Here's some cheese: it's a primal expression of need, in the simplest purest form. The 'Christ!' especially gets me. And the small rain. And that as much as he wants his love's touch, he also really just wants to be in bed. It's a good one for rockmage to look up sometime, with his ten-word poems. That is how it's done, rockmage.

Me too! Chills every time. Weird isn't it? it's such a simple little thing -- but it affects many people that way. It's the unnaturally perfect rhythm, perhaps?

Weird call on the western wind. I haven't seen that poem in years, but I remember it giving me an odd feeling every time I read it - still does.

I just meant it's too cold for love, which is kind of the case here, or neglecting love until it's been too long to start again. I've tried to make this longer and fuller dozens of times and not been successful - another example of the poem choosing its shape.

One more quibble: segregating circles would be more accurate; but I almost like segregated better, whether it makes sense or not. Something to think about, at any rate.

I just spent an hour reading eratosphere. Ehh. Kinda airless in there, isn't it? And I agree: sterile. Give me the rancor any day.

It just didn't represent drumming to me. I wouldn't know what to do reading this aloud, and on the page it just looks like page-trickery. What about another representation? Would that fly? Like "up! up! towards them..." or "under-guitar-drum-thunder". Dashes always do it for me, obviously. And line breaks. The suggestion to split some of the lines into beats has some merit to it. Or - WAIT! Maybe write some lines out like bars of music with big spaces for measures or something! Crazy? Maybe just crazy enough to work! Again, these are just suggestions, but I'm a freak for taking punctuation the way Webster intended it and can't help reading periods as sentence ends. Another idea: more drum imagery. Use the words beat, backbeat, something onomatopoetic (which always makes people look for the rhythmical structures elsewhere.) Nentwined, I think, does a decently good job with that here (www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=78791). Is there room in the poem for a drummer? That can clue people in - again, readers are overwilling to look for that stuff if they have a clue it's in there. I think I might've gotten the rhythm to this (which on a second reading was definitely there) if I'd had more clues and less distraction from those periods. There's a really strong natural beat here, enough (almost) to suggest itself.

shit, I made it worse???? oops. but teacher, the periods have a purpose! I'm drumming! It's not affectation if it's for a reason, is it? Ok, I confess, I'm reading him again. Should I ditch almost all the cummingsesqueness but leave S.2. L.2 as it stands? can I get away with keeping S1L6 too? The rest I can concede as affectation, including the brackets, and happily toss.

It's open to public. They have a new rule in the non-metrical forum that you must make 15 editorial posts before posting a pome. Er, poem. http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/Ultimate.cgi

I don't want to crash their club, but I'd be interested in seeing what they do there. Where is it? I'll keep quiet.

To be honest, though I can see the merit in a lot of the stuff posted on eratosphere, it mostly leaves me cold emotionally. I have no pretensions about why this is, I know it is at least partly and probably largely because my level of sophistication as a reader is lower than that of the average poster there. Still, there's almost never any balls hanging out and when there are they are quickly neatly trimmed away. Some things that are praised seem completely empty and obvious to me, stuff I'd write in notes and throw away as being completely boring and unoriginal.

Ah, delicious. Thank-you very much. :)