Poetry Forum

Thank you, ladies!
Bren

I want to hold you but I cannot hold you … not in front of a policeman not when the lights are turning red not when people are looking not when your eyes are shining not when a cough is coming not when war still rages not when the climate changes not when children are hungry perhaps when it rains we...

PCoD It was the right place in some senses, the wrong one in others. Being here had confirmed my faith, but weakened my conviction. Now the calendar bends to another day, the clock to another hour. There is nothing to be ashamed of, nor anything to be proud of either. Swallows swoop on the skyline, ...

Regard the gimcrack jalousies of the jaded south whence come cries of anguish rolling over the plain. Grandparents will outlive their children’s children and mothers, hollow-eyed, will take to their beds. The War, say the living, is over! But it will never be over for the dead, blank-eyed, rotting i...

Thanks, David. I was trying for simplicity of rhyme but what I got was a clodhopper.I feel there's more wrong somewhere ....

The procession halts in a fanfare of blazing trumpets, a cough of rolling drums. Sudden silence! Let me introduce my friends: step up and say hello! Gene is acrobatic: he scurries in and out of locked rooms, but has never yet been caught. Anne is temperamental, which means what it says, mental with ...

Well, there's good drivel and there's bad drivel; there's the interesting and then there's the boring. I've lately been assured by two angels, one with his head smashed in by hammer blows and the other hanging on to the cathedral door by nailed-in tendons, that this account was authentic and definit...

The tea in a pink cup (not any old mug) suggests you are known to the forehead-kisser who seems likely male but could be female. You appear to fade in and fade out but retain the power of staring. You could be dead or merely missing and were once close (lover, sister, child, parent) to the tea bring...

As a previous commentator remarks, The poem not so much wears its heart on its sleeve as wears its heart as a sleeve: as a reader I have nowhere to go in this poem and am simply carried along to the conclusions the poet wishes to draw. I agree with the first part of this sentence but not with the se...

Dear JJ, Well, that was a marvellous review and I'm still looking at it and counting stresses on my fingers -- in the Japanese way. You bend your thumb, you bend your first, then your 2nd 3rd and 4th fingers until you have a fist of five. Then you start on the other hand. I'm a sometime student of C...

The original version strikes me as the best ... if you omit Stanza 2. This stanza adds nothing and introduces loopy language of sorts, at the least ambiguous language.

it's a lot of assignations in the garden after dark; it's a lot of situations with a dog that didn't bark; it's a lot of heaving bosoms; it's a lot of bitten tongues; it's a lot of kissing cousins; it's a lot of loaded guns, Classic! But ... "bosoms/ cousins" ????? Buzz 'ems instead of Bo...

... Like servants/ what they carry belongs to others.

I liked that ver much, Also, the habitat of happiness.

Now have I come to sing my song,
to lift my voice and sing for you,
in the dark hour, at a quiet place;
for now is a time of stillness,
when peace fills slowly the fitful heart
and falls with a hush on the fretful brain.
Lie without fear in this sweet-smelling grass
and open your ear to my song.

Hi David I could drop "Nature's" from S1L5 but dilike the alteration for it begs the question of what kind of reverses: "and RINSE their MOUTHS of CURSes" " aWARE of (NAture's) SLIGHT Re VERSes" Thanks for the link to TOM O'BEDLAM. I didn't KNOW about the GENtleman-- GE...

i. the sudden sick feeling of lost control a kaleidoscopic flashing by of images the frantic squeal of brakes, a torrent of horns a fracture of stillness surrounded by silence a last prayer of regret and resignation ii. a glint of sun on cars far below a stiff breeze, quite surprisingly chilly a sil...

It seems I have a lot of discarding to do, beginning with S2! I rather like S3, myself, and S4 delivers the "solution" as to who this chap really is. Also ... contrary to supposition, Brian, I DO give a shite but it is neither time-shuddering nor clawing at the soul.

Cheers, gents
Bren

very atmospheric, introducing a huddle of characters, yet in some ways quite bleak and lonely.

The English love of gardens
is closely connected with ...
drowsy cricket scores,
the buzzing of bees,
cucumber sandwiches,
the taste of Darjeeling.

Venezia, 1536 When I dance along the cluttered quays the whores fall babbling to their knees and rinse their mouths of curses; I rest content, may this you please, aware of Nature’s slight reverses. Ships daily ply across the ocean to what harbour towns I have no notion, thus I turn my eyes upon the...

Ros -

Our chap may be pleasant and earnest, but he's not very bright.

Cheers,
Bren

I like the hoping idea and have chosen moping - 'hoping-roping-moping' As for introducing grit, whatever for? This is a light little thing, a matinee ballad, and has no connection with the grumpy seriousness of the real world.

Thanks for taking a look,
Bren

Hi Suzanne, The title comes from a C&W song, ("Drop Me Jesus Through the Goalposts of Life"), a parody. I was messing about with very simple rhymes the other day when the current rhyme scheme just fell into place. It's not rocket science but it was fun to write and I'm glad you enjoyed...

Honey, I was hoping, when not out bull-roping that you'd turn your gaze on me: look me over, up and down, just turn your gaze on me! Sweetie, when I go to town my face it settles in a frown when I look around for you: I search with bugle, drum and fife, when I look around for you! Baby, every fork n...

Re your proposed changes, I think I prefer the original. Here are some more (unsoliclited) suggestions: I picture him in Doorn, disarmed and rusticated - with maps, telegrams, troop movements, half-spilled furious coffee and schnapps - trying to find the road he overlooked that does not lead to the ...