Poetry Forum

JJ, you seem awash with possibilities. Perhaps deciding on an overarching tone or emotion or metaphor could make the choices clearer. Could there be a regional pronunciation problem with the rhyme 'vase' (varz/vayz) and 'stars'? A number of times you've kindly given me guidance in the ways of metre ...

Neat scam. I suppose they couldn't get away with it these days. The brands (and the scam itself?) make it a period piece (70s/80s?), but isn't folk saying "banter" post-milleninium? And maybe bouquets in Asda came later too? "Lucy" doesn't quite feel like the right name. And I im...

JJWilliamson wrote:I saw a flawless daffodil
on the kitchen windowsill,
confined inside a slender vase.

The opening lines make the narrator sound rather like a visitor in their own kitchen.

[Edit: removed lame joke that may cause offence.]

V6 Wool snagged on barbed wire where lambs have tested their boundaries. Do lambs really test such sharp boundaries? Isn't the wool most likely from adult sheep that just brush against the fence while grazing? I think "clings" gave too much agency to wool. You said you like the title &quo...

Nightwatch

Friday's full moon spills
over into hard gardens
and lays upon dark yards
a wasted light by which
foxes fuck and good dogs
learn not to pine out loud.

Firebird wrote:Crayon, sorry you aren't really buying the image. I'm going to stay with it though, as I do buy it.

I was dumb and wrong. JJ is right; it's not about the likeness, but it being enough of a memory trigger for the narrator. Sorry to mess you about.

Maybe 'locks' is more masculine than 'tresses'?

[Prompts: bodkin's poem "A spell to prove there is no magic", and the UK General Election with its Tory bullshit.] Witch's Brew (recipe for success) eye of slug hair of toad leg of snake sleight of mode touch of class air of grace neck of brass two of face crust of bread cream of cake poun...

Crayon, you forgot the title after only 5 very short lines? Me thinks your attention might have been in other places. :D To misquote Withnail: How dare you! How dare you call me inattentive! Right, you fucker, I'm gonna do the washing up. :) But seriously, I don't think it was inattentive of me to ...

Crayon, No need to clarify, I got the joke. The problem was that I found it as unexpected as I did convincing. The silence on this end was stunned rather than offended. I didn't see it coming. 'this skin' was just playing with 'drumming' and trying to avoid another pronoun. Love to know what you're...

Sorry, NQS; I should clarify that my six exclamation marks and the teeth-grinding smiley was a poor attempt to joke that my enthusiasm was amphetamine assisted. It wasn't meant as sarcasm. While I can see an amphetamine analogy, I guess it's really about a potential lover. I agree with Richard and J...

Such brutish contumely! *swoon* But (semi-)seriously, in my poetic ignorance there's much of it I don't understand; so I aspire to say 'guilty as charged'. Contumely! I didn't even know what it meant. I've now discovered that Chaucer used it. You're in. Yay, I'm in! But it's no thanks to Chaucer. I...

An ode to amphetamine? I like it! ! ! ! ! !

please don't nip the candles tonight not whilst there's a flicker to light the shadows Original please don't nip the candles tonight not whilst there's light to see you with I agree with the logic problem that David said (less a problem in the revision) and think you need to make the light or flick...

The first time I got to the last line, I'd forgotten the title and thought you were saying that the willow tree has eyes; like some mop-topped Ent. On windy days I would expect a willow's branches to be rather turbulent. Neither "cascade", "dangling" nor "weeping" sugge...

Firebird - Thank you for returning to this; much appreciated. Yes, I thought the 'knicker drawer' line risked raising a smile. But does it taint the rest of the poem with an unsuitable humour? Maybe it would be better changed to something like: and I found your 'lost' phone in your underwear drawer...

bodkin wrote:From Marie Lightman's "irrational robot" prompt...

http://www.ianbadcoe.uk/2017/05/napowri ... ience.html

Good one, robodkin. One of my favourites of your many strong poems for NaPoWriMo. And I think I understood almost all of this one.

Crayon - You naughty, naughty boy. Love the link to "The Wasteland". Luce - Thank you; glad that my demeaning of 'The Waste Land' is affective. :) Hilarious, clever and wonderfully perceptive. Boys have a knack of being boys. Girls are the same, you know, they just keep it amongst themsel...

Prompt: Things that occur day after day Bed Time He counts eighteen stairs and recoils from the moon. Wraiths and vampires sense tears in ducts, lust for the stench of sweat. Dark corners of an Edwardian room hide toxic spittle, as slaver smears malicious lips. The crackle of tortured cartilage ble...

[Luce's prompt: April] Stirring Dull Roots April is the cruellest month, apparently; or so we were told in English Lit. It's a wasteland, I think Miss Senior said, and then she read and read and read; sat on her desk in a blouse thinner than last term; a shorter skirt, her knees a little further apa...

How about three cheers for Luce...for putting up the prompts! Hip, hip..... ... HOO -manythanksLuceforallyourgreatprompts- RAY! Luce, nice minimalist poems, but I feel I should point out that you're not using the format for 'elevenie' poems that NaPoWriMo described on day 23: "The first line i...

True Believer To start again with you is no small job. I shiver in my shoes at the prospect, although the day is hot. The night you left, leaving fresh scars on my face, is a memoryI cannot erase. But, call me a fool for I forgive all you have done, my darling, my fluffy, chunky tailed tom. As a ca...

Beauty, in the eye of the beholder, until blinded. ...This is eerily close to my current predicament. After nearly three years of clear scans for my good eye, it has just started to fail. I'm half-blind in the other eye. (Not that you can tell to look at me) Meds can keep the threat at bay indefini...

ton321 wrote:The wild arrangement
of blossom on the bough-
is loves grief,
when I look at you.

HAIKUFY IT!

the brief delight
of blossom on a black bough -
without you to view

feelings are abstract until she smiles ~ ~ ~ feelings are abstract until you hold her ~ ~ ~ feelings are abstract until she kisses your brow ~ ~ ~ Feelings are abstract until you read the letter JJ, I don't wish to spoil the wrap party, but doesn't S2, S3 and S4 each negate their previous stanza by...

Such brutish contumely! *swoon*

But (semi-)seriously, in my poetic ignorance there's much of it I don't understand; so I aspire to say 'guilty as charged'.