Poetry Forum

Lines part and join in beating brevity:
now harnessed as bare-backed oxen

pound packed sludge, now hurried
as wool-wrapped farmers till their fields.

Tillers in tandem, sift tracks from clods
trod on, free in stride, prints aside,

grinding into stripes that curl chaotically
as a leaf’s veined palm, or twisted
branched treble clefts, gnarl knuckles.

Crescendo clouds clap mighty knotted hands,
spilling their cups of rain that bend, suspend

across dry landscapes, tipping bushels of
green night sky, and black buckets

to fill mossy lakes of oil, and displace cracks
of worn soil, in all the crevices of earth.

These are what drown all the wretched
designs in the paint, recover the sky;
drool new ditches.

These are plowed plaid, wet with grey rain,
cover grimed ground, puddle pulled tight
through the white, with the sun
stained in coffee,
scattered accidents,
splattered
on leaves of dust,
and grass of rust,
stacked on cliff’s crust.

These are paradiddles in a crafted canvas
drum: resounding random rolling rubble.

These are steel hills, mosaic piled stone,
matchsticks and cigarettes, shattered bone.

http://www.msjc.edu/art/djohnson/images ... rhythm.jpg

Hi Caleb

Enjoyed this, especially the lines:

'These are steel hills, mosaic piled stone,
matchsticks and cigarettes, shattered bone'

There's a lot going in in this poem including rhyme, internal rhyme, alliteration, assonance etc

Obviously with Pollock the imagination can run wild, however I did feel that the poem lacked a central theme (perhaps this is just me being anal and wanting to create order out of abstraction). Wasn't keen on the paradiddle stanza.

Cheers
Cam

ps liked your idea about adding links to the poems.
pps as I already have a full set of bookmarks I'm not really including myself in this competition. Although Camus's Bagpus one did sound rather appealing.
ppps looking forward to yours TG. especially since it was your question that provided the catalyst for this escapade.
ppps thanks for 'ekphrasis' Arco, will add it to the glossary.

Wow.

I have to say this is the best I have ever seen from you pseud.

I love the end; showing how all abstract anything will eventually fall into pattern. I felt like I was being bombarded with autumn images...while still describing the painting litteraly. The allusions to farmers plowing their plaid ground and the descriptions of the earth roll off the tongue. Great job.

Sorry to disappoint you all by not entering…
.tg.

Pseud,

I applaud your imagination.

I said to Keith, when discussing which works we may write about, I'd like to attempt a Pollock "It would be a challenge"

You certainly rose to that challenge, although I do think you wandered off a little too far sometimes,

"Yet careful crafted
flam-tap snare drums,
prove images failed,
with random rounds,
but rolling rock:" HUH?

but hey I suppose that was the point.

Fine attempt.

"rolling rock" seems hard to grasp, especially in the context. Has been edited accordingly, hopefully bettered. Thanks for the input.

The metaphor of the drum stays however...

bump for competition

Another bump, to another era in the forum.

Yes I have sunk to a newer low. Seeing as I can't come up with a single fresh thing to write about...in the mean time, granted, you're not seeing the original... wonder what new people think of this?

- Caleb

Hi Caleb,

I enjoyed this. It's excellent. Got an education from it too as I didnt know about Pollock and had to look him up then re-read the poem lol.

Love your use of alliteration and imagery. What is a paradiddle?

Rach

This is so rich I had to read it in two sittings. There's so much going on that the poem's in danger of collapsing a bit, but I don't think that's what happens. The penultimate stanza is definitely overcooked, though - I don't think quadruple alliteration can ever be taken seriously and "paradiddle" is just a ridiculous word. But apart from that this is a sumptuous piece, every bit as absorbing, to me, as its subject.

I wonder how I hadn't commented on it the first time. I think at that point you irritated me more often than impressing me (nearly every new person does, take no offense), so I may not have read it with an open mind. Or it could have been I was impressed and frustrated at not being able to write a single cogent stanza for this competition. Dunno.

Anyway, I liked it over all. Somethings to change: farmers furrow their fields, instead of till, since you use it a few lines down. And a niggle, unless my musicology is off, they are treble clefs, not clefts.

Really liked the comparisons between music and farming. Well done, and worthy of a guilt free bump.

Cheers,

Keith

Please don't change cleft to clef. Yes in music it is a treble clef, but I assumed it was a very clever play on words after the "leaf’s veined palm" line:

cleft: Having indentations that extend about halfway to the center, as in certain leaves.
also
cleft: A crack, crevice, or split.
(definitions from anwsers.com)

I'm sure that's what you meant anyway and it wasn't a typo.
This was a great poem.

F8

These are steel hills, mosaic piled stone,
matchsticks and cigarettes, shattered bone.

The words are allowed to breathe, nicely paced. Not to keen on the alliteration used in the poem, too heavy handed.

mac

Yes, F8, exactly, thanks for reading and kind words.

Mac- I agree; the alliteration was to be musical, but it might not hurt to back off a bit. That whole "less is more" thing.

i know I'm late but just read this and it struck me more than most do. dunno if it was just the rolling alliteration or just that lush imagery you've managed to produce. Although I dont get why you used that word 'paradiddles.' Its just jarring me everytime I go over it, doesn't go with the haggard images you evoke. I know this aint new advice but it is new praise, so i guess that ain't a bad thing.
Pollock is cool but in terms of art give De Kooning or Rothko a shot, that would be real interesting.