John, I wasn't thinking about this poem in the context of your manuscript. I should have considered that.
Please note that I just reread a thread from 2022 and discovered that I inadvertently snubbed you. Please read the PM I just sent you about the incident.
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- Sat Mar 09, 2024 9:55 pm
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Heart Sutra
- Replies: 8
- Views: 77
- Sat Mar 09, 2024 1:28 pm
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Heart Sutra
- Replies: 8
- Views: 77
Re: Heart Sutra
I'm on my way to bed, but just want to say I like it. If this were mine, I'd keep working on it to see what images I could come up with for the stanzas, possibly increasing their number. I've been listening to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" lately, and man, I love the images he came up with ...
- Fri Mar 08, 2024 10:07 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: From the Upanishads
- Replies: 5
- Views: 55
Re: From the Upanishads
we must go through the night to arrive at day. The nightingale sings only at night, the lark at dawn. Now that's gorgeous, John, totally gorgeous. Once again, my lack of knowledge about the world is tripping me up. If I had known that nightingale's sing at night, and larks sing during the day, I co...
- Fri Mar 08, 2024 6:21 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: From the Upanishads
- Replies: 5
- Views: 55
Re: From the Upanishads
Sorry, John. I kept meaning to comment. But then you told me that you sometimes find me annoying (though not offensive), and I decided that maybe I should cut my losses and not comment on your poems that I don't fully understand. That used to be my standard rule: Comment only on the poems I understa...
- Fri Mar 08, 2024 6:03 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Unwrapping the Truth (version 3)
- Replies: 17
- Views: 193
Re: Unwrapping the Truth (version 3)
Thanks, John. That's helpful.
Frost always liked to use the plainest language possible, and that stuck with me; but sometimes the plainest language isn't very poetic.
Frost always liked to use the plainest language possible, and that stuck with me; but sometimes the plainest language isn't very poetic.
- Fri Mar 08, 2024 3:52 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Unwrapping the Truth (version 3)
- Replies: 17
- Views: 193
Re: Unwrapping the Truth (version 3)
Phil, I just noticed your comment suggesting "orchids" -- sorry that I didn't notice it before. Yes, "flowers" is almost too generic for a poem. I'll consider "orchids" and I'll also look into some other flower names. I'm thinking about simplifying the language of the e...
- Fri Mar 08, 2024 3:42 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Unwrapping the Truth (version 3)
- Replies: 17
- Views: 193
- Thu Mar 07, 2024 8:10 pm
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Bhagavad-Gītā
- Replies: 6
- Views: 82
Re: Bhagavad-Gītā
Well, I'm sorry that my knowledge of religion and the classics in general is so wanting. I've been thinking about this. While Alicia Stallings (and apparently you too) was reading the classics, I was escaping from my life by reading comics. It put me at a disadvantage both as a writer and a reader.
- Thu Mar 07, 2024 8:05 pm
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: A Narrow Fellow (version 5)
- Replies: 11
- Views: 517
Re: A Narrow Fellow (version 5)
I revisited this poem and made changes. I found a rhyme for the final line (mend/friend). That had been driving me crazy ever since I wrote the poem.
It's surprising to me how just the passage of time can give me perspective on a poem.
It's surprising to me how just the passage of time can give me perspective on a poem.
- Wed Mar 06, 2024 11:10 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Bhagavad-Gītā
- Replies: 6
- Views: 82
Re: Bhagavad-Gītā
The problem with the 200 pages line is, first, that some people won't know what the Bhagavad-Gītā is (like me -- I had to look it up); but secondly, the line just isn't written in a poetic way. It's as if you jump from poetry to prose for that one line. So, don't remove it, just make it more lyrical...
- Wed Mar 06, 2024 6:08 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Bhagavad-Gītā
- Replies: 6
- Views: 82
Re: Bhagavad-Gītā
This is a good poem, a cut above some of the poems that you have posted recently. I would have commented sooner, but I was getting a little weary of the religious themes. But right now, with a clear head, I definitely like it and feel that it makes an interesting point. This line ... [ over the cour...
- Mon Mar 04, 2024 11:56 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Eye of God
- Replies: 12
- Views: 147
Re: Eye of God
John, I just noticed that you asked me a question. I'm off to bed. I'll answer it later today.
- Mon Mar 04, 2024 3:23 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Eye of God
- Replies: 12
- Views: 147
Re: Eye of God
I see your point, and the poem makes a little more sense to me now. It's interesting how you rhymed the stanzas 3 and 4, but not 1 and 2. I've seen you do that before. If two parts of a poem were sufficiently different, I would sometimes use an ellipsis of asterisks (centered between two stanzas) to...
- Sun Mar 03, 2024 5:02 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Eye of God
- Replies: 12
- Views: 147
Re: Eye of God
I don't know a lot about Shiva, the Hindu god. What I notice about the poem is that you segue from Shiva to "God", by which I assume you mean the Western god. The first two stanzas sound good together, and the third and fourth stanzas also sound good together. Maybe I'm tired, but I'm not ...
- Sun Mar 03, 2024 3:22 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Into the Wilderness (version 2)
- Replies: 10
- Views: 174
Re: Into the Wilderness (version 2)
Thanks for giving the poem so much attention!
- Sat Mar 02, 2024 8:29 pm
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Into the Wilderness (version 2)
- Replies: 10
- Views: 174
Re: To Heaven's Gate (version 2)
I've divided the poem in two, replaced "consigned" with "dispatched", and eliminated some descriptive words, as poems about the Christian God work best when they are stark and plain. Thanks again! This poem is a keeper. Whether I'm going to show it to my religious friend, I haven...
- Sat Mar 02, 2024 11:55 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Into the Wilderness (version 2)
- Replies: 10
- Views: 174
Re: To Heaven's Gate (version 2)
Thanks, John! So, if I just split it after "feign", you think that will improve it? To add a little meaning to the poem, I refer to the protagonist as "the preacher" in the second line now. That justifies the line in which God takes his tongue and name from him, since preachers d...
- Sat Mar 02, 2024 7:59 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Bad Moon.
- Replies: 5
- Views: 112
Re: Bad Moon.
There are some interesting images in the poem.
I'm not sure why the man is motherless, and whether the mother is being blamed for being absent, or whether she is being praised because she is needed. I guess I'm saying that I'm not sure what point of the poem is.
I'm not sure why the man is motherless, and whether the mother is being blamed for being absent, or whether she is being praised because she is needed. I guess I'm saying that I'm not sure what point of the poem is.
- Sat Mar 02, 2024 6:37 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Into the Wilderness (version 2)
- Replies: 10
- Views: 174
Re: To Heaven's Gate (version 2)
Thank you, John. I read about a young man once whose Jewish family started sitting Shiva for him when he told them he was gay. I should tell you that I am trying to convince my friend of some of the ideas in the Seth Material. The God described in those readings is a God everyone would want to have....
- Sat Mar 02, 2024 4:20 am
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Into the Wilderness (version 2)
- Replies: 10
- Views: 174
Re: To Heaven's Gate
Thank you, John. The poem still needs refining in a couple places. Here is the story: My best friend as an adolescent was someone named Todd. We were both around 12 or 13, and we knew each other only for perhaps half a year before my mother moved the family 200 miles away. Even at that age, Todd was...
- Fri Mar 01, 2024 9:25 pm
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Everyman
- Replies: 5
- Views: 61
Re: Everyman
I like this also. It's concise and to the point. It's rhymed, but it is also plain-spoken. It isn't easy to write poetry which is both frank and pretty.
- Fri Mar 01, 2024 8:58 pm
- Forum: Ezines, Magazines and Publications
- Topic: Ray in Kleksograph
- Replies: 2
- Views: 64
Re: Ray in Kleksograph
I don't see a way to read the issue; it must be a print publication.
Congratulations, Ray.
Congratulations, Ray.
- Fri Mar 01, 2024 6:57 pm
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Into the Wilderness (version 2)
- Replies: 10
- Views: 174
Into the Wilderness (version 2)
Into the Wilderness (version 2 -- free verse) As a hedge against damnation, the preacher made himself the strictest of the strict interpreters of precious texts, so to convince God of his impeccable faith; but men who hedge their faith are men who feign. When his reckoning came, God discerned his s...
- Thu Feb 29, 2024 6:09 pm
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Unwrapping the Truth (version 3)
- Replies: 17
- Views: 193
Re: Unwrapping the Truth (version 3)
Thank you. I'll see what I can do to get rid of the explaining.
- Thu Feb 29, 2024 12:11 pm
- Forum: Post-a-Poem (Experienced)
- Topic: Unwrapping the Truth (version 3)
- Replies: 17
- Views: 193
Re: Unwrapping the Truth (version 3)
Did I manage to improve the poem at all?