Starman, barman…. I don’t damn a give

[tectak]

I am becoming quite concerned by the sudden duck-dive
in
to
the ostensibly muddy and shallow depths in which some writer’s
are dabbling.
Don’t they realise that their arses are exposed as they paddle furiously
to
keep
their clapping bills in the pond-bottom shite,
in the murky morass of other’s waste and weed?
What am I supposed to say, when they stick it up and ask
What I think of what they’ve found down there. “Look, man
this
is
the place to be. Try this shite. What do you think. Sure it stinks,
but what does it smell of.
You don’t know? Well, guess. That’s all you need to do
To justify the arse-up, head down gurgling. This is poetry.”
Ok. OK. You all win. I will do it to myself if not to you.
Take
offense,
if this seems aimed at your feathered vent.
But this is my shite.
Or is it.
My poem is obviously about…..about…..the duck-dive in
morals and of virtues and of the lack of role models since the sixties.
Yes.
That’s it.
Starman is Elvis Presley. The greatest star who ever lived, and who left the building
More times than I have had ink cartridges.
The broken gestures and bloodied stumps are the Vets we campaigned out
of existence. Dylan’s tambourine the Banjo that sang our song, whilst Buddhistsset
alight
to themselves about something or other as the splattered eye-shadow of DustySpringfield
icon-ed into our love-not-war lives. It was all about love
back then. All about YOU….not about ME.
Concepts were all to hell, or at least that hot…and slow down, stand on the brakes,
Your losing it, you’re getting cold;
and chilled you will become, as your marrow leaks into the good green earth
where like the astaxanthin in your bird-bath, staining red will soon be used by Israel’s
pharmaceuticals
to
make
lipstick for the masses
and jewish girlsNotwithstanding the force of war, the memory of war. the sheer
commonplace happening of cross-hairs in sites, nation goodnight,
we
still
are in denial. Holocaust or some other cost.
We are nearly at the end of this spoiler. I have billowedand blown to be noticed. Like a critic before me
I
have
been fanned by fame and now like you many, am fucked if I know
anything
anymore.
Given the life we lead since the good old, bad old days,
Some starved in famines (no change there),
Some stuffed like snipe in pheasant, in duck, in goose, in swan in
peacock….and slit, then cut open, served up in rich Madeira sauce….
I can only ask, for God’s sake, how long is this journey…are we there yet?No.
We
have
passed the point of no return.
This is my shite, do you like it.
Did you get the message?
Was it subtle, or obscure?
Did you get the meaning?
How
Should
I
format
it?
Short or long?
Does it matter?
We are talking shite, here.
This stuff is easy.
Normally, it’s constipation-verse.
but I can write anything
once I
have
the
runs.

Starman has left the building. I really don’t get it

Broken you say, bloodied gestures, stumped on boned and ragged pins;
severing like buddhists banjos, lying splattered in dusted places. YOU!
Concept cold, concept hot...busted brakes by standing hard and then. ME!
The fractured marrow pours and percolates down through tweeded valleys green
with the algae, rained in oil; Haematoccocus pluvialis, lipsticked like a jewish girl,
shoots a nation through the cross of hairs and leave denial the other choice.
What do you want that blows and billows to be noticed, fanned and FUCKED
starved and stuffed, boiled and pickled in madeira's finest: are WE there?
tectak
2012

[Todd]

Well it does remove a step if we critique ourselves I guess.

[tectak]

Well it does remove a step if we critique ourselves I guess.

we all do it, todd. Its just that most of us do it before pinning it up as a thread!
Best,
tectak

[raymond trevitt]

I wonder if what you've written counts as poetry or some stream of conscious rant (I wonder this about the few attempts at poetry writing I have tried as well). I think it goes back and forth from serious thoughts to humorous thoughts in a way that suggests you did not have a handle on what exactly it was you were trying to say, which I then think it what your intent was all along. OK so this is but my second attempt to offer critique of someone else's work which may only be 'shite' (my critique) and I do not know if this is the type of input people are looking for.

[Todd]

Well it does remove a step if we critique ourselves I guess.

we all do it, todd. Its just that most of us do it before pinning it up as a thread!
Best,
tectak

(agreed) Though you've always been a trendsetter.

[tectak]

I wonder if what you've written counts as poetry or some stream of conscious rant (I wonder this about the few attempts at poetry writing I have tried as well). I think it goes back and forth from serious thoughts to humorous thoughts in a way that suggests you did not have a handle on what exactly it was you were trying to say, which I then think it what your intent was all along. OK so this is but my second attempt to offer critique of someone else's work which may only be 'shite' (my critique) and I do not know if this is the type of input people are looking for.

Don't spend time on it, ray. It is pure nonsense with absolutely no message at all....and that is the point. When we cannot tell if a piece is profound or pointless it is time to reconsider values. Believe me....this whole piece is just words strung together in a way that somtimes seems to make sense. You can get the same effect by writing words on bits of paper then tossing them in the air. Left where they fall then read out in sequence you will always get something that the crits will read sense in to. I used to find this worrying....now it just amuses me but not enough to comment upon.
Best,
tectak

[billy]

i quite liked the spoilered version

---

Well it does remove a step if we critique ourselves I guess.

maybe that's what the poems all about. poets blustering on about poets
i know i feel some kind of obligation to give feedback, and i do so on anything. maybe it's a new form called wtf poetry where the blanks are fille3d in and we all go "now i get it" maybe it's just a statement on where we've got to....

it's like, i know i have two or three poems to critique..note the word "have"
it's not that want to critique them i really do have to. i'm beginning to think the poem has a whole lot more relevance than i originally gave it credit for.
it makes or made me think .

[parakleseos]

While it has its moments, this poem fails both in its attempts at satire and explicit derision. In order to succeed, it needs to evince far more subtle and nuanced understanding concerning its intended target. The effect created is rather that of a flamethrower being taken to a (rather shabbily-constructed) straw man.

Criticism of a thing, whether direct or indirect, cannot be effective if it is not accurate. If one fails to understand the mark on its own terms, it will remain unscathed by your attack; after all, you're not even deriding it: you're battling some only-very-vaguely-related comical hyperbolism.

This is not to imply, of course, that the genre of poetry to which this poem so frothily addresses its attentions is not fabulously pregnant with possibilities for depreciation. This just isn't a very successful delivery of them.

On a related note, this is a good read: http://www.brocku.ca/english/jlye/meaning.php

Cheers,


-pk

[tectak]

While it has its moments, this poem fails both in its attempts at satire and explicit derision. In order to succeed, it needs to evince far more subtle and nuanced understanding concerning its intended target. The effect created is rather that of a flamethrower being taken to a (rather shabbily-constructed) straw man.

Criticism of a thing, whether direct or indirect, cannot be effective if it is not accurate. If one fails to understand the mark on its own terms, it will remain unscathed by your attack; after all, you're not even deriding it: you're battling some only-very-vaguely-related comical hyperbolism.

This is not to imply, of course, that the genre of poetry to which this poem so frothily addresses its attentions is not fabulously pregnant with possibilities for depreciation. This just isn't a very successful delivery of them.

On a related note, this is a good read: http://www.brocku.ca/english/jlye/meaning.php

Cheers,


-pk

On a related note, it is none of the things you think it is. What else do I need to say to show that the whole piece is just rubbish. Oh,oh. Is your feathered vent showing?
Best,
tectak

[tectak]

This is an accidental posting due to a technical malfunction. It is edited but should not be a thread. Apologies to all, especiall billy who will no doubt try to put it right!

I am becoming quite concerned by the sudden duck-dive
in
to
the ostensibly muddy and shallow depths in which some writers
are dabbling.
Don’t they realise that their arses are exposed as they paddle furiously
to
keep
their clapping bills in the pond-bottom shite,
in the murky morass of other’s waste and weed?
What am I supposed to say, when they stick it up and ask
what I think of what they’ve found down there. “Look, man
this
is
the place to be. Try this shite. What do you think. Sure it stinks,
but what does it smell of.
You don’t know? Well, guess. That’s all you need to do
to justify the arse-up, head down gurgling. This is poetry.”
OK. OK. You all win. I will do it to myself if not to you.

Take
offense,
if this seems aimed at your feathered vent.
But this is my shite.

Or is it.

My poem is obviously about…..about…..the duck-dive in
morals and of virtues and of the lack of role models since the sixties.
Yes.
That’s it.
Starman is Elvis Presley. The greatest star who ever lived, and who left the building
more times than I have used ink cartridges.
The broken gestures and bloodied stumps are the Vets we campaigned out
of existence. Dylan’s tambourine and the Banjo that sang our song, whilst Buddhists set
alight
to themselves about something or other as the splattered eye-shadow of DustySpringfield
icon-ed into our love-not-war lives. It was all about love
back then. All about YOU….not about ME.
Concepts were all to hell, or at least that hot…and slow down, stand on the brakes,
You're losing it, you’re getting cold;
and chilled you will become, as your marrow leaks into the good green earth
where like the astaxanthin in your bird-bath, staining red will soon be used by Israel’s
pharmaceuticals
to
make
lipstick for the masses
and jewish girls. Notwithstanding the force of war, the memory of war, the sheer
commonplace happening of cross-hairs in sites, nation goodnight.
We
still
are in denial. Holocaust or some other cost.
We are nearly at the end of this spoiler. I have billowed and blown to be noticed. Like a critic before me
I
have
been fanned by fame and now like you many, am fucked if I know
anything
anymore.
Given the life we lead since the good old, bad old days,
Some starved in famines (no change there).
Some stuffed like snipe in pheasant, in duck, in goose, in swan in
peacock….and slit, then cut open, served up in rich Madeira sauce….
I can only ask, for God’s sake, how long is this journey…are we there yet? No.
We
have
though
passed the point of no return.
This is my shite, do you like it.
Did you get the message?
Was it subtle, or obscure?
Did you get the meaning?
How
Should
I
format
it?
Short or long?
Does it matter?
We are talking shite, here.
This stuff is easy.
Normally, it’s constipation-verse.
but I can write anything
once I
have
the
runs.

Starman has left the building. I really don’t get it

Broken you say, bloodied gestures, stumped on boned and ragged pins;
severing like buddhists banjos, lying splattered in dusted places. YOU!
Concept cold, concept hot...busted brakes by standing hard and then. ME!
The fractured marrow pours and percolates down through tweeded valleys green
with the algae, rained in oil; Haematoccocus pluvialis, lipsticked like a jewish girl,
shoots a nation through the cross of hairs and leave denial the other choice.
What do you want that blows and billows to be noticed, fanned and FUCKED
starved and stuffed, boiled and pickled in madeira's finest: are WE there?
tectak
2012

[Ruth]

I will never regard ducks in the same way. ("Make Way for Ducklings" is forever ruined for me now)

Bottom dweller shite narcissism, I like it, and also its continued 'head up it's own arse' analysis of itself, as Todd says, saves us a step.

A bit Bukowskish, a little Franz Wrightish - all and all a self involved curmudgeon of a poem (but I've already said that, haven't I?). It does go on about itself, and I don't think bolding some words added anything to it.

cheers,
ruth

[tectak]

I will never regard ducks in the same way. ("Make Way for Ducklings" is forever ruined for me now)

Bottom dweller shite narcissism, I like it, and also its continued 'head up it's own arse' analysis of itself, as Todd says, saves us a step.

A bit Bukowskish, a little Franz Wrightish - all and all a self involved curmudgeon of a poem (but I've already said that, haven't I?). It does go on about itself, and I don't think bolding some words added anything to it.

cheers,
ruth

Hi ruth,
As you may have gathered, this is a nonsense poem. It was not "written" by me but is just a string of trivial words stuck up to look like poetry. The only "reason" for the bold type was to refer the reader to the ridiculously easy ( but completely false) links to the first poem, Starman has left the Building; which is in itself utter garbage masquerading as something cerebral. I have given up completely trying to crit the totally obscure, unpunctuated, mis-spelt and inconsequential stuff that is showing up with too much regularity. For those who TRY to improve, as evinced by the quality of their thoughts, it would be churlish not to offer opinion if there was even the minutest chance that such interference could be construed as helpful. For those who are happy to offer up their prized pond-weed and shite for perusal, I am gone.
Loved your hands.
Best,
tectak

[parakleseos]

I was responding only to: "It is pure nonsense with absolutely no message at all....and that is the point.", etc.

The poem is clearly a combination of a satirical work (the poem as published in the initial thread) and overt derision ("I am becoming quite concerned by the sudden duck-dive in to the ostensibly muddy and shallow depths in which some writers are dabbling"). It needs to be judged on its success or otherwise with regard to this. (Honestly, even if it weren't, your intention for it is not privileged.)

I came across a letter by Max Jacob the other day that seems relevant, though of course as Emerson says, "an argument convinces nobody". I'll quote it in case others might get something from it, though:

"I think I can safely tell you to avoid facile satire: satire
blinds the way pride blinds. You don’t get very far on
the strength of having said: “Those idiots! Those middle-
class philistines!” and so on, with variations. Take it for
granted that everyone is quite perfect; it’s very salutary
to start from that lofty general assumption and then
gradually lower the individual sphere by finding little
blemishes in it… Great works of literature are premised
on optimism. Since the nineteenth century there have
been no great works, because of Flaubert and his stupid
pessimism. Balzac was inclined to see genius everywhere,
and so he was optimistic: although he is not an artist, his
work is great on account of its optimism. Think about that."

Thanks for the opportunity to do a little thinking. And the cute jab in your response, though if you want to widen the scope beyond the poem itself, my understanding is that such discourse belongs elsewhere.


-pk

On a related note, it is none of the things you think it is. What else do I need to say to show that the whole piece is just rubbish. Oh,oh. Is your feathered vent showing?
Best,
tectak