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squeaky - all messages by user

9/7/2011 5:46:31 PM
Here's my first posting: all comments are welcome	Pom-pom man Glimpses I caught between the swishing traffic on that sidewalk in cold rain and colder wind and a cast-off Cleveland Browns windbreaker: a man tottering a mime of an off-center grandfather clock, and, oh yes, in a dirty orange unrav'ling woolen cap with flopping pom-pom. Then he caught himself, a sudden vision in that plate glass, and froze as one struck, arms spread, splayed fingers for balance, gaping at himself and his wobbling pom-pom. And I too caught him, uncanny in the black glass beyond a CLOSED sign, among the white tablecloths. And then, my god, he started to dance. Well... Okay, more of a gaucherie than dancing. Shuffling, spread-legged tottering (he'd a clubfoot, I noticed) interspersed (and this is the point) with little leaps; but now without progressing as before (if progress is the right word for going nowhere) along the wet sidewalk. Minutes — or was it seconds? — he gaped and leapt and danced while busy folk eddied round him. Then a rain-beaded bus of limp-faced, stippled tourists stopped right there, and I lost him, the pom-pom man, who danced among the tables of the Café Boulevard. Well, it was for him, you see, a vision (for me a far feebler thing, a philosophy) grand as Milton, Dante, St. John the Divine, oh, even St. Simeon in the Temple. The ecstasy of an achieved leap ignores how high you rise (pace Nijinsky, Nureyev, Barishnykov). It's how low you started.
9/8/2011 12:21:03 PM
A piece of work for you to advise me on!	This is just to second Keith Baker's remarks, especially his objection to double-spacing (is it a trendy fad? I hope not). Typographical tricks always disappoint when they add little or nothing to the poem, and they usually add nothing. And the same goes for emotional tricks. Unless we know something about "This girl" it's hard to feel sorry for her. She's an extended cliche, like a poster-child for a fund-raiser. Maybe it would help to use more punctuation than those leaky-faucet commas; some thought might emerge if you had actual sentences, so we could tell (for example) what "everyone but me" means, at the end. That everyone but you can see the girl? that she lies to everyone but you? or what? (BTW, I'll be adding another poem in a few minutes, then you can have a crack at me.)
9/8/2011 12:23:45 PM
"America Heard..." Comments welcome.	America Heard Walt Whitman Singing America heard you singing, Walt, And stopped to listen. That's our fault. Now our "poets" ever since Have written stuff that makes one wince. They say you've been our nation's bard; We should have been more on our guard. Now our narcissistic screeds Blight the land like noxious weeds. Self-absorption is the tool That makes a poet a goddam fool. You should be made to pay a fee For setting such a poor e.g.. Poetry should reach our minds But your stuff's just a rant in lines. You've dragged us back. We have no hope Of catching up with Donne or Pope. As for your democratic bearing, I didn't see you greatly caring When your Captain's lust to ravage Gave the world collateral damage. Even fig leaves teach us something. But leaves of grass cover nothing. I wish you were at least a clown, So we could laugh you out of town.
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