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Poem Title	Poet Name	Critique Given by Mark Andrew Hislop	Critique Date
KaKaKachina	James C. Horak	JCH What have we here? A plea to be remembered? A hope? A talisman against the eternity of the void? A prayer for a "yes" to the question, "Have I, in the Great Scheme of Things, basically been a good boy?" Not as if I don't empathise... ... after all, who really knows what their life is really worth? I know I don't. MAH	2006-06-17 00:02:12
Longings	marilyn terwilleger	Mazza For a set of random thoughts, it's quite coherent and complete. We all know this state of longings that "rhapsodies ... do not satisfy," the unreachable heart of our "un-rest". I like this very much. For a poem about restlessness, it has poise, and it evokes a sense of recollectedness which is not unlike peace... ...provided, of course, one can "rest" in one's "restlessness," which I think you have achieved here. Of course the achievement is provisional: "...long gleams of sun MAY/bring quietude..." And the provisional/conditional nature of the discovery is entirely in keeping with the theme. Nice one Mazza. Best always, M. PS. The only thing I don't like is the "Just some random thoughts". If that's so important a point to make, I reckon you'd do better to work the idea into the poem ... as if it's not embedded there already!! xx	2006-05-15 16:38:47
In Another's Obsession	James C. Horak	JCH Early teens, eh? You did get away to an early start, didn't you? While the velvet-turned-to-thoughts-of-tapioca is not the sole preserve of the first encounter, it does work with the not uncommon after-thought of "Gee ... what was all that about?" And the almost obligatory "I love you" that must be worn on the sleeve, emblematic of "I did not abuse your trust." One suspects though that it is the narrator's trust that had been abused. The scene is familar, so too the denouement. The night has ended, but what it contained leaves the disquieting question as to whether one will survive it or not: the emotional aftershocks reverberate. To make sense of the obsession being "another's", I find myself having to impute "loose morals" to the partner, especially since "Her easiness seemed slightly forced." It's not her first time, apparently. The parallel of the "relationships", such as it is, with the engine/clutch that whines and engages by submission is intriguing. The "mechanics" of love: The grinding. The whining. The clumsiness. The doubt... But above all, the doubt. MAH	2006-03-02 04:54:30
Snip, Snip	James C. Horak	JCH Impossible for this lame brain not to read this in the wretchifying light of the forum. Take it as given that I take it as given. I have read this correctly, and you know you can take my word for it. Damn it, I know you've got a heart. I've never doubted it. Hard for anyone to be as passionate as you are without one. MAH	2006-02-27 09:22:46
Searching	Thomas H. Smihula	Thomas I hope I don't sound like I'm being a pain in the ass again ... but I think you've done it again here. Adding "This is truth..." to me robs you of a very powerful ending in "Behind reminiscences,/the misplaced, the nightmares", a far more compelling image/thought on which to end. This a poem of questions. I think it is fair to say that the poem is not arrogating to itself the ability to answer those questions, but lets them hang there for us. The "truth" is not made more true by being labelled "truth", even if that is just the truth of the questions. Leaving "the misplaced, the nightmares" as the final thought, you leave the questions hanging far more effectively. Their "truth" is thus more apparent. Mark	2006-02-24 11:54:56
Traded Visions	James C. Horak	JCH This is so "realistic" throughout, and your notes seem to emphasise the "reality" of the encounter you're depicting. But the combination of the two, the message that "this is real" so (to me) emphatically stated makes me think (inveterate reader of auguries that I am): "Bloody JCH, he's throwing me a red herring, here. What does he really mean?" If this is one to be taken purely at face value, then it feels to me as if it is lacking something. If it is a pointer to something else, then I'm at a loss as to what it might be. As a, if you'll pardon the expression, "concatenation" of impressions, it did not lead to me to what I notice in your notes as really what the point of the poem is, should be or could be: "The hand that placed them together was inspired." That, to me, is the true subject of the poem which has not made it into the poem itself. What was the mysterious hand, guided by what mysterious force, that juxtaposed these two images? I think you have a world to explore in that idea, and that you have ... how shall I say? ... stopped drafting too early in the process to notice where this poem's "meat" really is. I say again, it's "The hand that placed them together was inspired." Years in advertising taught me that in writing a print ad, one often find the best headline has somehow become buried in the body copy ... but only diligent pursuit of the ad's core would reveal this to the inner eye. Your notes, here, read to me like "body copy" ... and it has a gift for you ... a gift from you to yourself that you have, I submit, overlooked. I'd love to see this one redrafted, with that "hand"-thought being brought to centre stage. MAH	2006-02-24 11:48:58
Strapped	Thomas H. Smihula	Thomas Overall, I like this. One thing that occurred to me to suggest, however, is that the placement of the single word "Love..." at the end somehow takes away from the power the rest of the poem is generating. What I mean is that whether love is the yardarm or what binds you to it, I think the imagery would be made much more effective if somehow the linkage was (by implication or direct linkage) made more explicit earlier on. The reason I say that is that there is a wistful or perhaps melancholy tone to "bound me/to this yardarm" that gives the poem its true poignance, but which what appears to me as the overstatement "Love..." diminshes. Almost as if you could give more weight to the "love" not drawing such attention to it at the end. Almost as if love draws it power by not being named. Just an idea. Mark	2006-02-24 11:34:51
Sir Richard Burton	James C. Horak	JCH I watched Burton in "Cleopatra" for the first time last night. Marathon 4-hour thing, and Burton really only figures in the second half. I'd seen him in other things, but years ago. As Antony ... very impressive. Naturally, having read this poem a few times before watching "Cleopatra", the poem was in the background as I watched. How he despaired when he thought he was being left by the woman he loved, yet how he gave his all for something more valuable to him than territory and loot. And the poem? Once again you present something that one cannot "acquiesce" in easily. But it has that draw-card feel to it which keeps me coming back. The "message" part, the being made aware by practitioners of art how much we have to learn, feels true. The Arthur Miller reference rocks the boat a little, though obviously deliberately, except for what I gather is the idea that despite the pin-up he dug, he still dug it to find something essential about the human condition, so it wasn't a complete loss. Perhaps the contrast of Miller is there to underline that very point. Overall, the feeling this leaves me with is "tristesse" for the qualities we often don't recognise in the moment we first encounter them, but only later, after they have passed. Better than not at all, eh? MAH	2006-02-15 05:10:06
Winter Drought	Mell W. Morris	Mell The rain, it's life giving quality (as an image of something else, rain is called to precipitate a different kind of life, one not yet known) is evoked here in several ways. The rhythms of the lines of the poem sometimes race along, sometimes pause, almost like rain that starts to fall in big drops, changes it mind for a few moments, and only then decides whether to let itself go or not. Global warming ... my mouth is dry. The body is a globe as much as the earth, fever is a drought. Sensory suspension is almost an incantatory trance. What gods leave us 'begging' for rain? Inscrutable ones. Let it fall. Lovely. Mark.	2006-02-06 14:37:51
Parallel Lives	Kenneth R. Patton	Ken Is this a real cat or does the cat stand in for someone you know? My brain seems permanently set to "over interpret". A cat with low self-esteem? Well not. One of my friends has their dog on prozac ... I wish I was joking. At least the cat got better. Therapist was probably himself, instead of trying to put all the conflicting signals from all his buddy-cats together, shake it up, and come up with an answer. Heeding his own counsel. Takes a strong cat to do that. Mark	2006-02-06 14:25:04
Darning	Dellena Rovito	Dellena I remember you. You do things with chocolate ... chocolate fixes you, you fix the world. Dellena's Circle of Life. Nice to see something from you. Your imagery here is clean and unfussy. Wouldn't be complete without a nod to the Great Darner. Which completes the philosophy of valuing what one has, to tend it and mend it, instead of throwing it all away. I enjoyed this. Regards, Mark.	2006-02-06 14:17:36
The Fan Tail, The Dog Watch, and Bliss	James C. Horak	JCH Funny, I was going to say what a "realistic" quality it had to it, when I read the bottom note. Makes sense. I just enjoyed this. Don't ask me why. That's just how it is. MAH	2006-02-06 14:00:53
Open Up	Thomas H. Smihula	Thomas This is a passionate plea for more life, for a life lived more fully. And it always seems so close, just beyond the door. This is neat and tidy. As good as this is, I think the last one of yours I critiqued had a bit more unity to it. But then again, what sometimes feels here as a little choppy might just be your exuberance in the pursuit of life. Regards Mark.	2006-02-06 13:47:42
The Nobility of Cats	Kenneth R. Patton	Ken 'Magnificence of cats': Have you read Chirstopher Smart's poem about his cat, Jeffrey? I think you'd like it. Too many barking dogs around, these days. Cats are good for the soul. As was this. Mark	2006-02-04 14:52:26
Godliness	Gerard Andrew Geiger	Gerard I have a friend whose iddea is that the universe itself, particulary the human part of it, is in the process of realising God, by becoming more and more conscious, and that God is "created", if you like, when tat process reaches its peak. And this poem seems to me to bring a very similar idea to life, very effectively. Mark	2006-02-04 14:45:14
Rain	Thomas H. Smihula	Thomas Visually here you carry the image of rain ... perhaps even a waterfall ... very effectively. The thoughts of cleansing are mirrored in the visual too, as it is "clean" to look at. Only nit is punctuation: you have "its'", which does not need the apostrophe. Other than that, a lovely read. Mark	2006-02-04 14:40:52
Courting Maureen	Sean Donaghy	Sean Lovely, easy style here. I hope Maureen got the message. I hope you got Maureen. Mark	2006-02-04 14:36:21
A Vanishing at the Shore	Thomas Edward Wright	TEW Knotty waves render footprints of the Great Haiku. covering the day. MAH	2006-02-03 01:57:09
Which World Is Yours	Medard Louis Lefevre Jr.	Medard Eloquent social commentary, depicting the frustration many people come to in trying to understand it all, the world and their place in it, and the relevance of faith, chequered though its path may be. Regards Mark	2006-02-03 01:53:39
Song of the Undescribed	Regis L Chapman	Reeg I do like it. And it reads like a chant, a meditation. I would have given my eye teeth, once upon a time, to do what you're doing. I spent some time in a Buddhist temple, and loved it, the focus, and the striving. You're doing a great thing. Thanks for the read. Mark	2006-02-02 15:43:27
Rhyme	Paul von Kempf, JR.	Paul It's not often rhyme is used these days without putting people to sleep. This is neat. Mind you, I'm not sure what's harder to write: good free verse or good rhyme. I keep having an each-way bet. Mark	2006-02-02 15:38:49
a rant	charles r pitts	Charles, it has potential, though it is a little too lengthy it still makes for a great read. Have you thought of cutting it down into different aspects of work? It would be good that way too. It does read more like a journal in form and it certainly holds this readers attention perhaps even wanting more. Thank you for sharing this with us, I look forward tomore of your work on the link. Regards, Mark.	2006-02-02 15:05:54
The Early Hours	Brandon Gene Petit	Brandon I have to say thank you for persevering with me. It might be easy to think that I'm just hypercritical, when I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that you want what I want: poems that will be read while we're pushing up daisies. I do like your imagery here. You have a deft touch, and are always lyrical. Here especially. Regards, Mark.	2006-02-02 14:57:37
substratus	Regis L Chapman	Reeg Nice to see you back. Lovely flowing piece. Good luck at the ashram Mark	2006-02-02 14:43:27
The Quest	Thomas H. Smihula	Thomas I have come back to this so many times since you posted it. Perhaps that should be taken as a sign of its pulling power. While this is entirely about the kind of woozy leglessness that some encounters can make one feel, it is this very quality that, to me, weakens the poem itself, which I would guess is not what you would want. No, you would want this poem to conquer as its occasion for coming into being conquered you. And that's exactly the right aim. I know I am a bit painful, but bear with me. Personally, though I've dabbled myself, I'm not a fan of the physical change from just plain old fashioned left-justifying the text, UNLESS it has a clear relation to content, UNLESS is it enhancing or creating a effect. Here, it does neither, so I'd drop it. I guess the images and your treatment of them are what lets this down for me. "The native american smile" and "her soul" "her domain" are really not developed to any degree, to the point where one can see why they are chosen. In other words, there is nothing specific to them that occasions the swooning. I think there should be, because then I might see it too and join in with your intoxication. In all, it seems too personal and interior to you to allow other readers to really grasp the full impact of what you want to convey. Regards, Mark	2006-01-30 07:12:28
A Tattered Poem (Somewhat more than usual)	James C. Horak	JCH One whiz around the google world persuades me that Henry Troper was a myopic idiot. But maybe there is another Henry Troper who deserves not my wrath. You have, as usual, allusions aplenty. But if I had to guess at what it all is getting at, it would be that Stone Henge (and whatever it also stands for here) was not built by collecting rabbits' feet or other superstitious rites, but by sheer work coupled with deliberate foresight, the kind of hard fact that will always chagrin the lazy-making believers in magic bullets. Again (why you never listen to me I'll never know!) there's a distracting deviation into didacticism, or what comes very close to it, in "something opening minds,/Opening them wide, perilously wide?" Sure, effective interlinking of open/wide, but it seems to push the point too hard. But then, there is a sense of fit to the conversatoinal tone that carries the whole poem. There is a good collection of images here. But in sum, what you need here is more tightness. On the one hand, it hangs together. But on the other, it doesn't, in the end, gel to a oneness. For me, that is. Woe betide those who forget the subjective. MAH	2006-01-30 07:01:10
Allure	James C. Horak	JCH Now this, as if liking meant anything more than liking, I like. It is in a poem like this that what appears to me to be your fine touch with metre is apparent. This is essentially two quatrains of tetrameter, with the variations being in S1L1 (pentameter, but one can sort-of scud over '-voked' and get tetrameter) and S1L4 (dimeter, which can be read as tetrameter but with something of a wrench). But what does that say? Nothing. But it simply acknowledges the pulse and flow of a fine poem. While 'obstrused' is something of a neologism, if it can be thought of as a hybdrid of "abstruse' and 'obscure' it is not only an emblem of how much trouble one can go to to hide something, but by calling attention to itself is calls attention to the line and the stanza: what is being hidden, by what smoke? It's not impossible to imagine the Muse with a Gauloise angling down from her mouth with an "Oh, really" look on her face: She is Not Fooled. Oh, I could go on, I suppose. And I will. Winsome ways may not be innocent, and the winsome ways of this poem are not, either. They are, however, waiting cock-headedly for the same moment of self-recognition to occur in the reprobates to whom they speak. MAH	2006-01-25 11:32:31
I Know You	James C. Horak	JCH I now fear what I stick my nose into. It could be someone's arsehole. This, thankfully, is a poem. So I feel comparatively safe. Remember that I am thinking out loud, here. Ok, so why might MAH like this better? Is it a structural thing, or a matter of diction, or the sense of a feather swept across a sphincter? No, I think it is a sense of familiarity with journey, ambition and, yes, courage. 'Stalk' in one of its more pejorative Australian usages is 'an erect penis'. One does indeed require courage to go 'stalking' in public. But hey, that's manhood for you. MAH	2006-01-25 11:00:37
Upon Assemblage of Facts and Its Only Slight ....	James C. Horak	JCH It has taken me two weeks to venture this close to this poem. I've been watching it out of the corner of my eye, stalking it. It's time now to come out of the shadows. While this exemplifies your usual depth and range of thought, it is undermined by its very purpose: it is didactic; it is too didactic. It has more the tone of imposition than invitation not only in its (in this context) almost too-erudite word choice but in its terse lecture-hall metre. A good example is "Denying how edified our senses make consciousness." This sentence fragment is a leap and a bound away from the thought that precedes it, and while "edified" conjures up the spirituality that is the birth-right of the human, the delivery is perilously close to the almost "scientific" assemblage of facts that the poem sets out to repudiate as possible of equation with knowledge. And then, "Religions making/Every effort to make us ashamed to know fullness of pleasure while creating/Psychic monstrosities whose pleasures hence become murder" is just plain laboured. And again, if I am not myself straying into the overly didactic, "Nothing can bring about the instance of Knowing like the touch of poetry./Reaffirming wonders: dew upon flowers, darting black eyes of Castilian/Beauty, the sometimes sweetness of a beloved's pout, a child's/Bursting exuberance to a pile of gifts beneath a tottering cedar" with its apparently random selection of "wonders" reads more like advertising copy than it does an image that has really grasped you. I need to make it clear that I have no argument with the thoughts, but only with their delivery. The high point for me--"those whose wishes of what/We might be, are not satisfied by what we are"--is a solitary peak. While there is here a distinctly JCH tone of voice and point of view, it is lacking the grace and poise of a poem like "Trapping down," which has become for me something of a yardstick for what your poems are capable of achieving. MAH	2006-01-23 00:22:29
Soon, a Year	Thomas Edward Wright	TEW Funny world, the poetic one. After discovering that I was the sole dissenting voice respoding to "A Woman Combing", I come to this and I see a work far superior to "Combing". There is far more life and beauty here than in the other. This is a function of the more effortless, less laboured imagery, and the thread of narrative that runs unbroken through the poem's length. Likewise the vision is simultaneously more expansive and more accessible than the other. There is a deeper and more profound beauty and meaning in "it's not a year, or a day, or a minute -/it's [a] walk to the top of the hill/and from there the sunset seems/more than life should offer,/more than death could take away" here than in the entirety of "Combing." Likewise, "how great - how little - difference/a dozen moons make; or should./how we measure that difference/seems a mystical math, or myth" is so thought-provoking, so arousing of the reader's own interiority, that Wallace should have been invoked here rather than elsewhere. I can see the chest of this stanza rising and falling as it lives and breathes: "the grandkids huddle around the fire,shifting beneath her wide arms/that seem to shudder above us." The whole strength here lies in the immediacy of language, the lived experience it conveys. Sorry if you're getting tired of my comparing this to "Combing", but here it seems as if you have physically inhabited the images, and thus they inhabit you and this poem, whereas in "Combing" they are intellectualised to a stultifying degree. Dunno why, but I get the feeling this poem will end up a "sleeper" this month. Which would be a shame, because I think it's the pick of your offerings for January. MAH	2006-01-22 23:10:25
A Woman Combing	Thomas Edward Wright	TEW I notice you posted this on Critical Poet. Couldn't bring myself to critique d'Casco there without feeling like I was being unfaithful to TEW here. Think of it as my lame and probably too-late-in-the-day attempt to keep you here. And not there. So, here goes. It seems obvious that this is a very personal poem. Rather than the dedication, it is the "one Downs' girl" that makes this evident for me, and almost makes me want to pull my punches. Please forgive me if I don't. In general, this is hampered by a combination of things. This stanza is a good example of what I mean: Alabaster fish test the net’s strength. A nail parts a wave from its sea. The hiss of hair and the sea waves. Piously she pulls in the catch. It's as if it is a painting, a mosaic constructed by numbers, where the cut off point between shades is too evident. I'm not sure that there is evidence from within the Down world of perception that their experience of the world is so fractured. All the lines of this stanza, and the bulk of the lines of the poem, are end-stopped: rather than convey a world of brief impressions and short attentions spans, which might be useful and potentially illustrative of a world seen through Down syndrome eyes if restricted to one or two stanzas, they seem overused throughout, and it makes for a jerky read. The other part of the combination is imagery. So much of it is, taken by itself, strong and clear, but the images seem too often to stand for their own sake rather than being integral, or integrated, into the poem as a "whole image". For instance, "Alabaster fish test the net’s strength./A nail parts a wave from its sea./The hiss of hair and the sea waves./Piously she pulls in the catch." Apart from the sudden, jarring move to a watery setting, an image like "alabaster fish," while strong in its own right, seems not to carry the poem forward. In a similar vein, the juxtaposition of "And the soft song of the comb;/The wind through the rushes" depends on the reader to resort to parallelism to complete the simile. This is not necessarily in itself a poor device, but it does seem somehow lacking in freshness. Or something like "As ruddered sun melts" ... sun melting is a tactile and immediately accessible image, but trying to discern how it could be ruddered is an excercise in futility, unless (as one has no option but to do it one is to make sense of it) one says "riiiight, sustaining the nautical theme" ... but which still leaves one with nothing the internal eye can see. Overall, the interpolation of the aquatic/nautical imagery seems incongruous. So too does the final stanza's "One Downs' girl in mahogany curls/Sits upon her mother's laughing knee." The poem does not convey any sense of a laughing mother until this point. Rather, the mother's wistful melancholy is the underlying sentiment. If the Down's girl were laughing, that would seem an a more feasible contrast: for the mother to have any laughing bits just doesn't fit. I know we're all learners here, but if I apply the Wallace Stevens test of whether this poem has my internal audience listening and hearing exactly what the poem wants to convey, this does not pass. But it is clearly brimful of the potential to. MAH	2006-01-22 22:32:40
dirty christian	Medard Louis Lefevre Jr.	Dear Medard It's hard to take this poem on the "face value" you offer, that it is a poem to yourself. That said, the privacy of the self-directed monologue is its strength. You could just as well be mumbling under your breath about a "dirty christian" you chanced an encounter with, or expounding your faith from a pulpit. It's a private statement that could easily be read as "He's talking about Me!" by any "casual" reader. This is because you mean every word so much. That's one side of it. The other side of it is the fire-and-brimstone. In response to reading "a dirty christian can never be with Him", sinners like myself run for the cover of Mark 2:16-17 "And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." I'm not sure Jesus would want to be equated with a fallen angel, any more than those who do not repent can be equated with those slated for forgiveness. Back to my main thought, which is that the self-dircted nature of the piece is its strength. This allows you to write with a very irregular metre without the poem being weakened: it is the raw force of conviction that lends the poem all its weight. If it has a weakness I want to note (possibly only on a personal level), it is your fire-and-brimstone ending, which lacks the hope which is the heart of the Christian message. But then, so does pretty much the whole of the "ending" of the New Testament, Revelations. Best wishes, Mark.	2006-01-19 07:04:16
The New Year of New Meanings	James C. Horak	JCH What a relief to find something from you here. It's like being given a free pass to an oxygen bar. I've been getting all frisky and au fait with metre lately, more than ever before. The immediate result is an appreciation of the fine adherence to and variation of metre you employ here, all of which is clearly too 'regular' to be accidental. My favourite (your best?) lines, for their metrical structure, are the first and the last (the last by a smidgeon) ... phyrric-trochee-trochee-trochee-trochee-spondee (correct me if I'm wrong) ... metre is very subtle both here as it is throughout and is a credit to you. The only apparent defect that grabs my attention is "tender box" ... I imagine you mean "tinder box". There is an interesting image also in the first line of there being something parched which is also bathed, but I am giving the image a kind of oxymoronic benefit of the doubt. Overall, though (as if this has any relevance) I find myself thinking "Yeah, I'm with you" in terms of the message. In sum, it's a display of fine touch and elegance. Now for fuck's sake, stay around. MAH	2006-01-03 07:18:33
Ingredients	Thomas H. Smihula	Thomas To get the anal part of my nature out of the way, three things. First, the use of an unusual font for the title adds nothing for this reader: it is decorative only, and needlessly so, and I would recommend staying with the same font as you use for your poem's body. Second, the lack of punctuation is an irritant, and "line breaks" do not only fail to add punctuation where it is absent, but militate against enjambment where it my be being attempted: for example, what is the meaning of "delicate hardly touched / The table made of teak / The doorway with a creak / One"? This, without punctuation, would normally read as one enjambed sentence, but if it is enjambed it is, in practice here, incomprehensible without punctuation. One might eschew "regular" punctuation for stylistic reasons, but there must still be a readily graspable sense: poor punctuation is no help to a poet's cause. Third, spelling. Yes, I can read a misspelt word and know what you meant ("afffection" or "essense") but unless the misspelling has a clear purpose, one must always assume that it will weaken a poem. Overall, "Ingredients", to this reader, does not offer any idea as to why the selected ingredients here should be considered "ingredients for love". They may be ingredients for romance ("A flicker of a candle"), but even then they are watered down ("A pitcher's porcelain handle") by non-sequiturs. I think there is more work to be done with this idea to bring it to the height that you intend for it. The "parallel" constructions you employ, e.g. "the soul ... the heart ... the soul ... the heart" and "the body ... the mind ... the body ... the mind" present a potentially beautifully arranged dialogue, yet no dialogue is actually forthcoming. The conception of love in its "grand" form is here being rendered by midgets ("so delicate" ... "a solid form" ... "helps us with wisdom") and hence thoroughly undermined. One suspects you know more of love than you are letting on, that you know more of love than your words show. I'd try this one again. Mark.	2005-12-15 07:40:08
October Blues	stephen g skipper	Dear Stephen As a regular shrink-goer myself, I tried to feel my way into this on that basis. The closest I got was "familiar blanket/of dark depression". "Hesitant child-like steps." That's exactly how I've experienced my "progress". I wish you luck. Damn it, I wish ME luck!! Mark	2005-12-04 11:58:27
Repose	Medard Louis Lefevre Jr.	Dear Medard This is a subtly dark piece. "The leaves turn beautiful/Before their death/So I wish it was with me". There is here a sense of "giving up the ghost" while the speaker sounds very much alive, a kind of death-wish. "But time sometimes stops/For us left behind" ... hard to know whether this is a hopeful eye towards a redemptive future, or an acknowlegdement that "tomorrow we die". It's very gentle and reflective. Mark.	2005-12-04 11:47:35
Flawed Essence	Kenneth R. Patton	Dear Kenneth While I gather from your note that this piece refers to a real person, there is something about it that is almost an anthropomorhic depiction of a "nature" spirit. Almost (though the general preference is to speak of a "mother" earth, or female earth deity) as if some character of nature is depicted here as male. Which would, of course, be unusual. And thus all the more striking. This seems to show someone/something less at their "best" than at the peak of their powers. Nicely done. Mark.	2005-12-01 11:56:29
Replenished	Dellena Rovito	Dear Dellena "I tasted the rain today" This is striking and clean from start to finish. "I had become me again." Nothing fancy, nothing overstated. Just clean, pure, unadorned "feel". Lovely. Mark.	2005-11-29 10:56:38
Shadow Beyond Solitude	marilyn terwilleger	Yo Mazza "Recently I posted a sonnet that died an un-timely death! I hid it and using the same theme wrote this poem. I'm not certain that my muse is alive and well in this offering either!" Funny you should say that. From the first stanza it struck me: "'Ello, 'ello, 'ello ... someone's recast their sonnet in a different structure." For me, this works much more betterer. Perhaps it says something about theme and form, that not all themes are suited to the sonnet form. Well, it's not just the theme, is it? It's the way one tries to deliver the theme. Again, repeating myself I know, I think this structure is a far better fit that the original. And because this form is not as "demanding" as 14 lines of iambic hectablahblah, the "freedom" seems to have encouraged images from you that did not exist in the original sonnet, e.g. "Now wind blows in the ode of night" ... "the ode of night" ... nice. And where the lack of strict rhythm in a sonnet is a flaw, here it is an asset, because it enables you to go with your own flow more naturally. But then (here I go again: pick, pick, pick, pick, pick) "Now wind blows in the ode of night/And haunted dreams begin to fade" is a pair of images that to me don't "flow" together ... they are almost contradictory. The wind blowing in the ode seems to set up a deep moment that "fading dreams" seems to sweep away before it even gets properly started. But overall, this is much better. And where the sonnet was a straight-out lament, this is the expression of a not-entirely hopeless melancholy. The end note is decidedly upbeat: "I’ll wait until the seas be-calm/Then cast my shadow beyond solitude." Cool, baby. Mark.	2005-11-29 10:40:49
At The 318 Where	Thomas Edward Wright	TEW What? You'd lick the ashtrays clean for her? This has feel. Meal. But it leaves me feeling too hungry. Bummer. MAH	2005-11-25 05:53:48
The Origin of Specious	Thomas Edward Wright	TEW Always fancied myself as a monk. Clearly not for the moonshine. And fondling the confessional apples just makes me think of Newton. Ah, if only Victoria knew how disreputable HE was.... what a different world... bras that wouldn't defy gravity. MAH	2005-11-24 11:00:20
The Child	Medard Louis Lefevre Jr.	Dear Medard Unfortunately all my energy is being frittered away on other things. But what remains was struck by this tender elegy. I will assume that you are a father, and I will assume that is the father in me that hears your voice. "The magnificent creation/Of life will impose/Itself in our hearts". That is surely what we are here to bear witness to, as you have, and to partake of it. As you have. Regards, Mark.	2005-11-21 22:31:50
Thirty Days Has September	Mell W. Morris	Hi Mell An object lesson for women ... as if they needed another ... of how much of the world awaits them when they become disentangled (by "accident" or by design) from the puerile man upon whom they have wasted so much of their love and their life. A man who, into the bargain, is intimidated by his partner's qualities, her gusto for reaching out to and embracing life. Need more be said? I think not. Men are the big losers, in life as well as here. Pity the man so entrenched within himself as to overlook her, hail to the woman who finds herself to be complete unto herself. And kudos to the author. Warmly, Mark.	2005-11-19 05:53:13
Smoke Dancers	Terrye Godown	Terrye While I smoke, I hate those smoking rooms. Strange, I prefer to smoke in the open air. Go figure. I think your images are clear and accurate: "trapped" "captive" "consumed" "addicted". "Auras round the weak" ... yes, it is a weakness. I actually gave up for 10 years, started again with a vengeance 2 years ago, almost trying to catch up for lost time. Only to find I have to fight my way out of the smoking room all over again. Mark.	2005-11-18 00:23:13
West of the Sun	Thomas Edward Wright	TEW I can't believe I was so ignorant an SOB as to overlook this when originally posted. I must have been too busy swimming up for some spawning myself. This deserved better. Maybe you should post it again this month. While the Titans are in town. MAH	2005-11-17 03:58:22
The Vision Vanessa	Sean Donaghy	Well well, Mr Donaghy, (May I call you Mr Donaghy, since we've not been introduced?) You simply turn up here unannounced and wave Vanessa in my face as if she might mean something to me personally... don't laugh, I used to be exactly that vain. But I guess that's how one achieves universality. I'll consider Vanessa to be conducting a tidy tutorial. Now Vanessa walks in as only those with loudly painted faces in a nunnery can: extracting everyone's attention almost against their will. And all those pious souls flip to their nearest-fitting bibilical representation and assume she's up to no good. I almost want to rescue her, but she'd probably end up having to rescue me. Mr Donaghy, you know all too well what you've written here and I'll neither demean Vanessa nor risk further revealing my ignorance by saying anything more about it. But this Vanessa ... man. What a woman. I'd like to see more of her. And I'd like to see more of her. MAH.	2005-11-17 03:17:23
And So It Went	Dellena Rovito	Dear Dellena, I apologise for my inability to read this poem except through the prism of the recent heated forum exchanges. Which perhaps means that while the light that comes through to me is perhpas bluer than you intend, it's source is still the light you have put on offer. I thought I'd quote a bit of Blake here, before I do my own bit of waffling: "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom; The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction; One law for the lion and ox is oppression" [Of this] Blake explains that, "Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy." Now the problem for us ordinary mortals is one of self-definition: do we consider ourselves the horse or the tiger? Never mind that, how do others see us? You say "Too many times I've been forced to be still." It's also possible that sometimes you have chosen to be still, because there may be little point in rocking a dangerously loaded boat. There are two debilitating chips we can have on our shoulder: "I'm not good enough" and "I'm beyond reproach"... another "horse and tiger" argument. But you've made it clear that finding a self-respecting middle ground has been your aim, a ground where you are clear about who is responsible for what. So this poem is a solid statement of this creed. As evidenced by those of us amongst the big-mouths on the forum, doubtless myself among them, it's a goal we could all do well to aim more diligently for. Warm regards as always Mark.	2005-11-14 05:30:12
As I Grow Old	marilyn terwilleger	Mazza If you're not going to grow old your own way, i.e. in style, then why bother? May as well cash in your chips now. My wife is 10 years older than me. Two children in her late 30s were, shall we say, not without effect upon her physique... ...it added more for me to love. I'm like you, I want to be dancing around the room on my walker when I'm 80... ...and the children are, hopefully, old enough no longer to be embarrassed but encouraged. Thank you for reminding me of the goal. Mark.	2005-11-13 11:39:06
Remembrance Day	arvin r. reder	Dear Arvin, One word in your first stanza caught my attention, and subsequently gave me a key for reading the entire poem. The word: "mime". At first pass, it read as an inappropriate rhyme, something stuffed in there to rhyme with "time". But then I considered that, as a fully intentional choice, it gave a particular flavour to the entire poem. The tears are "standing quiet in mime". But a mime is an action, not as impassive as it seems. So what exactly are the tears miming? A tear cannot put on face paint, or make shapes in the air that indicate an invisible box: they can only appear, stop momentarily, or descend a face: i.e. their scope for physical action is severely limited. Given that restriction, I took it that the tears can only be (if they are "miming") and hence are miming themselves: that is, they are faux tears trying to pass themselves off as real, and hence emblematic of the unreality of the mourning associated both with death in conflict, and with continuing to send soldiers to early graves in the face of what one might have learnt from mourning the earlier deaths. More clues. "The fangs of memory/gnash a moment in time": with memory characterised as bestial, it seems to strengthen what "mime" had already suggested. Beasts eat in response to the immediate urgings of hunger, and we have no reason to suspect that after eating they wander off and meditate on the inner life of their hunger. They just go to sleep, in response to another immediate urge. Beasts have no memory, in our sense, but they have instinct, a cellular-level memory. So as the tears here are faux tears, the fangs' memory is faux memory: savaging the next victim is not informed by the savaging of any previus victim. Or to use a recent parallel, savaging Iraq appears not to be informed by the previous savaging of Vietnam. So, "wars brood/as freedoms pass away", presumably at the instigation of "the cage man" who "gave clearance". There only only things we put into cages: 1) dangerous animals 2) safe animals to whom we have become the dangerous animal in the act of putting them into a cage and curtailing their freedom. This "cage man" is clearly from the former category. And yet, he runs the show. Sad comment on the dynamics of society: it has all the morality of asking Hannibal Lector to direct regime change in the Sudan. So overall, in the genre of commentary on the futility of war, this piece pointed, for me, at a special and not generally recognised kind of futility: a futility that not only fails to recognise itself as futile (and therefore does not change what is clearly a wrong course), but doubles the insult by miming the faux memory of recognition of futility. In other words, we are trapped in an unrecognised contradiction. We all stand around the graves of our soldiers, pretending to cry real tears for those who fall in the service of inscrutable objectives, while continuing to send more youths to their death. And that's it, isn't it? Remorse over a past crime is no remorse if the crime continues to be committed. That's a very long way of saying I liked what you have achieved here, Arvin. Quite an uncommon depth. Regards Mark.	2005-11-11 00:44:00
Bang Today	Dellena Rovito	Dellena Now I remember you: I think our quarks were standing together in the same pavilion at the Primordial Singularity's "coming out" bash. Yours were the ones with all the questions. Feels like yesterday ... Well, apparently we're still hurtling through time and space. Hang on, we ARE time and space ... now I know how we got separated ... you were the one with all the questions, yes, I remember, and I was the one telling the Singularity "Buddy, you have NO idea how long it's gonna take to sort yourself out once you explode, and if you did you would definitely think twice about it." "Next thing ... Poooof!! Mee-sa here!" I think the Singularity thought we'd appreciate the humour. Mark.	2005-11-10 02:58:25
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