Edmund and Luka's Poetry Request Corner

[woops]

have done for 4 years , see photo in 1st post

 

[woops]

belinda

diva of the decade
but which songs did she sing
she stands her hair
in ringlets new wave no longer
all ballad
her power
is palpable it rings
in every sung syllable

craner. he has
a battalion of these beauties but one
stands supreme, she is under
an impression of alone & only
we are here to help her
as we listen lovingly to
belinda

 

[catalog]

your aisles are empty of the usual, your
tills ring hollow, your associated
dairies are running dry, this capital
of culture is at low ebb this evening
and you hum to the sound of my headphones, here
distancing itself is distant, the shelves
speak of panic and paranoia, the security
seems twice as tight, the milk
comes curdled into cheese already, there is
no announcement to come to the checkout,
trolleys sit silent in the street like cars
unstarted for weeks, where is the spirit
of consumption in this cathedral

nice one woops, thank you. 'distancing itself is distant' is a good one. just been (i made the request from inside the temple) and the queue was right to the end of the car park. i noticed that in week 1, the mark on the ground for two metres apart was made from brown plastic masking tape and it was crosses. In week 2, it was white gaffer type tape and it was in strips. today in week 3, it was stripes of yellow paint.

might do the headphones next week - thanks for that tip!

they had everything on my list except for polenta, artichoke hearts and tahini.

 

[woops]

nice one woops, thank you. 'distancing itself is distant' is a good one. just been (i made the request from inside the temple) and the queue was right to the end of the car park. i noticed that in week 1, the mark on the ground for two metres apart was made from brown plastic masking tape and it was crosses. In week 2, it was white gaffer type tape and it was in strips. today in week 3, it was stripes of yellow paint.

might do the headphones next week - thanks for that tip!

they had everything on my list except for polenta, artichoke hearts and tahini.

you're welcome. nothing like the stuff you list can surprise me any more, least of all the artichoke hearts, try the off licence for tahini

 

[craner]

diva of the decade
but which songs did she sing
she stands her hair
in ringlets new wave no longer
all ballad
her power
is palpable it rings
in every sung syllable

craner. he has
a battalion of these beauties but one
stands supreme, she is under
an impression of alone & only
we are here to help her
as we listen lovingly to
belinda

Brilliant! Thank you. Even better than Frank O Hara on Lady Day.

 

[woops]

high praise indeed.

 

[Woebot]

a poem about my grey cat freya. here is a picture of her.

 

[Woebot]

fat and fluffy

 

[Woebot]

please

 

[Woebot]

i know these boys take the most mundane of requests

 

[yyaldrin]

your aisles are empty of the usual, your
tills ring hollow, your associated
dairies are running dry, this capital
of culture is at low ebb this evening
and you hum to the sound of my headphones, here
distancing itself is distant, the shelves
speak of panic and paranoia, the security
seems twice as tight, the milk
comes curdled into cheese already, there is
no announcement to come to the checkout,
trolleys sit silent in the street like cars
unstarted for weeks, where is the spirit
of consumption in this cathedral

i have a "questions you are dying to ask but are too scared to b/c of poetry nerd cred?" and i have been meaning to ask it for a longer time. i'm just taking your poem here as an example. now, how do you determine where you break your sentence? or why? for example, why do you put "your" at the end of the first second and not at the beginning of the second sentence? is that just an aesthetic choice? so that you don't have two sentences starting with the same word? or are you supposed to take a pause when reading it?

 

[woops]

i have a "questions you are dying to ask but are too scared to b/c of poetry nerd cred?" and i have been meaning to ask it for a longer time. i'm just taking your poem here as an example. now, how do you determine where you break your sentence? or why? for example, why do you put "your" at the end of the first second and not at the beginning of the second sentence? is that just an aesthetic choice? so that you don't have two sentences starting with the same word? or are you supposed to take a pause when reading it?

excellent and difficult question. i'm not sure there is a real answer, but here are some possible answers.

1. personal taste or eccentricity

2. read too much JH Prynne

3. I feel that to break the lines like this

your aisles are empty of the usual,
your tills ring hollow,
your associated dairies
are running dry,

might be more (rhythmically) standard but also a bit more boring. but i feel i should be able to write like that too. it's part of the set of techniques you should have.

where's luke when you need him?

 

[woops]

there's also just a general idea of the sense of flow, that the line ending "your" leads you smoothly into the next line

 

[yyaldrin]

good points. plus i think it also makes it look better in an abstract way. a block of words and letters of the same length instead of short and long lines following each other up. i just wanted to ask it because it's so common and i never really knew why and how that started.

 

[woops]

when i write on the typewriter i

often am all over the page​

like this but it's​

a fiddle on the computer​

 

[catalog]

i thought maybe it was so that's a sort of circular thing going on, with 'your' starting and ending the line.

when you are doing these on road, do you bang em out fairly quick?

 

[woops]

i thought maybe it was so that's a sort of circular thing going on, with 'your' starting and ending the line.

when you are doing these on road, do you bang em out fairly quick?

yeah it's an approach to structuring, basically.

we take about 2-3 minutes per poem

 

[luka]

Can somebody write a poem about Belinda Carlisle for me, please.

Heaven is a place on earth.

It wasn't music, not at this late stage,
and it wasn't for the young. No
lightning in a bottle, no wild,
ecstatic instant, utterly
without emotion.

Hairspray and blue denim. Hardnosed
and professional. The working American,
a veteran of the business, unsentimental
and under no illusions.

A job is a job.

Under the studio lights, flinty eyed, gyrating.
Making no compact with the viewer, refusing
to seduce the camera, that wasn't in the contract.

Sell America. Not the real one, the representation of it;
Gas station, diner, roadside bar where
Budweiser logo flickers in red neon,
bikers from central casting
cluster round pool table, patched
leather waistcoat, earring, beard.
you're not expected
to believe it. You're not supposed to listen to it.
You're not supposed to get this close,
you're not supposed
to pay attention.

A placeholder, so we don't notice the lack,
so we don't notice our hearts stop beating,
so we don't notice that
we're not in heaven
any more.

 

[luka]

That's something I would never do if I was being paid needless to say. I'd write something nice. But I watched a Belinda Carlisle video just now and felt so empty and bleak and horrified and I didn't want to write a nice one. It really destroyed me. I hated that side of the eighties, that desolate simulacrum. As a child all that music felt so enervating. I knew it was the enemy.

 

[luka]

a poem about my grey cat freya. here is a picture of her.

View attachment 3050

Freya.

Following, belly low to ground, soft paw padding,
in the long grass, treading down the dandelions.
Wanting to mimic that grace,
that supple rhythm of movement,
shoulderblades rising
and falling
with each step,
seeing the elegant
bone-machine
beneath the fur.

Wanting to know that alertness,
alive to each fluctuation in the air,
each movement
registered in the corner
of the eye, each sound
falling out of place.

the sudden frictionless pause,
one paw still upraised, rigid.
Eyes wide, ears twitching,
so that it seems
you can almost see
the sound enter.

Become feline, pink skin swathed in fur,
moonlit eyes, enfolded in night, suavely violent.

Space is flattened out, unparceled.
this wall, dividing my garden
from neighbour's garden,
means nothing, we spring
to top of it, stalk
along it, drop
delicately
to far side of it.

These are merely marks on the map,
are merely political, merely man made, offer
no impediment to movement, check
no impulse,
are no barrier
to desire.