Dye, Sonnet

[J.R.Pearson]

Dye, Sonnet

The violet drop wraps his reflection before it falls,
face reversed & sun-folded. Pushing blood purple
into Tyrian garments the old way
until his hands ache dark snails.
Now dyeing has gone industrial, number
values assigned per molecule.
A ruined woman in fading garments.

Sharon Olds ached in her sex laboring words,
blood staining pages, Jack Gilbert measuring the girders
of his person for transmissions not easily struck.
Phrases that hold our being in a silvering assembly.
Now, we feed fractal nutrients. Through our umbilicus
of copper wire & photo-electric cell. Googled.

[barrie]

I find this very strange. I can't for the life of me find a link between old dyeing practices, Sharon Olds/Jack Gilbert, and the Internet. There's the old and the new, with two poets stuck in between, none with anything in common - unless I'm being very thick and missing something - it wouldn't be the first time.
I thought the start was good -

The violet drop wraps his reflection before it falls,
face reversed & sun-folded. Pushing blood purple
into Tyrian garments the old way
until his hands ache dark snails. - Then it was spoiled by

Now dyeing has gone industrial, number
values assigned per molecule.

I enjoyed the metaphor of the final line in verse one - good one.

I think you need to alter the last two lines of the poem. I would omit the full stop after nutrients: make it feed from; and lose Googled (a modern cliche).

Now, we feed from fractal nutrients through our umbilicus
of copper wire & photo-electric cells.

I take it that it's not in the form of a sonnet because of the pun in the title. It's a 'dead' sonnet, so to speak (no Python jokes, please).

I enjoyed most of the writing here but I failed to see a complete picture.

Barrie

[Elphin]

I want to see a whole picture here so here is how I read it. It is a comparison of changes in dyeing techniques to changes (death of?) in writing/ communication/learning. If I am right I like the first verse but the second half of stanza two I struggle with. Although I like the idea of the comparison I am not sure it completely delivers what (I think) you are saying.

I particularly enjoyed - the play on words in the title, the aching of dark snails and the final line of stanza one. I think there is something strong here and IMHO would be worth working some more on.

E

[J.R.Pearson]

TY guys for stoppin and reading so carefully...good comments too. Here are a couple of links that may help clear things up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flarf

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_dye


Hope this helps clear thing up a lil.

JR

P.S. i was not trying to write a riddle...instead made this mistake of thinkiong that everyone is reading the EXACT same things i am

[Elphin]

To think what I attempted to do in the third stanza of Google Me (posted in beginners section) if I am understanding it correctly could have been inspired by a movement -flarf- that i didn't know existed. Thanks JR for these links.

E

[J.R.Pearson]

LOL Elphin...when i read yur poem there a few days back that was what i was thinking....i don't hate flarf its just that as a MOVEMENT i find it a lil empty...its hilarious stuff tho. Yur poem was goooooood! I enjoyed it.



JR