The Poets' Graves Workshop

Maggot-white, blind in the womb-black sea of her, wriggling like the earthbound feasting on eggs. Hatchling, hunger birthed toothed and pricking, unthinking ache of instinct, a rivalry of blood spurs, seduces even before it is spilt. In the forming skulls, caverns flood fill with the promise-threat...

Thanks Not. Comma duly added.

cheers

mac

Growing up with Nan
I spent my idle times
spying through lace curtains.
Vagueness became a friend.
My Impressionist bride.

Older now, inherited
the flat, and there are blinds
giving a slant on outside.
A sort of Cubist crime.
Art moves on, and so do brides.

hi Not Grim topic, but that is the reality. Made me think of a Godless world. There is something Paradise Lost there. The diction suggests a knowledge of the world, which contradicts the first person, present tense, perspective? What would they know of the 'earthbound''? External referencing for an ...

hi JJ Your title frames a reading of the poem to the human condition. Liked that dialect feel of the word 'fettle'. It personalises. Couplet writing can become mechanistic, but that is not the case here. There is a balance in form that underpins content. still I find the peace and grace that blossom...

Many thanks for your close reading JJ. As always very insightful and empathetic to the text. I do love a walking poem I share your 'love' of the genre too JJ. The trudging back is difficult to unravel, I was hoping that the fact he is carrying the 'weight' would provide a reason for him turning back...

Cheers David. I plod on

Thanks Tristan (and for the other one). And for your, and others, help.

all the best

mac

hi Jules

ate rather than eat? (or is that a dialect thing).

An option to capitalise quartet?

Like the dog addition and the ellipsis.

enjoyed the fun sonics

best

mac

Nay sure, he’s not in hell; he’s in Arthur’s bosom , if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. ’A made a finer end, and went away and it had been any christom child. ’A parted ev’n just between twelve and one, ev’n at the turning o’ th’ tide; for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flow...

Patrick Kavanagh - The Great Hunger

https://allpoetry.com/Patrick-Kavanagh

Just a link because it is rather long. I'm finding this poem quite addictive.

I have a poem appearing here:

https://califragile.org/2019/09/10/pontneddfechan-by-phil-wood/

all the best

mac

Thumbs up on the cheesecake.

hi Alex The title gives a modern slant, though the religious and emotional bind is an older narrative. your head on his shoulder as you kneaded putty making a doll full of pins and self-destruction Liked the appearance of security and contentment juxtaposed with the internal hell. The pagan imagery ...

Hi David, This is a teasing one, referencing Shakespeare (though I started looking at a play by Middleton, which I now must read!) and the present day phrasing. Rejection leading to Arthur's Bosom is more than a consolation. The drinking life - Chimes at Midnight - as opposed to the quiet life. So t...

Cheers Luke. Pleased you enjoyed.

Welcome Alex. Your location sounds inspirational!

best

mac

My 2p

1. It is his silence that condemns them. I don't feel you should confuse the narrative by then refencing their silence as a consequence.

2. I like the psychology that he is now 'condemned' to a world of silence: his silence is his only companion.

Best

Mac

Marin-an by Gary Snyder sun breaks over the eucalyptus grove below the wet pasture, water’s about hot, I sit in the open window & roll a smoke. distant dogs bark, a pair of cawing crows; the twang of a pygmy nuthatch high in a pine- from behind the cypress windrow the mare moves up, grazing. a soft...

I preferred Distance to Stature, which seems to spell things out too much

I think you're right Ray. I'll change it back. Cheers.

She made me quiches, pies and pizzas.

I was told by a working man that quiches were not for men. I like a quiche. Homemade pie fair enough, but pizza? How about some bakes like mamarlade cake. Something sweet in the lunchbox.

hi Not now stained with a terrible darkness. Like the addition of stained because of its connotations. into his hand, in front of his mouth , he coughed a single grain of sand. As his first teardrop fell he caught it in his hand I don't feel the detail of the hand's proximity to the mouth is needed ...

Thanks Tristan and Not. 'hoary' (which I misread as 'horny') doesn't seem quite right (old and grey/whitish fur/trite?). I was using the word in the banal sense and also liked the connection with hoarfrost . Will have a think. I think, your N has taken the contents of his girlfriends rucksack and ha...

hi Tristan, I'm taking the title as a play on meaning and therefore this is as much about people as books. If there are parallels, then S1L4 I presumed was the observation/hearsay of strangers. S2L3 I don't understand. Nice to read you again! best mac Some books are on my shelves on the strength of ...

revision A winter's pace, the frost winking, ... my rucksack weighted with your checklist. I trudge back. Unbridled, you stride on. Distance ... defines us. At the top you waving. Me frowning from afar. original A winter's pace, frost winking at me, ... this rucksack weighted with hoary thirst. I tr...