Poetry Forum

Hi Ray,

Face another way is nice, thank you for the thought!

Thanks also for your take on the poem title. I think you're right, Objection is needlessly provocative and Response is more accurate really. A better title, I think.

Cheers,
John

Hi Ray, I like this increasingly as I reread it. I think at first, I missed a fair bit of its subtlety - in the music, in the telling - and found it a bit garish, which I now think was mistaken. My first visit to a psych ward was in the 1990s and I've not seen someone taken out back for a dusting - ...

Maybe "I cannot buy"? Then I get a rhyme as well!

Sidebar question: does this poem seem unnecessarily rude to the Dalai Lama at first reading, for whom I actually have the greatest respect? A good person. That I guess was my main workshopping question in posting it!

Cheers,
John

Hi Ray, I think interesting things happen if heart is traded out for self or soul here. Heart is nicely a physical object: you can bury it (at Wounded Knee), you can dash it to pieces. That's harder with a soul, and as in losing a soul, carries a lot of extra weight. Self OTOH feels maybe a bit ligh...

Hi Ray, Thanks for your visit, and I'm glad you enjoyed the meditation! I know what you mean about my repetition of 'heart,' and thanks for suggesting self and soul as alternatives. Now, losing a soul and losing a heart are two different things! But maybe I can usefully vary what I've got. I'll give...

Hi Phil, Felt the compulsion - I like it! Yes, my speaker has totally failed to arrive at the state of freedom from passion that Buddhism and the Dalai Lama recommend. Feel could certainly work there - we are rushing out the door but I shall ponder on our return! Cheers, and thanks for commenting, J...

Greetings, Fliss and Word-Bird!

And so, we meet again! Our paths are evidently fated to cross. I look forward to seeing you in a bit.

Cheers,
John

Hi Eira, Thank you for your welcome! I'd missed that you've also lost your dad and am sorry for your double loss. That does make the poem and conversation all the more poignant and I wonder whether some tweak might make that more apparent to first-time readers such as myself. I'm not sure what thoug...

A Response to H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama I will dash my heart to pieces on the cliff of your indifference. I will bury it in your blue ocean. I will forever lose my heart in the forest that is you. I am not one of those who stand apart from passion – perhaps through choice, perhaps through destiny. I ...

Hi Macavity,

Thank you for that Slim Harpo number, and the Sandy Denny. Here if I'm lucky are Rita Hayworth and Fred Astaire doing a little dancing to Jackie Wilson:



Cheers,
John

Hi Eira, I'm new to Prole Art Threat and exploring a bit as per the rules before posting myself. I read your poem (the latest version) with interest - I've lost both my parents, but remember the sort of conversation you are describing. I think this is a moving poem, and one thing that contributes to...

Hi Fliss, I realize I should say something more useful. For tbc, maybe "mother's hips"? They are I think primarily the hips of a mom here. And for "She's Sea-Queen," where I miss the article, how about ": a Sea-Queen"? I think that could work. No other suggestions reall...

Hi Fliss,

I continue to like both poem and title here. And ample hips is pretty much fine by me!

Cheers,
John

Thank you, Phil! I'll go ahead and have a go at posting then. I have a piece I'm working on just now.

Cheers,
John

Hello, I'm John Isbell. I'm new to this forum (and a bit excited) but not new to poetry, I have lots of it. Is it any good, you ask? And that I can't answer, really. I spent some years as a language professor in the US before retiring last year, which leaves me more time to work on my verse. A frien...