Poetry Forum

I don't think you should bin it, the first stanza is fine. I particularly like the crawling baby line. I just think it needs something more novel to finish with. The hyperactive child/ crawling baby might be worth enlarging.

Thanks both. I'd not realised how alliterative those opening lines are. No, I've not retired, I just forget where I'm supposed to be quite a lot.

This will not be
the only loss this boy will ever face,
and some won’t end so happily.

Hello John. I think you could leave that passage out and have a more dramatic, poignant ending.

Macavity wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 25, 2024 9:10 am

Champions League next season!

Let's not count our chickens just yet.

folktale life will boat the bookish man. - lovely line, Phil. Well done.

Thanks. Having that Facebook poem accepted made me remarkably happy, almost optimistic. It won't last, though.

A city sliding serpentine, the swans upon the Severn stream towards us sinuous, then curve away as we draw close. She strokes the river from our boat, swallows suicidal dive then bank and soar the jeopardy to punctuate the canopy and splash the sky haphazardly. All is floaty, on the bridges cars and...

What you missed I can barely express, which I’m sure you’ll agree, must be irony?

You’d have hated it.
I wish you were there.

Loved it all, but those bits best. Yes, I think I've met Mr Beckett several times myself.

Hello Tony. I like the comparison between cathedral and house. If they were only drinking White Lightning then that would vaguely resonate with a whirlwind, but the Piggy Stick and porch/garage leaves me cold. I'd keep the can.

Hello Caleb. I think the first stanza is pretty good, though maybe you could do without the final line and "much" in line 2. The 2nd stanza, well, it's predictable, I suppose, no surprises there. I really don't think you need to introduce another dance, it feels like padding. You might con...

Between the apple tree and trampoline our piratical cat with black-patched eye, flashes his white tail, fixes the green stare on I as I hang the washing to dry. A wood-pigeon’s feathers blanket the grass like a snowdrift that’s forgotten to melt. Our villain inspects his undertaking, a shroud laid o...

It's all a bit too telegraphed, I think and you need something written on that piece of paper. How would you know that paper has been there 6 months?

He was struck down before he fathered children: - that's an interesting line, but is kind of stuck out on a limb, goes nowhere. Can't really fathom the rest of the tale.

But Ray, you (or the speaker in the poem if that isn't you) say that you have convictions but were able to adopt, so isn't there an injustice being outlined in the poem? My convictions were of a lesser order, though I was once convicted of carrying an offensive weapon - it wasn't a poem - but perha...

Thanks all. John - yes, I may use "more like", not sure just yet. In the 2nd stanza I omitted to put " And like Benjamin Zephaniah, if someone..." Is that better or worse? Phil - happiness is a matter of perspective - nice point. And true, no doubt. Still, whilst I'm very happy t...

Love it, especially the last line. And remarkably, I I knew you meant Lawrencian. But what are these endless tubs of blue water?

We move toward the unrestricted air,
not looking back, although the chances are
that this is not goodbye but au revoir.

Lovely. It's all great. I get the mummy reference, not the fishing. Dunno if you need those last 2 lines, or the brackets above them, blinking Lazarus a good place to end.

Enjoyed the read. I think you could do without the 3rd stanza, not least because it would seem apt to go from "it's past" to "The first 30 years are the hardest". But also, it doesn't seem particularly integral to the poem.

Well, I’m not black, and I haven’t dreadlocks, but I do hail from Birmingham and I am a poet of sorts, a vegan, and, of course, I support Aston Villa. And if someone told me I’d but weeks to live. my only regret would be the same as his, that I wouldn’t see Villa win the Premier League. But here is ...

Thanks all. Yes, Tony, it could certainly be shorter. Phil, spent the great majority of my career working with "long-stay" patients/clients, people who remained where they were and didn't tend to get better. Bit like us on Proleartthreat.

Same as what Phil said.

What’s small must yield to what is big,
and this is how I disappear.

Nice lines, but I wonder what you have in mind, what is the big thing? Madness itself?

Very good. Again. A clock is making faces on the wall. - just a simple line, but I love it. Like Nash, I think there's a problem with the metre in line 4 and also the rhyme, comes/symptoms. I wonder if ...the doctor arrives/appears...gives you better options.

Thanks, David. I vaguely remember borrowing the rhyme scheme from some other poem I've read, possibly the rhythm too. Yes, the metre comes and goes a bit, but I've done worse.

Ray, this is a fabulous, fabulous poem. I just love it. I may keep it in my file of great poets by other authors (if you feel it is finished). It is insightful, it is creative, it is delightfully rhythmic, and the rhyme is excellent. This is one of the best poems you have written, so much so that i...

Hi Ray, Great title, and for me, a somewhat depressing read. This I think is a tribute to how accurate your take is on a very depressing thing, the medicalization of the insane. I of course am delighted to be on a med these days that makes my life livable outside of a secure facility, but I have vi...