Post-Dated Checks

[philip john]

Hello,

An apparently simple message - Scratch loses his stress-ball and overreacts?
But the idea seems a bit too stretched here, and perhaps a couple of the verses can be cut.

The opening verses are quite similar, so maybe the first verse can be dropped.
The fifth verse also seems surplus, as the following verse indicates a favourite (from a collection).

I like the idea of the trapped air, that chimes with pressure toward the end - and perhaps, if he was under stress, this can be made clearer in the conclusion.

keep on scratchin'...............Philip

[scraps]

Up and Adam

When I was a child, my mother would scare me to sleep
with stories of people who wake up exactly on time,
real salt of the earthers who look just like you and me
but never puzzle the fuzzy figures of snooze button math:

.......ex. If snooze button (x) = +9 minutes wherein the clock (y) is -5 minutes
.......from the actual time (z) and today is Thursday (almost Friday), then
.......button can be pressed 1.83 times which we will round up to an even 2
.......and just take a really quick shower (we promise. we will.)

No, these folks sleep like sharks and when they rise their bedsheets
barely ripple. After they finish their perfectly square breakfasts
they pause for just the right amount of time, gazing out from bright windows,
swirling the last gulp of coffee-coloured coffee in their mugs…

[Cameron Clark]

Hello Steve


I think your scratch poem has more potential than it might seem in its current form. The "made/found" poem does have to do quite interesting things with lyricism for me to invest in it.
Actually this is not even the first Scratch-poem I have come across, maybe there is a subgenre.

Hope this helps.

[scraps]

Hi Cameron,

That does help! That poem was new to me and very cool. Thanks!

Steve

[JoKingly]

I'm really digging this one, speaking as a night owl who still can't break the habit of hooting.

"Coffee-colored coffee" made me laugh out loud. I'm still trying to dissect why it's funny, which is probably the reason it is. "Perfectly square" breakfasts was also amusing to me.

There's an interesting note of irony, too--how the robotic, shark-like morning person has no need to perform these snooze button calculations. Math in general is probably not a noun most would identify with, but your fuzzy figures I wager most of the working world performs those fuzzy figures (beautifully described), in those exact terms, without realizing...until having it spelled out here.

Jo

[Scrow]

Hi,

Up and Adam is fun. I enjoyed the scary Mom stories of perfection and also the italicised explanation (and idea) of snooze maths. I also enjoyed the ending, which made me wonder where the italiciser sits in the snooze/square argument in their current context & whether they enact pyjama zoom or perfectly dressed fully-made-up zoom.

Sarah

[philip john]

hello scraps,

I really like this poem - it has energy, non-direction and attitude.
Must say, the middle verse is a bit weird, but sleep like sharks is out there.

enjoyed the craziness, this is what poetry is capable of..............P

[drumpf]

Up and Adam - Writing about what you fear, love it. Admittedly, I have not shared this same fright, but I can imagine an anal person behaving like this. Certainly a personalty A. I like S2. I won't lie and say I read it multiple times, but my first read gave me the tonal necessity for this to feel like a poem. Definitely quite modern. S1 is the best, and S3 describes the typical morning in concrete depth. Good ending, about all the color gulping away.

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Hi Steve,

Scratch Burns the Black Ark Down When I started reading this, the "Black Ark" part of the title didn't really register and I was somehow working on the assumption that Scratch was a dog. The result is a wonderfully surreal poem, I think. His office is the garden -- naturally. He collects balls -- of course. OK, but it's Black Ark Studios and the legendary Lee Scratch Perry. "They are air, trapped" is great as a metaphor for pressure. Scratch is fooling no one with his protestations of sanity, though, I think.

Up and Adam. Great title. Love the fuzzy math and the appropriate fuzziness of how its presented. The mother scaring the child N to sleep and the folks who "sleep like sharks and when they rise their bedsheets barely ripple" are also great touches. Enjoyed.

-Matt

[scraps]

Thanks to everyone for stopping by and commenting - it's greatly appreciated!

[scraps]

Space Travel: Cheap

It’s easy to forget that a calendar is a map
cut into numbered squares, neat comfort zones
one can trace with a finger: we were there then,
we are here now, we will be there then if
this hunk of metal and rock continues to pace
in slowly widening circles around its mute captor.

[5th column]

Hi, Steve - I like a lot of Up and Adam. The sharks are a keeper. I like the idea of sharks who aren’t in a nightmare. On the whole I’d take a look at the number of modifiers in revision.

The earth as a ball circling another ball which are together hurtling through space at something like 490,000 miles per hour is always a hook I’ll hang on to...
This one sits between the stools of conversation and reflection. The first and last lines sitting in two different camps.

One more day to go.

[JoKingly]

I love me a good space poem indeed.

There's a rhythm to this that makes me feel swung around in a good way. The progressive phrasing to L3-L4 in particular gives this feeling of being hauled both onward and cyclically.

Then there's the upset in the last line--how this ride isn't going to last forever. I try to forget about this fate, even though it's not something any of us will have to deal with. I'm amazed at how you touch on these dark, entropic eventualities without sounding gloomy.

Oh, and your use of pace in the penultimate line works well in a poem about space.

Jo

[Scrow]

HI,

Nice space poem, pointing out how we divide time and the overarching reason/cause for our otherwise arbitary seeming calendar. I enjoy the concreteness of this - and how you switch scale from micro - the image of the finger on the page switching to the macro - the Earth moving round the sun.

Sarah

[drumpf]

Space Travel - Technically, the metal and rock that is earth, I assume, moves elliptically around the sun, not a circle. L3-4 is wordy, and this piece is kind of boring if you view it like a movie. I wouldn't trash the idea though, it has a premise for a good piece if it became more energetic.