B-Polar Blues

[ioansant]

Polar people polar moods
Acute emotion bi-polar two’s
Mystical heights to Garderene* stalls
Crushing falls in Satan’s halls

From naked raging primeval brute
to angelic form in a Penguin suit,
He pledges eternal undying amour
returns home late in vomit an’ gore

Broken hopes and broken dreams
Broken love in terror screams
Medic run with medic's chest
There is no cure for his incest

The neighbours hate and hide in fear
at his maddened mocking leer
His sexual prowess do not abate
Perverted depravity satiate

Repression depression electric shock
He cannot turn back nature’s clock
His body wears and then his mind
Home is an asylum deaf and blind

* should be Gadarine, thanks to Merlin

[Merlin]

Polar people polar moods (nice start,I was expecting polar bear to come after)
Acute emotion bi-polar two’s
Mystical heights to Garderene stalls (Spelling erra = Gaderene)
Crushing falls in Satan’s halls

From naked raging primeval brute
to angelic form in a Penguin suit, (best line for me)
He pledges eternal undying amour
returns home late in vomit an’ gore

Broken hopes and broken dreams
Broken love in terror screams
Medic run with medic's chest
There is no cure for his incest

The neighbours hate and hide in fear
at his maddened mocking leer
His sexual prowess do not abate
Perverted depravity satiate

Repression depression electric shock
He cannot turn back nature’s clock
His body wears and then his mind
Home is an asylum deaf and blind

Ioan

Overall I liked this – and of course it’ s easy to be critical of rhyme schemes (couplets, especially I think)…

It seems you have focused (maybe deliberately as the title suggests) on the negative aspects of B-Polar – I would have liked a stanza on the positive side, maybe at the beginning…then …….moving into the negative states….

Its simplistic, but then again, that’s due to the rhyme scheme…….

Nice job overall…….but can be improved, I think…

Thanks for sharing…

[ioansant]

Thanks Merlin,
appreciate the time spent on it. It's about a particular person, no, maybe an amalgum of several I have known. So the negative aspect is to the fore but in no way represents all bi-polar people, not at all. Of the the others I have met one was so drugged as to be a walking comatose, a couple of others were cheerful fellows, except when excited. One was a colosal embarresment in drink, but so can normal people in drink. but otherwise fun to be with as long as one noted the moodswings and took appropriate action.

I don't really know why I wrote it, it must have been after hearing of another extremely violent event reported back to us by someone close to him.

Regarding improvement, you are probably right, but I would prefer to leave this one in the drawer.

Sorry I mashed your poem now and feel almost guilty. Eek does that sound condesending...sorry.

The things we poets write about.

Strange that your favourite line I consider trite, I only used it because I was stumped with the rhyme, I actually loath that line. Thanks for spotting Garderene (sic) it's been up on another website for years just shows we are all bad spellers, except for the few. Mine is atrocius and WORD can't protect us from everything. Well spotted.

Penguin is one of the few Welsh words used in the Engish language. Pen is head and guin is white in Welsh hence headwhites. Welsh sailors on the Beagle are the cause of this. One can imagine them saying in Welsh,
'Cor blimey! Look whiteheads, wonder if they are good eating.'

[Sean Sweeney]

Hey, this is my first crit and I'm in no way educated on poetry. I feel an urge to post on this one. Reason being a friend of mine suffered from bi-polar and I spent allot of time with him growing up. I feel this poem caught his "negative" moments perfectly. Some of the things he did were... well I don’t know I want too go down that road, haha.

To me it seemed to create a tone of sympathy, Even though it's focussed on the bad side of Bipolar. Although I'm not sure if I liked the sympathetic tone or not. That's more of a personal taste thing with me, I suspect. I really liked the use of couplets though, which is odd, as I usually have no time for them. But it works great here. I think if it was re-drafted a couple more times it'd be a great poem.

Sorry it's not much and please excuse my total lack of poetic knowledge.

[Merlin]

Ioan

Regarding the word; penguin; I wasn’t aware – found it interesting…good stuff…

I think there is a lot to learn (generally speaking) about B-polar, and there are some interesting approaches towards understanding it better , particularly in the U.S.

I think it’s (in my opinion) an existential existence ….and we all have aspects of the condition…perhaps its part and parcel of the human condition…

Regards…..

[Transparent]

From naked raging primeval brute
to angelic form in a Penguin suit,
He pledges eternal undying amour
returns home late in vomit an’ gore

Good imagery for the B Polar picture. Nice one.

[breathe_in_life]

well,
being bi-polar,
i feel like this does indeed portray a negative view on people such as me.
yes,
i do realize that being bi polar is not neccassarily a good thing,
but you could have at least thrown in something like
"bi polar people are nice!!"

but anyway,
throwing aside my biase,
i feel that this poem had a nice flow.
yes,
some words word fudged to keep the rhyming scheme.
but still,
overall,
good write.

[Amadeus]

Also as a manic depressive, I don't feel that this caught the erraticism of a bipolar sufferer's actions. In particular, the use of rhyme can at times make the poem seem predictable. Now, I must admit that this is a very large subject to tackle, especially if one does not have manic depression oneself. But, what really strikes me is that yes, whilst this poem is focussing on depression, far more interesting, maybe, is the manic side, although again, without experiencing it, its very hard to understand.

I'm not quite sure where I stand with it. There are certain ouches that I like. However, I find it hard to be on equal terms with it. The problem wth it is that whist it is a composite of many different sufferers, it is still quite one faced; and besides, th depresion side changes with everybody.

I'm very sorry to be so negative about the poem, but I guess I am biased. It's just that many people attempt to describe some form of depression, but what one must remember is the manic side to this too, which is the chief factr in a bipolar depression.

Gareth

[David]

Too late, Gareth. Ioan already left in a huff, nursing dark resentments about our abuse of him as a Welshman and a human being. What awful people we must be.

[Amadeus]

Too late, Gareth. Ioan already left in a huff, nursing dark resentments about our abuse of him as a Welshman and a human being. What awful people we must be.

Argh damnit. The things that go on in my absence

[kozmikdave]

Bit late to this one, but gidday anyway.

Some of the imagery is reminiscent of my nephew who is schizophrenic and we do seem to get the negative stories from the family, rather than the positives. I'd like to see this done in free verse or with a more complex rhyme scheme, as it comes across as perhaps too simplistic/naive, and as you have admitted to including lines that are only there to make the rhyming work....

wrt Garderene/Gadarene:- I was about to congratulate you on educating me on "Garderene" - yes it is a word (see http://www.cryptozoology.com/forum/topi ... pid=255688) which fitted the context, I thought. At least I could fit it in. But then you have changed it to "Gadarene" which is the biblical story of demons being cast into pigs. That also fits the context. Oh well....

Lots of good things there - internal rhyme, etc.

Do watch your grammar. E.g. "His sexual prowess do not abate" should be "His sexual prowess does not abate"

Punctuation is lacking also. Good use of punctuation can breathe more life into your poem as you control the pauses, and therefore the way others read it.

Good one

[Amadeus]

Bit late to this one, but gidday anyway.

Some of the imagery is reminiscent of my nephew who is schizophrenic and we do seem to get the negative stories from the family, rather than the positives. I'd like to see this done in free verse or with a more complex rhyme scheme, as it comes across as perhaps too simplistic/naive, and as you have admitted to including lines that are only there to make the rhyming work....

wrt Garderene/Gadarene:- I was about to congratulate you on educating me on "Garderene" - yes it is a word (see http://www.cryptozoology.com/forum/topi ... pid=255688) which fitted the context, I thought. At least I could fit it in. But then you have changed it to "Gadarene" which is the biblical story of demons being cast into pigs. That also fits the context. Oh well....

Lots of good things there - internal rhyme, etc.

Do watch your grammar. E.g. "His sexual prowess do not abate" should be "His sexual prowess does not abate"

Punctuation is lacking also. Good use of punctuation can breathe more life into your poem as you control the pauses, and therefore the way others read it.

Good one

As the great man spaketh unto me:

Too late, Gareth. Ioan already left in a huff, nursing dark resentments about our abuse of him as a Welshman and a human being. What awful people we must be.

Gareth