Poetry Forum

At the John Masefield High School cum Leisure Centre, the poet’s preparing to play walking football and fashion it into metre and verse. He’s taken a half-hour of keepy-uppies and double the dosage of Brufen and arnica to help him endure the full sixty minutes. The medications are like meditations, ...

Good poem. I'd either change or lose wipe by wipe, too many wipes in the poem.

I would be held in place
my face a grimace
one hand to hold me down
the other hastily doing its business.

Don't think you need the 1st and the 3rd line, one of them would do.

Thanks both.

Good poem. I'd prefer "Yellow is the sun" myself, Stands for is a bit too much like waving a flag. I suppose you might add something about being easily sunburnt.

What is an AF anyway? Dodgy As Fuck. It's always hard to tell, but on the whole random/obscure email addresses such as - 20xrumer1@farironalds.com tend to give it away. Had three this morning. Cheers Kris That never occurred to me. I thought AF must be something similar to IP. See the level of inte...

Thanks fellas. The poem's imagining what happens to Blanche Dubois after the end of A Streetcar Named Desire, hence the kindness of strangers line.

ECT would’ve been your treatment of choice, behind the façade of a white-columned house commandeered for industrial purpose; a muted, metallic moth-rattle around a lantern stripped of its patterns. No coloured lights for you, sister, but the locomotive thunder that dampens the strains of a polka. Th...

It could do with a better rhythm, especially in 2nd verse, as Not says. I had a go myself I thought I could dance I thought I’d be free to dance anywhere I happened to be. I’d mastered the rhythm, I was into the groove so who could but love to watch me twirling through? Of course, where I’m from, it...

Macavity wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 07, 2024 7:10 pm

Thanks Kris. It is a thankless task keeping these sites ticking over in the background.

First sentence disproves second sentence.
What is an AF anyway?

Yes, I thought you were trying to differentiate the 2 sections stylistically. What's spoiling the last 2 stanzas for me is the repetition of soul and air.

Enjoyed the read. The last verse took me a bit by surprise, I suppose I expected it to continue in a similar vein. Are the rhymes of the last 3 verses conscious? There doesn't seem to be one in the opening verse is why I ask. There’s a thing that dies when a child wakes up grown - wakes up grown see...

Thanks, Anna - yes, it was meant to be a safe wager. "in consequences of sinnin'" - yes, it's not very clear, I suppose. This was a scene I was involved in about 50 years ago. I don't remember what was wrong with David in the medical sense, but I was told it was to do with past sins or the...

Thanks, Anna. I incuded the thin weakly person line to develop the likeness to Jacob Rees-Mogg and his puny backside. You've likely not heard of him, though. The shitepoke has just lost his seat in the General Election, so I've withdrawn my application gor a gun-licence.

Thanks, Anna.

Hi ray, Doubtless me being slow, but ... it's the word 'wager' - I can't help but read it as a synonym for 'bet' - so what are the 'stakes'? I looked up the word and found it originally meant 'promise' (which makes a lot more sense, but who's going to get that interpretation? Not me it seems :) ) M...

Hi ray, Doubtless me being slow, but ... it's the word 'wager' - I can't help but read it as a synonym for 'bet' - so what are the 'stakes'? I looked up the word and found it originally meant 'promise' (which makes a lot more sense, but who's going to get that interpretation? Not me it seems :) ) M...

Thanks, Not. Verses it is then. I thought the ending was straightforward enough. If faith healing or whatever it was enables David to stand and walk,then N will be convinced that Old Nobodaddy Aloft really exists and will stand up himself in church.

Pews ‘ard as oaks ‘n Pastor Paul’d wheedle ‘n coax yer t’ gerrup ‘n tek owern Lord Jesus in t’ yorn proud ’n stubborn ‘earts. Uncle John ‘n the Lindas’d shut their eyes ‘n try t’ roise me wi’ their prayers, but I sat toight when others stood ‘n they bist saved instead. After guitars we traipsed t’ t...

The place near Halifax? The first and last sentences are terrific. Do you need both funeral and tar-black?

Ok, shitepoke it is.

Thanks, Phil.

I'd consider removing first and last stanzas. First one sounds a bit too contrived and portentous and I'm not sure the last one is adding much.I enjoyed the rest, particularly the sown silence. You might change the order of the hearse/curse lines.

That's very helpful, Not. Thanks very much. Revised once more. I only regret the lack of symmetry.

I like alliteration but you can overdo it, you know. I notice that in the final stanza the occasional rhymes disappear altogether and the rhythm changes significantly too. Is that deliberate?

Good idea to be rid of the questioning opening. I still think the best part of the poem was the "updraft" section, so I wonder why you lost that.