experiment?

[Chilimuffin]

hmm... it's always something to hop on a new board after reading it for a month just to see what it's like. is that spying? anyhow... I like a good critic, so citicize away . oh... a point, like most poetry, in my rather uneducated opinion, I think this is better read aloud. I like rhythmic oddities.

You Remember Me (4-25-00)

You remember me in streets, broken
windows, aimless bottles waiting
in the welfare line.
Those hazy sprints to catch
the last train home, sputtering
triumphant mania, the edge
to my eyes, feverishly grasping
the corners of the night, hiding
from the dawn and the down,
buttoned compliance, the set
of rules that walked me through
concrete hallways, fluorescent
mornings and afternoons of armpits
stained, ankles itching, hands
fondling car keys, the only way
away. You remember me
wrapped in trembling diner coffee,
sugar melting its acridity, clock
marking bruises on my arms, chills
and chicken skin, waiting out
the need, living between the here
and now, my focus a tunnel; I
only saw one china white light. You
remember me, on nights I ran; pictures
you've never seen.

[dwim]

Welcome!
All poems are better read aloud. That what it's meant for or otherwise there wouldn't be spoken word CDs. The words need to roll off the tongue. Anyway...

Your poem does sound great. I like the way your line break off to form a rythm. Of course, now I don't know what I'm talking about. Serious critics later, my head too tired, long day today. Be back later.

You might want to look for poetry by Willie Perdomo. Almost the same style and you can find him in two books that I know of, Listen Up! and United States of Poetry. Go check him out.

------------------
There's loneliness in the radios...

[Chilimuffin]

thanks dwim , I will check him out. I've been on a Yeats and Auden kick for the past couple of months, so maybe it's time to move back to the "post-post-moderns" (who use less metaphor, and more harshness) as the crazy pseudo-intellectuals I know would call it (blah).

------------------
"carpe jugulum" - terry pratchett

"but truth is just like time, it catches up and it just keeps going."
-dar williams

"I will always be me; I will always be new."
-delmore schwartz

[erisesoteric]

Heyla... you weren't spying, you were lurking. And for a poem like that, we'll happily forgive you.

The grittiness of the imagery in it is SO well balanced by the even flow of the lines... profound and concrete... excellent...

Please, more.

And more than happy to make your aquaintance.

[Branflakes]

Hey, great poem, Chili. I like it a lot.

And, yes, official word is lurking. We all did that to some extent before posting.

------------------
Branflakes, the ninja lesbian milk getter.
The one called "brain".
Should today be more like tomorrow?
Where is my strength, compared to yours?
"See that star...the one shining brighter than all the others? I know the girl who hung it there."

[Chilimuffin]

I'm so used to role-players that these boards are oddly refreshing in their honesty, or at least the lack of fourteen year olds wanting to be gods. heh. these two are questionable, as I think they need some workshopping and would welcome suggestions as to changes in language and form.... (as if I were a serious poet or something! teehee). but my last finals ever are done now, so I'd like to try and work on improving my writing before I reach the "real adult world" - I worry about the distance that might bring between myself and the mystery inherent in all things. or is that silly?

Ebbed Light (for L.) 4-11-00

You're gone again
with the Christmas lights still hanging
in my room, one burst
illuminating the chipping paint on my slanted wall,
just enough to see
then nothing, but plastic and wire
in the blankness I forget to dust.
For one week, a week
of coffeeshop cityscapes, you
were a tablelamp of welcome, inviting
change to be comfortable in you.
Now you're hidden in a nyquil lighthouse, screaming
warning silently to me of your rocks,
your fear in razorblade granite, the wrecks
of warm lightbulbs scattered, like so many
pieces of your laughter
across the foam crusted strand.

-------------------------------
::twiddling thumbs nervously:: okay, this one's a form one, which, of course, doesn't work here (hence the odd punctuations, please ignore them )... but yeah... I'm not good at this style, so those of you who deal in it, please advise.

Progeny 5-22-00

I am not
a poet, shifting

_________endless words like embryos, groaning
_________the birth pangs of my visions
_________pushing out to life, each line

breaking

in contraction, adjectival Lamaze

out

now in, in
________in, a long steady stream

and ouuuut,
________three short breaths

rhythmic, panting, sweating through
my sheets in strain and frustrated wonder.

I am not
a mother, raising

_________suckled children like verses, hoping
_________their futures in laurels and careers
_________giving back my expectations,

tenfold

in style, nourished in concern

here

now run, run
_________run, as if there were anywhere

but here,
____here, the length of home,

springing from my heart in poems, snapping
my affections in cruel and gentle distance.


------------------
"carpe jugulum" - terry pratchett

"but truth is just like time, it catches up and it just keeps going."
-dar williams

"I will always be me; I will always be new."
-delmore schwartz

[This message has been edited by Chilimuffin (edited May 24, 2000).]

[Branflakes]

These are good, Chili! I like Ebbed Light a LOT. The form was a little hard for me to follow, hard to feel the flow. But, that might just be because of how it's posted.

------------------
Branflakes, the ninja lesbian milk getter.
The one called "brain".
Crazy A says I'm the Butch.
Where is my strength, compared to yours?
"See that star...the one shining brighter than all the others? I know the girl who hung it there."

[JaceSan]

I liked the Ebbed Light poem also.

[AsIs]

Hey Chili, thanks for sharing, way cool

------------------
- "How do you know the chosen ones? No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his friend. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame... for one person. In the dark. Where no one will ever know or see." - Sebastion, Babylon 5
- INDECISION is the key to FLEXIBILITY.