.

[Arcadian]

...

[kozmikdave]

Gidday

I've been there too often in the past.

I liked this a lot but have a few questions.

Is your reference to amother (another?) overdue university assignment someone else in the house or is it you? This wasn't clear and there is a distinct change in the second stanza. (Another typo in L3.) I'm not sure that the first verse is needed at all.

Reference to toothpicks in S3 paint a charicature for me as it was always a non-serious term in our household. I can't believe anybody would actually use toothpicks for staying awake.

I really enjoyed the following

by placing detonators
in the smooth flow of sentences
under loosley soldered words,
seeking to find
in the motes of dust
a flicker of true meaning.

although I would be more comfortable with much more dust than motes.

The Toothpick snapped
and for all I know
my pocket watch like Dali's
melted flat as a pancake.

IMO you could have described this better. Flat as a pancake is pretty cliche. In The Persistence of Memory, Dali has his clocks melting and draped over branches and table edges. And the toothpicks image work well here as in Dali's Dream.

I liked the last verse very much also. I'm interpreting weeds as entrepreneurs.

Sleep: -
in my dreams
the wonder herb growing
remotely, robust, resilient
in wind, rain, storms and sun,
well away it seems from
the parasitic succulent weeds.

All-in-all a good read.

Cheers
Dave

[Arcadian]

Thanks Kosmik,

Yep, need to wear my glasses ..a few typos and no it is not me (lol) ... someone else in the family who has a habit of submitting late assignments !

You are spot on though with the caricature of tooth picks - an oblique reference to Dali's melting clocks as mentioned in your comments later -

my idea was modern quackery in its smoothness of articulation ... parallels surrealism - well I say the parallel anyway... much to the annoyance of my some of new-age writer friends...haha

I agree flat as a pancake is cliche


cheers Cobber - good feedback

Senor arco

[Jester]

Arco

Not a lot of picking left after Koz's feast, but I thought there were one or two too many definite articles in -

"Beside the bedlamp
the pool of light
beams down on the gloss
of the crumpled brochure."

I don't know enough about English to say exactly what I mean here, but the "growing" seemed strange to read in -

"in my dreams
the wonder herb growing
remotely, robust, resilient
in wind, rain, storms and sun,
well away it seems from
the parasitic succulent weeds." - "is growing", "grows"?

I liked -

"sleep's sweet gravity" and enjoyed the poem as a whole.

Nice one

Mick

[camus]

Toothpick? Long eyed protagonist! Surely matchstick?

That aside some fine turns of phrase:

"which promised a panacea
to all ills,"

"What am I to make of this
Herbal Quackery ? " - made me laugh, wasn't sure it was meant too?

Eyes go in and out of focus, - a bit awkward?

Good subject, I often find your poetry to be prose cut up in way that makes it poetry, as opposed to prose cut up to make it prose that looks like poetry. Which is a good thing I think.

cheers
Kris

[Arcadian]

thank you folks,

I elucidated and tightened up a few troublesome spots in the text

cheers
Arco

[kozmikdave]

Gidday

That reads better.

Only one more gripe:

What am I to make of this:
Herbal Quackery I have read ?

should it be:

What am I to make of this
herbal quackery I have read ?

What am I to make of this?
Herbal Quackery? (or similar)

It doesn't read right at the moment.

But I do like this piece.

Cheers
Dave

[twoleftfeet]

Arco,
I have to wax lyrical over this bit, which sums up what brochures are all about IMHO.

"a pool of light
pours over gloss crevices "

- Nice word play here -
(pours/pores), equating vision with critical judgement.
also gloss (waxy /superficial) and crevices (folds in the paper/
holes in the argument)

Nice one
Geoff
btw I agree with Kozmik about the "Herbal Quackery" line

[Jester]

Mmmm, like the revised version - great. I especially enjoyed the -

"Bedlamp aglow,
a pool of light
pours over gloss crevices
in the crumpled brochure." - superb.

Mick

[Arcadian]

right again KOZ,

made the change to the first item you mentioned


cheers
Arco

[riverwriter]

After a half-dozen visits to this piece, I am still puzzled by a great deal; for example, in just the first stanza, the definite article in the first line, besides ceating an allusion to "midnight at the oasis", gives undue prominence to the second line, particularly "with", which seems to take on a vaguely answered significance — and why the generalism "household"? What gives with the hyphen instead of the em dash? and is the (incorrectly constructed) ellipsis at the end of the stanza a particularly useful transition into the next?

Maybe my problems stem from a generational divide: I read a poem with a microscope, looking for relevance in every microdot, because for me that is the point of reading/writing poetry; that is the way poetry works. (I suppose I should 'fess up and say I read anything by anyone else whose work I deem worth the effort that way, because I am usually damn cavalier about details in much of my own — do as I say, not as I do.)

I hate to stop here, because I give the impression I am trashing this piece, which has much to recommend it, as has already been explored above; yet, I wonder about such things as the matchsticks/toothpicks debate, as I would have said toothpicks, hands down. Am I missing some allusion? Why the cap on "Matchsticks" once, but not both times? The comma after "tick"? What is the point of the reporter? Is there some scandal with a private context here? What is the function of the " : - " combination? — and the double period at the end of the piece: is that an incomplete ellipsis?

In short, reading this piece, I am caught between the beauty and indeed, poetry, of certain passages and the impenetrable codification of others.

[Arcadian]

yes

[riverwriter]

Arco, I'm going to be pedantic as hell here; the following stems from my encounters with several profs and later work in typesetting:

I do mean hyphen. I was fairly certain that you meant to use a dash, but a dash is an em, which looks like this: " — " not a hyphen, which looks like this: " - " there are two ways to make a dash in a forum such as this: one is to use two hyphens " -- "; the other is to use the escape code for em, which is & #151; [I had to space the ampersand so that it would not translate into an em; obviously, you would type the character set without the space to produce the em.] Ellipsis is properly spaced, as either " . . . " or " . . . . " — the latter at the end of a sentence, the former to indicate an ellipsis in mid-sentence.

I thank you for your explanations of your intentions with "household", "Matchsticks/matchsticks" et al: but you should realize that it is more relevant that I did not get the point than that you knew what you wanted to express. What you do with that information is up to you.

This is fun. I am sure we will meet again. Cheers.

[Arcadian]

your welcome river writer,

maybe you need to ask the question:

why would my protagonist read some literature on herbal quackery in the first place ? -- is he suffering from some ailment ? that motivated his reading ?

you have noticed the comma after tick

tick, tocks relentlessly
perhaps we have a clue about his condition ( heart ? - arrythmia perhaps ? irregular heart beat ; sudden skipping or missing a beat ? )

be well
arco

PS how about more pics of laurence river, say, through the seasons ? - I want to see the hues of light reflected at different times

[Arcadian]

I have edited and revised again

and decided to submit 3 recent posts to a local poetry competiton

Arco

[riverwriter]

Much clearer. Even I get it (I think). Is that good?

[Arcadian]

why thank you riverwriter

ha!

I have read your work on your blog

now don't be too humble --

you write well and knowledge/understanding "of the human condition" oozes in your strophes.

arco

[riverwriter]

Hmm. The ultimate threat: "We know where you write." Anyway, well done. I'm glad you are sending it off; it deserves a rounder audience.