The Hammer

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redpond
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Mon Feb 11, 2008 6:48 pm

so I go lucky

with the sway of follicle

with the show & tell

-something about poems
turning into the color
of a cut avocado
left over night.

(especially my guacamole)

“Carlos & Albert was right, you know,
so much depends upon
the frame of reference between
the rain & time.”

she like that
in a man she said...
that I was not
afraid to chop my soul into tiny edible pieces
and skewer the chicken gizzard
up to her hazel, blank
undergraduate
coal miner’s
glaze
and press it with a steam iron to get the
wrinkles out of zebra piss
JUST TO
GET LAID.

she liked a man who knows what

ever

he wants, she said.

and we continued the
barbecue
and laundry

until we went up to
her room, and I hoped to the dead Christ

that this girl knows what a woman wants
because that is what she is

never

going to get
from me.
ccvulture

Tue Feb 12, 2008 6:39 pm

This has a certain dark genius to it. I need to come back to it later and will post in full.

cheers

Stuart
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camus
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Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:18 am

Interesting, imaginative, a poem of lurid references that don't quite fit together.

Of course, one always reverts to the title if one can remember to.

The Hammer - I'm guessing it relates to the crushing blows of a woman - metaphorically of course.

cheers
Kris
http://www.closetpoet.co.uk
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Binz
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Wed Feb 13, 2008 10:47 am

are the empty lines the blows of 1) a physical hammer (i.e. it's a murder poem), or 2) 'hammering' away at intercourse, or 3) I've missed the plot completely.

"that this girl knows what a woman wants
because that is what she is
*strike*
never
*strike*
going to get
from me."

Binz
If you want to fly, you must first spread your wings.
redpond
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Thu Feb 14, 2008 3:48 am

Hi folks.

After Mr. Binz’s imaginative multiple choice, I thought I should mmmm, speak up. The narrative line is N thinks he’s a jaded poet and socializes with other poets, esp. the female poetry aficionados. Through the years he has experienced that nothing works better than soul to soul, with a quasi intellectualism i.e. “Carlos & Albert was right....” Carlos here is William Carlos William and Albert is Einstein. The poem he is talking about as you know is Red Wheelbarrow and the theory is relativity. Nothing special. So one thing lead to another and he is invited to her abode. He just wants one night. More than that, love and all the rest, he has
no need for it. A cold bastard: he is the only dead person in the story.

Now in terms of line breaks and such. I can’t really understand why in the year of our Lord 2008 people are going back to stanza forms and all the rest. For me, there is so much that can be tapped into a flat surface. And it is peculiarly ironic that somehow all the progress the poets have made in the paper world, is now sort of shunned at best and at worst ridiculed in the most advanced communication system, the internet.
Wabznasm
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Thu Feb 14, 2008 11:29 am

Well, adequate explanation, but I'm afraid with it you've proven how this poem misses the mark.

If this was just a series of word-jangles I really wouldn't mind, but the narrative, as you state, is dense and is too much to be packed into such an elusive piece.

You seem enthusiastic about telling us what this is about, which must mean you want us to see a narrative. If that's the case, I would suggest making this a little clearer. Obviously you don't have to make this brutally lucid, since that would destroy it... but a few more signs please? The only overt clues to poetry are WCW and 'something about poems'.

And you're right, there have been some really fascinating developments in paper poetry -- but I think tapping onto a flat surface will never leave much more than a few scratches; cleaving into a bumpy and well-known surface is always, by comparison, going to leave more noticable ridges. But yeah, that's where we differ.

Some nice images in here, but if you want the narrative, show it more.
Best
Dave
redpond
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Thu Feb 14, 2008 6:43 pm

Top of the mornin’ Wabznasm,

Thanks you for responding. I only posted the narrative “line” in order for some of us not to
misinterpret in a direction that is going to get a concerned constable knocking on my door. Admittedly I should just take out “The Hammer,” Any suggestions?

As far as the not knowing that the N is a poet whose a bit jaded other than saying I am a jaded
poet. Mmmmm. Then that will be telling not showing, but then sometimes you have to tell.

The 1st major stanza, “something about poems/turning into the color/of a cut avocado
left over night,” is N’s observation that poems that seemed fresh, like a cut avocado, turns
black after a day-- meaning he’s jaded, he had his fill with pOOms. Then he says, “especially
my guacamole,” which is simple continuance of his confession, his show and tell- he thinks his poems are smashed vegetable. Then the 2nd major stanza, is sample of his quasi intellectualism
but is all fairness to N is a sort of accurate understanding and synthesis of relativity and Red Wheelbarrow.
Then “she,” enters, a generic she, and he tells the reader that she said.... To summarize,
she like confessions from a man and also a man who says what he wants and N’s is more than
willing but just for once. The End.

In all respect, I think you have misinterpreted what I said about stanzas and about the approach
I took for this particular poem. “... but I think tapping onto a flat surface will never leave much more than a few scratches...” is your literal misrepresentation of poetry on paper. You said paper poetry, what is that? I did not say ‘paper poetry.” I said the advancement of poetry on paper, (or parchment, from the oral to the silence of flat surface). I am talking about from Homer to Lady Murasaki to Shakespeare to the stars. I am saying there is a continuance, development, evolution. You make it sound like I am expounding about the so called experimental poetry which is also valuable but in this case poetry on flat surface also means stanza forms, which for me seems to relish on subjects that are (as you have put it) well-known surfaces.

All’s well,
Redpond
Wabznasm
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Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:09 pm

'Paper poetry' was a shortening of your description. It seems your phrasing was confusing then! for I read 'flat' forms entirely as the damp (if interesting) developments in hardcore experiementalism. Metaphors often aren't the best for argument. ANyway, what about the title? FUck it, 'Poet at a poetry meeting' or something like that -- stick a few mentions of fatigue, or enneyeux and you've got yourself a pad from which you can launch into almost anything.

And I got most of the poem - I was attempting to respond as a reader who hadn't read your description. Again, it'd be worth trying to swerve around that in the future by leaving some trickles of it in your poetry. I find descriptions that 'explain' poetry terse and dull, even if it comes from my favourite poets (and I've read some particularly exruciating ones).

Dave
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