Awakening in Winter

[gpierre]

Gentle as nascent
snow, blown winter yields:
water breaks torrent under
a shower in the morning,
fungal spores sponged to swift wash
their need’s unknown form

sharp clean; the first breath
spoondrift in a bowl of steel
shadows, and ice cold
mirrored through windows,
panes rimed white. Deep as a lake
this last moment calms,

slips into the whirl
mourning: the soft moon;
the cocoon of sleep;
the pure thought of womb-warm spreads
torn open. Windborne
crystal flits as the first star

particles flow in thick waves,
coalesce in the cold, warm
a skeleton world;
frame January's first sun,
thin and weak, latent
with the power of ages.





2nd Draft
Gentle as nascent
snow, blown winter yields:
water breaks torrent under
a shower in the morning,
fungal spores sponged to swift wash
their need’s unknown form

sharp clean; the first breath
spoondrift in a bowl of steel
shadows, and ice cold
mirrored through windows,
panes rimed white. Deep as a lake
this last moment calms,

slips into the whirl
mourning: the soft moon;
the cocoon of sleep;
the pure thought of womb-warm spreads
torn open. Windborne
crystal flits as the first star

particles flow in thick waves,
coalesce in the cold, warm
a skeleton world;
frame Januaries' first sun,
thin and weak, latent
with the power of ages.






1st Draft

Gentle as nascent
Snow, blown winter yields:
Water breaks torrent under
A shower in the morning,
Fungal spores sponged to swift wash
Their need’s unknown form

Sharp clean; the first breath
Spoondrift in a bowl of steel
Shadows, and ice cold
Mirrored through windows,
Panes rimed white. Deep as a lake
This last moment calms,

Slips into the whirl
Mourning: the soft moon;
The cocoon of sleep;
The pure thought of womb-warm spreads
Torn open. Windborne
Crystal flits as the first star

Particles flow in thick waves,
Coalesce in the cold, warm
A skeleton world;
Frame Januaries' first sun,
Thin and weak, latent
With the power of ages.

[Ros]

Hi gpierre, admittedly it's been a veerrry long day, but I'm having trouble parsing this. Do you have a great liking for capitals at the beginning of each line? it's more common nowadays to not have them, and I am finding it's making this harder to read. Having the whole poem in two sentences - am I reading that right? You're not assuming a sentence end at the end of stanzas? I think if you're going for complicated sentences, you need to really check your punc. carefully - eg.

Fungal spores sponged to swift wash
Their need’s unknown form

Sharp clean

should the apostrophe be there? either way I'm having trouble getting the meaning from this phrase.

and here

Frame Januaries' first sun,

many Januaries?

I think you have some good stuff going here, and I'm a great fan of the ; but this is a bit beyond me!

[gpierre]

I like capitals at the start of new lines, I like to make lines that make sense to me with and without run-on if that makes sense. No sentence end at the end of stanzas either on this one: I tend to write in a shower of paper and then try to put some order to it. January's or Januaries' are both equally correct as far as I can tell (I did Google it!) I'll take a vote if that's ok?

Fungal spores are us, as a race. Needs are dreams but more than dreams; that moment in the morning where your stomach jumps and a dream flashes through your mind so fast you can't quite catch it but you get a feeling of what it was about, good or bad; Fungal spores are also part of the contrived metaphor. The 'need' (singular) belongs to the fungal spores (not needs belonging to a fungal spore or spores) please can someone help me on this, Lynne Truss has been my only tutor in the ways of grammar thus far.

Some words are used as nouns/adjectives to give a duality of meaning, maybe my head' s to far up my arse, I don't know.

I left school 16 years ago at 15 (for left read was asked to leave) and bummed around until I was 18 taking drugs etc. etc. I tried writing some Poetry around this time (14-18 years old), although due to my lack of a classical education I had read very little apart from Maya Angelou and Roger McGough: it was all rubbish (my stuff!).

Unfortunately I lacked a guiding hand so I gave up. I then joined the Army at 19 and served for nearly 8 years during which time study of poetry/Poetry? wasn't particularly high on the agenda. I'm also rather prone to interest hopping and also being exceptionally self-absorbed; as I am being now; as I was in the poem. Anyyywayyy... The point of it all is I know how to read it in my head but, yes, I struggle to punctuate it correctly as maybe this post has demonstrated?

I don't want to give up on this again as my interests tend to change direction as quickly as the vectors of flies signing their signatures in the evening dust. See, in my head, I'm sure there should be an apostrophe in that last sentence but I ain't sure where: if at all.

All help greatly received, ramble over.

G

[Helen Bywater]

Hi G,

It's late and I haven't got time to comment on this properly now. I've read it a couple of times and it's interesting, but I want to read it again and think about it some more.

This is just to say that I'm also sure it should be January's, unless you're talking about more than one January. The month is never spelt Januarie, and even if it were the apostrophe never goes after the s with a singular, unless it's a noun that ends in s. For Januaries' to be correct, the month would have to be called Januaries. If you are talking about more than one January you might be able to justify Januaries', but I've never seen it done - it looks odd.

As for "Their need’s unknown form" I agree with you. The unknown form belongs to the need, so you're right to put an apostrophe there.


Helen

[gpierre]

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/january

http://mw1.meriam-webster.com/dictionary/januaries

Sadly enough, as I said, I Googled it!

Also, Jauary isn't just a month: again in with the duality.

Although now on reflection, that word again, maybe it should be January's to convey said duality?

I shall dig further.

G

[Helen Bywater]

So you mean it as a plural? Then it would be Januaries' - but not January's. If Januarys can also be a plural, and that's how you mean it, it would be Januarys'. Either way, you've said "Januaries' sun" - can several Januaries have one sun? It looks wrong to me.

Or if you wanted it to be the Middle English spelling of January mentioned in your references, and singular, it would be Januarie's.

[gpierre]

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

It looks wrong to me too Helen but I'm trying to pull the two-faced bugger in to the mix as well. I also thought I'd look daft if I put 'January's' and 'need's' in the same poem and was wrong on both counts so I hedged my bets! As I said Lynne Truss has been my guide on punctuation due to my lack of any attempt whatsoever to learn anything whilst at school. I've also been reading a lot of Dylan Thomas lately and trying to get my head round his sometimes-confusing syntax takes me hours: though enjoyable ones. If anyone can recommend some good contemporary/modern poetry I would be thrilled, I know not where to start.

Thank you both - Helen/Ros - for your very constructive comments; thank you for not laughing me out of the experienced forum, I feel reborn and slightly more comfortable. I have posted a couple of poems in the beginner forum which are along the same theme, I don't know whether you have read them or not: not sure if they provide any more insight?

Now I'm confused?!!!? I'll confess my weedometer has packed up and my PC is allowing me to post way-past my sobriety limit.

I shall sleep on it.

Thanks again,

G

[ray miller]

"fungal spores sponged to swift wash their need's unknown form sharp clean" - by the time I've decoded all that the summer will be over!I can appreciate some of the language here - Gentle as nascent snow - warm a skeleton world - but the whole just leaves me rather, er, cold actually.

[sandpiper]

A very nicely done nature poem. For me, this poem ended with

thin and weak

the following

power of ages

just seemed contrived and unnecessary. I think
it's just very obscure for the rest of the beauty of this detail.