hilarious, the humour heightened by the rhyming. The Schrödinger reference works really well, and I love the tax exempt line. Great fun.

    I like bubble bath of fever from Under the weather, and the cramped parabola.

    sentient pesto, reckon we've got some of that. The penultimate line is excellent, and I like the needy bastard line too. Might be easier to just tape some tablets or iPads to the fridge door; ordering ink is such a hassle, and not cheap either.

    The end of Réunion 2023 is such a wonderful and dark twist. I'm reading this as someone rewatching an online conversation from now, 2020 (although it doesn't have to be), of friends who are no longer with them. Rewinding, rewatching, and saying their line to feel some semblance of human contact. I don't know if I have it right, but that's how I read it.

    The italicised side story in Song or burlap… is devastating and wholly believable. When placed next to the choices her employer and the like have it becomes even moreso.

    Gilbert knows is really sweet. Enjoyed this little interaction.

    I like A step removed. It's so easy to forget all those people that make it possible for the artist to do their work. S5 sums that up beautifully, and the whole life is very taactile. I also didn't know pugmill - every day's a school day.

    The plea at the end of May June… is strong, and I like the idea of blood rising like sap. There's a definite longing for rootedness there.

    Nothing like the immediate possibility of death to make one feel alive, nicely juxtaposed against the cut short date. Clever.

    The wizardry of the machine. I like how A complaint turns from the observational to the experienced at S4, and S6 closes it so well.

    The final detached S of this last had me laughing out loud. Oh what a delightfully incompetent Bond villain Mr Trump would make. Our bloviating fool's name isn't much better, Mr Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

    Keep them coming,

    John
    Poetry is everywhere; it just needs editing.
    James Tate

    johnnewson.com

  6. #96
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    John, many thanks for the extensive visit and comments. Your interpretations are spot on in every case, with regard to intent -- almost a little uncanny.

    Onward!
    Anyone can make bad poetry, just as any monkey can make noise come out of a piano.
    Who wants to listen to a monkey playing the piano?

  7. #97
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    April 17


    Distanced encounter


    It may have been a game, no more.
    The dove alighted on the lawn
    to comb the fragrant turf for fare,
    her wings tucked coyly.

    The dog cavorting—though
    it may have been , no more—
    first froze, like a uncoiled
    exploded quarry.


    The dove watchful flew ,

    his and fur blur.

    this a game,

    one deadly.



    A waft deprived


    hunter ,


    yet left


    more.

    .
    .

  8. #98
    kristalynn is offline Fun and felicitous PFFA patron
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    This is so cool! Somehow I guess I keep missing your thread. Just love the spacing and the missing words. Wow!

  9. #99
    kristalynn is offline Fun and felicitous PFFA patron
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    I love "A complaint" too....this title is perfectly understated, and just perfect for this powerful poem.

  10. #100
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    Hi Bela,

    Song of Burlap, Song of - is great, with the use of fabric names and the heart-wrenching story of the maid. Bombazine is one of my favourite words and rarely crops up in poems, so I salute you!

    Gilbert knows - a kind poem, lovely to read

    A step removed - I really enjoyed this, with the sounds and language of the ceramics studio - I could smell that clay smell and feel it being cut. Also a beautiful ending. Hand-making, enjoying the objects made without bling or shopping trips or shiny things. Just lovely. There is something special (I think) about all kinds of creative workshops, be they printrooms or looms (where I work the students and staff have given every loom a name) or ceramics.

    May June see my return - I read this as being a song from someone who works digitally rendering landscapes but who wishes to return to the real landscapes, the tangible trees, elements from which they draw inspiration. This could be way awry, but if it is such, I applaud the narrator and hope they get to visit the real trees, and all the slight discomforts of reaching them again.

    Memory of a robbery - that sounds utterly terrifying, in its precision and planning, particularly and I hope it wasn’t a real experience.

    A Complaint - powerful, sad, with well drawn images that provoke empathy in an extremely subtle way. A difficult subject, I’d imagine, and done well. A moving poem.

    It’s very unfair - Yes! And yes. We have a public schoolboy, more bluster than wit, who will now be deified because he was treated by the NHS, and whose initials belong more to an Austen Powers movie than Bond. Sigh.

    Distanced Encounter - I really enjoy looking at and reading this, the way the words wisp and fade, and how the form beckons me in to read the across and also vertically, making up phrases, looking at the gaps between the words as words.


    Sarah


  11. #101
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    A song of burlap, with its juxtaposition of fashion and death, is powerful. All of these display such a command of rhythm. I love the string of monosyllables in the fridge poem - these are lines the reader is compelled to say aloud. Thanks for sharing them.

  12. #102
    Dunc is offline but say it is my humour
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    Bela

    It's very, very unfair has a wonderful calendar of Bond villains and a bitter bite of reality at the end, the art and the message of which I greatly enjoyed.

    Distanced encounter is damnably clever in its conveying of a distant and imperfect view of what may have been an attempted assassination. Well-placed ingenuity.

    A pleasure to read.

    Regards / Dunc

  13. #103
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    kristalynn, Sarah, Mike & Dunc -- thanks so much for reading and commenting. Greatly appreciated.

    On we go!

  14. #104
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    April 18

    .

    How to capture time


    Plant a tripod
    in starlit grass
    on a cold night.

    Focus a lens
    on a broad swath
    of empty sky.

    Frame the foreground
    with a barren tree
    or former home.

    Set the shutter
    to blink
    every fifteen seconds.

    Keep warm
    for an hour,
    four hundred blinks.

    Stack the frames
    and watch the stars arc
    with the planet's churn.

    .
    .

  15. #105
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    Reading through I much enjoyed your finely-tuned sonics, and the careful word-choices geared for maximum impact in short spaces.
    Word from My Father I commend for both of the above and for the sensitive father-son sentiment.
    "Now//crocodile, a quizzing skein,/tortilla-eared, slim head askew,//rescue dog/rights the earth." - that's lovely and bold.
    Under Weather is like a peek into the workshop, sparks flying, gears spinning, anything can happen.
    "Song of burlap, song of" is delightfully zany, a true linguistic orgy. Interesting and meaningful choice to superimpose the grim side, but I find myself wishing you didn't.
    "I do not know who this is for/but Gilbert knows" is sweet and heartfelt.
    A step remove is another admirable one building heavily on monosyllabic precision.
    I absolutely love May June See My Return - great balance of a lament and an emerging heroic spirit, excellent control.
    Memory of a Robbery is no slouch either, action-oriented, minimalist with a terrific ending.

    Way to go, Bela, this thread is such a good investment.

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