please review/comment

[sgt.null]

If you are the infant
piece, then she should
mark Lalieu as fallen...

You are Parfait, vous
are immeasurable...
Venir mort or no such
tabulated fatal. they
hide behind, are a
Monument of your own.
We sell souls, we sell souls.

the young man, that
Retrecit retour in the
unconnected fear of the
world, a home sacrifice.
the same, somehow
strange young children.

From the long barrows
of the pyramids from
stone circles, obelisks
will mark this place...
People I see that
with that added
advantage of spoken
words we are getting
on fine. and so far...

Neat lyrics chalking
our go-round on this
iceberg. Utterly unknown
here in the States.

it seems. lunatics
and fire pistols? you
may prefer vinyl but
with all this moving.

my big fear, is to dig
it at last and have it
taken away. did i learn
to breathe or to be
killed like this? one
great line after another!

well, it is a bit of a slow
starter actually so you
can see why it may not
grabbed you on first
listen, but i feel it carries
on and develops as a
suicide, my favourite
interpreter also is great.

a few glitches in the middle.

[sgt.null]

does anyone have any comment? even to say you hate it?

bueller, bueller, bueller...

[aliantha]

Honestly? I need context. I can't comment intelligently if I can't tell what you're talking about.

It looks like phrases strung together from music reviews, maybe? Dunno. That's all I got. Sorry.

(This is luci's cue to come in here and tell us why it's brilliant. )

[Worm of Despite]

It's a bit too abstract for me as well, but--

The world would be awful boring without people doing challenging things on the frontiers of art. So well done Sarge.

[sgt.null]

If you are the infant
piece, then she should
mark Lalieu as fallen...

Lalieu is a corruption of the French name Lalieux. my family name on my French side is Desheneaux, though parts of the family drop the X for whatever reason.

You are Parfait, vous
are immeasurable...
Venir mort or no such
tabulated fatal. they
hide behind, are a
Monument of your own.
We sell souls, we sell souls.

"You are perfect, you
are immeasurable."
this is a French mother talking to her son at the begining of his life...
Come death or no such...
what the child tells his mother at the end of her life

the young man, that
Retrecit retour in the
unconnected fear of the
world, a home sacrifice.
the same, somehow
strange young children.

the young man that
shrinks back

From the long barrows
of the pyramids from
stone circles, obelisks
will mark this place...
People I see that
with that added
advantage of spoken
words we are getting
on fine. and so far...

my childhood hopes of being an archeologist.

Neat lyrics chalking
our go-round on this
iceberg. Utterly unknown
here in the States.

it seems. lunatics
and fire pistols? you
may prefer vinyl but
with all this moving.

my big fear, is to dig
it at last and have it
taken away. did i learn
to breathe or to be
killed like this? one
great line after another!

well, it is a bit of a slow
starter actually so you
can see why it may not
grabbed you on first
listen, but i feel it carries
on and develops as a
suicide, my favourite
interpreter also is great.

a few glitches in the middle.

death, the poem is about death...

[Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm]

The sense in this: Sarge shows he has Sgt. Kafka as one of his names for a reason, and proves worthy of that name)) I particularly like the phrasing in "Venir mort or no such tabulated fatal"

"From the long barrows
of the pyramids from
stone circles, obelisks
will mark this place... " - are you sure there shouldn't be a comma before the second "from"?

Sorry for being slow to respond, often takes time with the Hall, feels not right to just to reply with anything without looking into what is written and thinking on that.

Edit: was also slow typing this - about death, yes, for certain, the "Venir mort or no such tabulated fatal" I quoted earlier - but I meant in the review, if it counts as such, mostly the impression that was achieved. The topic is death, the feeling is Kafka - perhaps together this can be summed as the feeling of the absurdness of death.

[sgt.null]

i was thinking more Eliot than Kafka.

and now it seems that i have two different poems here,

If you are the infant
piece, then she should
mark Lalieu as fallen...

You are Parfait, vous
are immeasurable...
Venir mort or no such
tabulated fatal. they
hide behind, are a
Monument of your own.
We sell souls, we sell souls.

the young man, that
Retrecit retour in the
unconnected fear of the
world, a home sacrifice.
the same, somehow
strange young children.

From the long barrows
of the pyramids from
stone circles, obelisks
will mark this place...
People I see that
with that added
advantage of spoken
words we are getting
on fine. and so far...

that needs to be one piece.

see your responses and my explanations have revealed that to me. thank you!

[Vraith]

EDITED TO ADD: CRAP YOU WENT AND CHANGED THINGS WHILE I WAS TYPING THIS>>>you can read it anyway, I guess, FWIW

General notes:
Honestly, on a tangent, I'm afraid to post on creative/artistic endeavors cuz I made a mistake on the watch and a lot of pain resulted...not only in one direction.
Honestly, on a related thing with you on clarity that came up once before between us: you are demanding a lot from your readers in this...you often do...but for the sake of clarity, that is NOT necessarily a bad thing as long as you are aware of it, and it is on purpose, and it has a purpose.
Overall, an interesting piece.
More specific:
I think I've said elsewhere you have a talent for the sudden 'that was fucking cool' phrase/moment. ["we sell souls, we sell souls" and "the same somehow strange young children" to name 2 in this one].
Also, and I don't know if it's intentional or intuitive but you do it often, the "jump connections" [the stuff about pyramids/barrows...then later "dig it" section].
Even MORE specific:
Death...sure...that's the subject.
Theme...what does it say ABOUT death? I didn't see the "death is absurd" thing Eff did, I saw death does mean something, even if not to the dead but to the living...or actually more like the dead thrusting for meaning after, the living grasping for meaning from before.
In either case, I think the confusion/weakness [if it is in the poem, and not my brain] is in P.O.V...bridging/delineating them...especially considering the ending...by which I mean "may not....suicide" is sweeeet and paradoxical...how can one re-listen to a suicide? among other things...so, whether death is not permanent, or death is absurd, or means different things from different views, or you die once, then get to see all the story before and watch what happens after from a higher place, this particular piece might by better served by either strong and obvious distinctions between speakers/view changes OR a strong/obvious narrative/p.o.v voice in transitions, or threading through it all, tying it together.
[[relating all that back to the "general"...as someone, probably Lucimay, has included here or writer's circle or somewhere...and I'm pretty sure you were involved in it...sometimes you have to, as part of the work, teach the readers how to read you. One of the two things I suggest would probably work for this one without fundamental alterations...there are others, too, of course...you could use quotes, and translate the french as you go [in literal or metaphorical or colloquial ways] or whatever.
Hell, I'm blathering...and need I say, IMHO for all that, and it's good as it stands?

[aliantha]

Seriously, you guys got death out of it? I am so hopelessly lost when it comes to poetry....

This here stanza, for instance:

"it seems." -- *What* seems? It seems *what*? Maybe this refers back to the previous stanza?

"lunatics
and fire pistols?" -- What's a fire pistol? The sentence doesn't say "Lunatics fire pistols" -- there's an "and" in there. So "fire" can't be the verb. And "and" ought not to conjoin disparate halves of a sentence -- the phrase on one side of the "and" ought to equate to the phrase on the other side. Sarge has bolded it and put it in a pretty color, so clearly it's significant to him and to the poem -- but I need an explanation, or a key, or a scorecard, or something.

"you
may prefer vinyl but
with all this moving." -- Another sentence that doesn't scan for me. "You may prefer vinyl," okay, with the references farther down to lyrics ("so you can see why it may not <have> grabbed you on first listen"), this may refer to a recording -- you may prefer vinyl to a CD. Even the "but" is fine -- but I expect "but" to introduce a phrase that's in some kind of opposition to the first part of the sentence, and "with all this moving" doesn't seem to me to relate in any way, let alone in opposition to "you may prefer vinyl."

Sarge, you know I love you, but I just don't get this. I see words that have to do with death, sure, but I see almost as many that deal with recorded music, kind of. Plus, I don't speak French. So I'm totally at sea here. Sorry.

[Vraith]

heh...I'm gonna go out on a limb and comment twice on this in quick succession...
Ali...what I read in the "lunatics and fire pistols?" is a comment/question on the preceding "unknown in the states"...kind of Custer facing indians...kind of..."Lunatics! [custer shouted about the charging indians] "Fire Pistols!" [he ordered in a panic or maybe rage]. but the "speaker" is looking at that and wondering/questioning. Not literally that, to be clear, but the mood of it.
And "you...but...moving"...
"you may prefer vinyl, but with all this moving around and relocations/dislocations, it might get damaged/destroyed." in most literal way, is what I thought...metaphorize/connect it as you will, but I'd connect it with the whole "storyline" being saved/preserved in relation to ending.

[aliantha]

Bloody hell. Poetry is too much work. I'm going back to prose.

[Worm of Despite]

Poetry is easy, just requires a slightly different head-space than prose. When I write poetry I am usually in a much more meditative state than say a short story.

The words are going toward one emotional point, and has less wiggle room than something that has paragraphs, multiple lines of dialogue, characters and sub-plots.

As far as "getting" poetry: Sometimes there is a message, though it is most often abstract and, again, emotional: at the very least I hope the reader feels some kind of transcendence or at least feels they're in a linguistic hot tub.

Basically to write in any format well you require only emotional intuition and honing its ability to get closer to whatever moves you the most: much like becoming a golf pro by hitting a thousand balls a day every day.

Just keep doing it and you'll have a good form... After a few years.




My words are changing
Be not afraid

The sea is vast

So is your heart.

II.

Shrunken pearls
Of myself

Waves; on
And
On

III.

Where am I
What place
Years from now
Centuries

Sunlight drapes

I cannot tell you
What I am feeling
It is beyond all

IV.

Waves
Years;
By

And
By

V.

Endless

End

[sgt.null]

vraith - i think part of it is that death is circular. mother to child, child to mother.

there is also a theme of absence when it comes to the parental...

i was disappointed that no one seems to have translated the french. but i really think thta part is incumbent on the reader, non?

i will try to fit the parts i took out back into the whole, as i agree with the suicide part needing to be in the context...

so thank you.


ali - it seems is the point of that line, forced persepctive.

lunatics and fire pistols... fire is the verb. i learned French before English. though i no longer speak French i still dream in that language.

i will attempt to unclutter the poem.

but the vinyl refers to a distance where the mother is only heard on recording. prefering vinyl is the warmth of the medium. the hiss, pops and crackles that differ from the sterile new tech.


worm - i concur. my poetry is better than it was. i have had to burn through many pages to get to this. and i will burn through many more before i am happy. i like some of my stuff, i like some less. some i can feel. but i've yet to write anything on the level of Wallace Steven's Emperor of Ice Cream.

though i have written stuff that approaches...

Lennon/Marx
Marx/Lenin...
good dog.

being one my best.

[Frostheart Grueburn]

Well, you got a lot of feedback, and had to re-request it only once, not around 20 times.

I'm afraid it's overly abstract also for my grammar-obsessed literal mind, and possibly encompasses culturally unknown concepts. I can only say that my mind may create multilingual sentences of the abovementioned ilk in a state of tiredness or in dreams. Was the idea to create a dreamlike feeling (of death) with them perhaps?

[sgt.null]

Well, you got a lot of feedback, and had to re-request it only once, not around 20 times.

I'm afraid it's overly abstract also for my grammar-obsessed literal mind, and possibly encompasses culturally unknown concepts. I can only say that my mind may create multilingual sentences of the abovementioned ilk in a state of tiredness or in dreams. Was the idea to create a dreamlike feeling (of death) with them perhaps?

no.