Stephen Robins
replying on WHAT YOU GIVE AWAY IS WHAT YOU TAKE TO HEAVEN by w~* ATHENA *~w
16 Nov 2004, 8:33 AM
Expert insight into the preachiness.
Oh God! Math poems!
This will make the approximately the millionth time the following message has been posted on poemranker.
.....
1) The converse of "I love you" is not "You love me". Its converse is nothing, or at best "If something is you, then I love that thing," since converses are mainly useful for altering if/then expressions.
2) None of the three main transformations (converse, inverse, contrapositive) can transform "I love you" into "you love me".
I hope you got richa's point. Robert Frost already knew about good fences being good neighbors, being the most colossal bigot, sexist and generally crotchety cunt ever. He just thought it would be good to use a stupid character like his neighbor to teach you. Why? Because he thought you were stupid, too.
The title tells us too much. The all-caps speak too loudly, adding to the preachiness.
No it doesn't. In all seriousness, how can you be so dense?
At any rate, the point of my "mockery" was that you've created an absurdly small number of black-and-white categories to group everyone into. I'm for the creation of so many particularized categories that the term "categories" becomes useless for describing them. If I've "categorized" your poetry as "somewhat prone to describe everything in terms of a few rather extreme or polarized categories, so that almost every conclusion contained therein is wrong or simplified to absurdity, but not always," then I'm exactly in line with my philosophy, while you're a floundering guff.
I'll consider that.
Thank you for listening to me, really. Now that we're on the same page, I'd like to point out that
a) shallow and dirty snow doesn't immediately suggest to me (or anyone else, apparently) "traces of the thing covered - pain", so I think you missed the mark;
b) taking the parallels in the metaphor HisJokes/HisPain, HerMissives/HerPain across the stanza break was really fucking confusing. I'm still not sure I get it;
c) And you've got about 4 pains and 4 things hidding by the time you get to the "such are the jokes" part, where the metaphor effectively stops and the metaphor-explanation begins. My suggestion: Just straighten it out. Make his pain something that's actually covered by the snow on the ground, like the ground. Make her pain something that's actually surrounded by your limbs/missives. Something like,
Snow on the ground
shallow and dirty
[Covering the frost-scarred
ground or something.]
Black limbs sagging
frosty and white
[Clutching a piece
of hard blue sky or something.]
Such are the jokes
that cover his wounds...
That is all.
Philosophy's great. It drove me insane and then I used it to bring my sanity back to me.
Oh wait, I'm still mad.
Damn
Wahey!!!
I haven't seen a poemwanker award since mine got taken away. Congratulations!
Maybe I should get mine back to boost the numbers...
I WOULD REWORD THAT LAST SENTENCE AS YOU ASS KISSING GAY LOOKING WANNABE GANGSTAH FROM WEST HOLLYWOOD. BUT THAT IS JUST ME.
BTW, I AM ENJOYING MARILYN MANSON SINGING DEPECHE MODE.
ABOUT FUCKING TIME.
Philospphy is worse!
hogwash!
Silliness!
what an idiot you are. this shit means nothing.
I sense a lot of rage coming out in this poem. Perhaps you should consider some of my never-fail calming techniques.
For you, I would suggest finding the biggest, cheapest, ugliest mobile phone around, buying 10 of them, and destroying them in interesting ways.
Alternatively, send this poem to every mobile phone company's customer services e-mail address.
Weird enough to merit a 5.
Wanted:
Jingle writer for pizza place. Some experience preferred; will train. Must have no body hair. No freaks. 555-dino