??

Comment is about Depression is a type of expression (blog)

Original item by katelyn

I'm sure we'd be just as daft even at our age, Harry, given the chance!

Comment is about Susan (blog)

Original item by Harry O`N eill

Strewth - I wish now I had not been so negative regarding my earlier version.

I think we set the ball a'rollin' when we set out to write and sometimes one of the muses of poetry takes pity and gives us a nudge.

Regarding the intersection - I had visions of Geoffrey Firmin ("Under the Volcano" - possibly the most poetic novel ever written and hardly read) as played in the film by Albert Finney in mind and yes, in the end I thought it too poesy / cheesy to survive.

I have the strict voice of Capitaine Critique in my head and he never shuts up...I don't even know if this is the version I posted;

"I waved my arms – an Englishman abroad
Under the influence.
The intersection traffic somehow missed me
And crossed into Pri Har Valley
And sprawled on a seat
In the Valley of Gazelles"

I do recall a version with stick and arms waving - very much Moses parting the Red Sea - but it has sunk ?

Well, Colin, thanks for your kind words - I am grateful - especially as that pome came out of a weeks' worth of reclusive depression

Rick.

p.s. I tend to read aloud and re-read and make adjustments continually - even to a minute before or during performance - never satisfied - words that look good on paper can sound crass aloud. We should of (sic) stuck to crochet :)

Comment is about "Last Year in Jerusalem" (blog)

Original item by Rick Gammon

Many thanks, MC. The truth is that unfortunately I am the most curmudgeonly person I know. Living in Yorkshire, you have to respect this!

Comment is about MR GABARDINE MAN (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Hi M.C. Thanks for comment on Dylan poem. I gave it another airing because of the Nobel which, personally, I can't take seriously even though I love him as a performer. That poem is important to me because it was the first poem I wrote after a 20 year hiatus and I have written and published loads since 2008.

Comment is about M.C. Newberry (poet profile)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

I bought that album with its famous cover of the singer and
girl friend arm in arm on a New York street when it came
out - a time when I, like the man himself, was in my 20s.
Some songs I liked and some were OK but it was just
another album from some guy who was making a name
in the folk/protest music world. No big deal for me when
so much else was happening musically and I didn't feel any
inclination to stay with his stuff, then or since...despite
his later association with a favourite singer/songwriter: Johnny Cash.
As for BD's big award: Truly - the times, they are a changing!

Comment is about Stereogram (blog)

Original item by David Cooke

A concise culinary consideration of the political position;
past, present and - no doubt - future. Food for thought!

Comment is about RECIPE FOR POLITICS ! (blog)

Original item by ray pool

I was cock a hoop (as distinct from cock a droop!) while
reading this wonderfully inventive and entertaining musical
parody. There should be a JC Award for services to fun
and frolics!

Comment is about MR GABARDINE MAN (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Sailing to Byzantium is about the voyage from youth to age, from the sensual to the abstract; and the need for a mature man to find meaning in a life of diminished physicality.

The mature student is faltering flesh in social contact with the sensual presence of youth and beauty, which are typically indifferent to him. However, he too needs to find meaning and purpose, albeit of a more prosaic kind, in his situation. And, freed by his age from sensual temptations, he can direct all his efforts to study in a way impossible for a younger man - in short, he turns his declining physicality to his academic advantage.

The humour arises from the prosaic context of his situation. While Yeats' 'ageing man' is sundered from 'that sensual music' and reaching for 'the artifice of eternity', the humble mature student is shunning female students with 'kinetic limbs' and hiding in the university library, hoping for a good degree to make him 'truly middle class'.

So yes, Yeats has been thoroughly 'Larkin'd' in the poem; the mystical Celt brought down to earth by pragmatic English cynicism. As usual.

Comment is about 'Mature Student' by JF Keane is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Thanks Ray for you comment on my Haiku

Comment is about ray pool (poet profile)

Original item by ray pool

I feel like this was taken from my works code of practises handbook, honesty what its like if we ever have to call in sick!

Thanks for the read

Stu

Comment is about Duty Of Care - Extreme Combat (blog)

Original item by Suki Spangles

Glad you liked the Dylan poem, Ray. I wrote that back in 2008 and it was my first new poem after a twenty year poetic hiatus. Been pretty busy since though!

Comment is about ray pool (poet profile)

Original item by ray pool

What a worthy winner!

I`m a bit wary about commenting on competition winners too much but couldn`t resist this wonderful example of (for me) Larkin kind of `sorting out` Yeats.

I particularly like the way it turns the golden `artifice` of Yeats` Byzantium into a praise of a kind of (artistically puritanical?) dedication to what Steve and Gregg have both recognized as craft.

Comment is about 'Mature Student' by JF Keane is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

thanks tony, im glad you enjoyed it and took out of it what was meant to be there.

Comment is about when a dog returns to consume its own vomit, it does so through choice and not hunger (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

I would echo Steve's praise of the craft within this poem, John. I understand it's after Yeats, but do I detect some Larkinesque sentiments here, too?

Comment is about 'Mature Student' by JF Keane is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

If you're in London, you should do yourselves a favour and make it to one of these nights. Two excellent poets, well worth seeing.

Comment is about Laura Taylor takes her hard-hitting poetry performance to London (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Hi John
Please would you let me know the times for the meeting on Wed 16 November at the Art Gallery ?
Thanks - Dorinda

Comment is about Stockport WoL (group profile)

Original item by Stockport WoL

Morning Ray

Thanks so much for your note on Predator, and for your good wishes for That London ?

Comment is about ray pool (poet profile)

Original item by ray pool

ooh I really like the first two thirds of this Ari - it temptingly verges on a fight-through-a-darkened-bramble-filled-forest gothic feel - almost akin to a Tim Burton movie or fairy tale - but somehow it loses impetus towards the end when it should be bursting out of that forest into an open glade of bright sunlight.

Of course I might be talking nonsense! Thanks for posting.

Comment is about Order (blog)

Original item by z

I never turn away photos of tits, Rose. Thanks for your thoughts.

Comment is about MR GABARDINE MAN (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_kkfSqPONc

..just a vid I found interesting..lots of "aloneness", here.

It may be to your liking..

elP

Comment is about Dillon Johnson (poet profile)

Original item by Dillon Johnson

I agree, in total.

I'm quite thankful to know, without a doubt, that it isn't near impossible to find minds that work more deeply than how to get from point A to point B.

Comment is about retrograde (blog)

Original item by nunya

its brilliant. i listen to it an awful lot, usually when i want to write. i agree, the concept, while accidental, is staggering and i think beautifully sums up what life is about. astonishing that the original clip is merely a few seconds long and its disintegration is pulled out to an hour long. for me, its like listening to something dying, which is morbid yes but also quite beautiful.

and i quite agree, every end is a beginning and i dont think you can truly have a beginning without having an end. i am inspired by this and former discussions regarding cycles and circles which is a wonderful side effect of this site and poetry in general i think.

Comment is about retrograde (blog)

Original item by nunya

I'm listening to it, now..very haunting how it begins. I'm taken aback at how completely this phenomena encapsulates the feeling I was trying to express. The whole idea is quite remarkable...

"Basinski has said that he finished the project the morning of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, and sat on the roof of his apartment building in Brooklyn with friends listening to the project as the World Trade Center towers collapsed."
--that, from Wikipedia, "The Disintegration Loops".

I didn't want to choose between an "ending" or a new "beginning" as the inevitable departure point. Maybe at zero, they are synonymous with one another.

A very touching piece, here, Stu..the French horn is exquisite and the strings just continually draw you in so deep.

elP

Comment is about retrograde (blog)

Original item by nunya

J.C. I found this poem,absolutely fucking disgusting.In fact,about as fucking disgusting as hearing fucking filthy words that cunts and twats and bastards come out with.


That sort of fucking language gets right on my tits,as this poem has done.If you don't believe me,I can send you a photo to prove it,as long as you don't try to compare them,with spaniels ears.

Keep the lunacy coming Mr. C.



Rose ?

Comment is about MR GABARDINE MAN (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

You didn't want to be the Beer Kitty Meister on those nights.

Comment is about MR GABARDINE MAN (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

cheers both. you are both there really, the decay of lust, the sad passing of a relationship, the boredom, the regret, the starvation of love (kudos on getting the candle thing). to be specific, its about the need to spice up a relationship sexually in order to lie to each other (and yourself) about your feelings.

Comment is about when a dog returns to consume its own vomit, it does so through choice and not hunger (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

I like the way that Dylan - now in his seventies - is made to seem almost biblical in his wisdom; and I think this is quite correct and as it should be, David. The groundbreakers like him and Lennon are people we hang destiny on with all its revelations.
I enjoyed the whole tone of the poem, but I always do with your stuff.

Ray

Comment is about Stereogram (blog)

Original item by David Cooke

I like the glass over the candle, Stu - a starvation of oxygen or expectancy, a stifling feeling. I think this may colour the whole poem . It is sad in the way it reveals a decay of lust.

Nice one. Ray

Comment is about when a dog returns to consume its own vomit, it does so through choice and not hunger (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

i often found the fifty pence to be the most challenging

Comment is about MR GABARDINE MAN (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

I've played "How Much Loose Change Can You Get Under Your Foreskin?" As a drinking game after rugby matches. We always beat Golders Green.

Comment is about MR GABARDINE MAN (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

i have to admit i lost a bit of my drink at the foreskin line.

i mean. what sort of erosion does a mind have to have gone through to produce something like this!

quite brilliant.

Comment is about MR GABARDINE MAN (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

lovely elP. im very taken by the idea of our lives being fulfilled once every part of us is left untouched. greatly thought provoking and written in that skeletal way you have, like your words are elements with limited half lives and at any point they could blink out. i am reading this while listening to william basinski's disintegration loops, which is a wonderful ambient album that came around after he found some old easy listening tapes and tried to digitize them. he left the machine to do its business and when he came back he found the tapes were degrading ever so slightly with each turn, as the magnetic strip wore off. it produced this amazing effect whereby these short snippets of music gradually disintegrated, changing minutely each time but over the course of the hour they completely vanished. its a startling listen, and deeply philosophical when you really think about it. the day after he mastered the first was 9/11 and he set up a camera on his Manhattan apartments roof and recorded the last hour of daylight while he listened back to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjnAE5go9dI

its not an easy listen by any means and requires quite a feat of time and patience but there is something about it that plays in nicely with what we have been talking about. even if you cant sacrifice the hour it takes (and i dont blame you, time is precious), its interesting to scan through it to see how it all changes.

sorry i have wittered for ages about nothing but basically neat poem!

Comment is about retrograde (blog)

Original item by nunya

making me hungry ray.

Comment is about RECIPE FOR POLITICS ! (blog)

Original item by ray pool

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. Thomas Paine

Comment is about RECIPE FOR POLITICS ! (blog)

Original item by ray pool

A lucky escape and best served cold this definitely had to be told. Life is always strange especially when you have no control over it.

Ray

Comment is about That Inevitable Question (blog)

Original item by Suki Spangles

Hi Green, I love your poetry, I love all the colours and textures xx

Comment is about Green (poet profile)

Original item by Green

This is my fave. I love all the colours and it is a great treat to the senses x

Comment is about A verse to light or lunar ode (blog)

Original item by Green

Thanks for commenting on I Killed the Monster. Is it me or the world that's insane? I picked up a book of Cohen's poetry yesterday funnily enough. Top man.

Ray

Comment is about Stuart Buck (poet profile)

Original item by Stuart Buck

Thanks Colin for your fulsome comments ; it's good to get you on home turf. After twelve years I still feel that sting and further on what you picked up on I photographed every room intact with all the memories. I found that a sort of comfort as I'm sure my mum would have respected that! - but the inevitable skip that was the worst.

Cheers Tom , I know your moving stuff on that topic. It's not where we want to be for long but it's important to express it. Ray

Comment is about BEREAVED (blog)

Original item by ray pool

Nice work Ray - very touching and poignant.

Comment is about BEREAVED (blog)

Original item by ray pool

A superb poem, John. Beautifully, beautifully crafted. Congratulations on POTW!

Comment is about 'Mature Student' by JF Keane is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

ditto Stu's comms - a moving piece of not so 'insubstantial' writing - I particular found 'markers of life' touching. The treasured items we can't take with us but leave behind as memories for others to cry over - surely one of the saddest and heartbreaking tasks after a loved one passes away is the disposal / redistribution of their personal belongings. It's often the silly, inconsequential things that stop us in our tracks and make us wonder why they had kept such a thing. It's akin to trespassing.

Comment is about BEREAVED (blog)

Original item by ray pool

Pete Seeger's Wikipedia entry explains much, mentioning
the circumstances of the Bob Dylan/electric guitar saga
and his own part...wanting the words to be heard but
being told by the sound engineer that it was what was
wanted there. His social equality activities and songs
laid the ground for what was to come and he kept these
going right up to and including his 9th decade. A man
who was unafraid to confront the Macarthy hearings and
challenge their right to override the Constitution in their
demands of those who appeared before them. In so
many ways, a remarkable man who led the way that
others followed.
"Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" still resonates in my
own mind as strongly as "Blowing in the Wind".

Comment is about Don't think twice, it's all right: Bob Dylan wins Nobel literature prize (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

I remember listening to the words of Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands as a teenager and thinking, I don't understand this. It must be poetry. It still is. And the music helps.

Comment is about Don't think twice, it's all right: Bob Dylan wins Nobel literature prize (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

I can`t find if I ever posted this before - so not for competition please.

Comment is about Susan (blog)

Original item by Harry O`N eill

Your breath is sweet
Your eyes are like two jewels in the sky
Your back is straight, your hair is smooth
On the pillow where you lie
But I don't sense affection
No gratitude or love
Your loyalty is not to me
But to the stars above

Comment is about Don't think twice, it's all right: Bob Dylan wins Nobel literature prize (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Conniving madness ever in the wings has come centre stage.

Comment is about Dear Donald Trump (blog)

Original item by Linda Cosgriff

Hi, Karen,

Its your work here that deserves a re-wind. There are lots of us carrying concealed without a permit..

elP

Comment is about Triggering Article 50 (blog)

Original item by karen izod

thanks for introducing me to this song elP - a real case for a re-wind button.

like the 'entangled futures' in your getaway car too!

Comment is about Triggering Article 50 (blog)

Original item by karen izod