Poetry Forum

Two things. I am not sorry for myself, and I realise exactly where I am. Got that? Good. You see it's important that you know. It has been mentioned to me that it was feeling sorry for myself that got me in here. Bollix. Ofcourse I regret the way things have turned out. Who wouldn't? But who's to sa...

Oh the list could be stretched much further, Ben; I haven't mentioned any of the ladies, Bonnie Raitt, Suzy Bogguss, Carlene Carter, Sheryl Crowe etc. But Johnny, although there were some greats before him, is the one I miss most.

Jimmy

No. It's not so much of a problem now, David; after all, I was able to complete thirty years in the Fire Service in Belfast with the condition ( I just didn't mention it and by the time I joined it was controllable.) Maybe a little OTT but at the time (11 of 12 years old) it filled my nights and pre...

Night scratched at me like splinters. Snatched sleep spun naught but wicked dreams of yellow air; rooms full of people whose blackened mouths frothed bubbling spit. Breathless hours of muffled respiration had written themselves into exhausted bones. Small movements provoked paroxysms of coughs. I at...

All
hurts
will heal
when given
love enough, and time.
Love will heal, given hurt enough.

Say Johnny hadn't drawn breath. Or if this man of faulty notes and tattered black had stayed the hick he claimed to be, and ground his days in baseball hat, backroad America. Would that matter? Say he'd thought the Voice unworthy; had never gone to Sun or heard Sam Phillips whoop and say, ' Jee- sus...

Others, Ray? I think my stuff is about as popular as Margaret Thatcher at a miner's rally. Anyway this was written about outsiders, or those whose perceptions are a tiny bit skewed and whose reality is different from most folks. One that I knew had few social skills but touchingly tried to make new ...

Embedded in a crumbling boulder or sniffed as air released from some mouldy cellar; that's how he wished to arrive in the conscious thoughts of those who thought they knew him. He regarded them as the invaders while imaging himself as ripped open; a fingerprint, a sign. fully formed, normal, from da...

Epic in its scale, Brendan, and grotesque in the manner of much legend. Some of the language seems too modern but the enthusiasm of the telling outweighs this minor niggle.

Jimmy

Hi David. Yes, caprine is there just for alliteration and a 'loney' is just one of those little grass-spined lanes which always seem so inviting to children; a sort of verdant pathway to adventure.

Thanks for the read.

Jimmy

Thanks David. For instance, if you didn't have to have six stanzas (plus envoi), would you, unprompted, have taken so long to say what you say (very well) here? I wonder. It's a good point. But I think that obviously what's said would necessarily be covered differently and that is one of the attract...

I think the attraction, and the limitations, of most formal writing is in the constrictions imposed. I suppose the easy way to do these would be to set a list of noun/verb interchanges but I considered that such a procedure might take away any spontaneity (although, as you point out, Ben, the form i...

Interesting concept, although slow reading. The only tiny niggle is with 'weight down' although as a reminder to myself it could be highly memorable.
Love the title and the idea, og.

Jimmy

Slick as a pair of fish we sidled out. Away from Latin and its fiendish rules, from the old Brother flicking his cane at us when verbs and nouns, trapped like frantic animals, tumbled from us so wrong we hoped that he would cry. Away from school and the cry of boys ligging about, acting out last nig...

I wasn't so sure about this on first read David, but I found on reading it aloud that it actually induces a sort of mesmeric expectation and the 'thes' seemed to be a necessity. The only line which tripped me up a little was 'the numinous hints of mountains' I felt that 'hint' would lessen the insis...

Great metaphor for the dash of ideas that find their way into poetry. The juxtaposition of 'ejaculate' and 'tossing' are quite obvious to an old reprobate like me and are cleverly interwoven, which adds a further element of enjoyment to an altogether enjoyable write.

Jimmy

Remarkable how a couple of words gives the whole a much more satisfying feel, isn't it? Good work to start with, Suzanne, and even better now, in my opinion. The 'spiked with dead flies' image is lovely in the sense that it brings to the mind's eye the withered wishes and abandoned hopes of the narr...

Lovely finish, Suzanne. The gentle pace of this suits the interior monologue technique. Only suggestions are; maybe cut the 'own' before 'self-imposed' and perhaps a more robust word here, and laced with dead bugs. Maybe ' studded with dead bugs' would give a more visual image. Like this and feel it...

Thanks Ros. I originally intended to give the 'sentry' a name but thought it would be too much information. I think you're right, too, about the 'oblivious streets' sentence; on rereading it sounds as though the 'I' is shining in blue light - careless! Its biographical content is accurate; pretty se...

I'm assuming the crime is both the literal death of Ern and the societal one of allowing his life to be contained in a carrier bag. I like the list of 'we knews' which open each stanza; it gives an impression of caring but is really, I suspect, just the voyeuristic fascination such wrecks hold - lik...

Inky revolution, Ros. I love this

Ros wrote:peasants desperate for make-up hints,
cart manuals, verruca cures,
skim warty digits down still-damp folios.

it hints at nowt changing while everything did.
An imaginative and wry write.
Love it.

Jimmy

Some nice wordplay here Ian. The second stanza is very good, imo; reminds me of those hardy explorers whose gentlemanly endeavours gave to the late 19thC and early 20thC an heroic age of boldly going.

Jimmy

Thanks Ben. I sometimes wish that old cleric had had the gift of succinctness, but realise that we were there as audience as much as pupils and he WAS entertaining when he got going.

Jimmy

Who knows, Ben? My tendency to keep things minimal is already explained and anyway, they say it is good to leave readers wanting more; a rare phenomenon with any of my scribblings. Thank you for the read, much appreciated.

Jimmy

Moon washes finch-heavy gorse rustling with lamping raiders yards from my gasping cell. I cry for water- thirsting for company just to say -You will not die. Not die a lung-burst god-cursed, breathless death before the two-tone pink pills work. Delinquent sleep creeps on; a shadow version of itself ...