Like your shoes are nice juxtaposition when you put them on to clean the head?

That is to say, you did not invent literacy, neither did you invent rhyme or alliteration or enjambment. All of these help you to write a poem, on what grounds do you think education can teach you no more?

The scent of death has been upon me for many years now, lingering intently about my groin, like the shining lobster that got wedged behind my fridge; a prawne-like vulture circling its prey. As the days come and go, and the green trees of youth fade to browne, I am left cold, and alone. Naked against the black oils of time, slick to the skin, and wishing my absurdly dry exoskellington had absorbed less balm. Death is before me now; death and oblivion. And then nothing will matter, save for the final cry of anguish as my Wheeled Chair hurtles off the cliff, and my wither'd backside soaks into dust, fusing with the very essence of nature, finally fulfilling its soiled destiny.

nisi ex nihilo fit http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=78254

I'd be obliged if you could direct me to some good husk potery sometime.

HOLY SHIT! LOL

Guys, guys, look at us. Squabbling. Bickering. Like children! It never used to be like this, guys! And just think: this whole fight could have been avoided if Lenore had just had the vision, the singular vision, to include lengthy references to husks in this piece. I stand vindicated in all my opinions, as expressed on this page and others, but now it's time for the rest of you to look at yourselves. Where did you go wrong? At the end of the day it all comes down to humility. Humility, and a healthy respect for my opinions. Thanks for listening, -10-

You of all poets should condemn dogmatism and categorization. I'm shocked! Does this mean the scent of death is upon you?

No it can't. And that's not what Goad said. Look, you fool, my patience is wearing out. YOU ARE NOT THE OUTSIDER HERE, YOU FUCKING DORK!!! YOU ARE WRITING JUST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE!!! WE MAKE THE SAME COMMENTS ABOUT EVERYBODY ELSE!!! We're not elitists here, you loser! We say all the same things about each other's work as we did about yours; and when we get comments along the line of what you've read here, we take them with good faith or good humor, which apparently you can't manage, which is why you've been treated so harshly here, you ignorant cockless twit. JUST SHUT UP! SHUT UP!! THIS NORMAL, BORING POEM IS NOT WORTH ALL THIS JIBBER-JABBER!! You fucking 'outside artist' - get a goddamn brain. All artists are outside to some extent! And inside to some extent, which you have shown by identifying yourself with the most popular powerful group of visual artists in the world today - the fucking outside artists! But that's the goddamn problem: YOU CAN'T FEEL LIKE YOU'RE MAKING ART UNLESS YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE FUCKING PERSECUTED AND CONTROVERSIAL, you stupid shit! You're not, except as much as you've courted persecution with your brash and ignorant comments. Read over the comments here and you'll find most of them said something like 'nice normal poem, a little boring though.' And you've defended it like it was the bleeding Waste Land. Get a goddamn clue! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET A FUCKING CLUE! And as far as poetry-as-painting goes: can't you see a million differences?! Words have to be ordered, they have to be arranged (some of the poems on this site of course excluded.) You can't just fling letters against a canvas and call it a poem YOU BLIGHTED TWAT! GO WRITE ANOTHER GODDAMN POEM AND STOP WHINING YOU SAD SAD... damn! I'm out of epithets. Let somebody else take up the call. I'm getting the hell away from this poem.

i'd have to disagree i think a lyric piece can be wonderful and avoid cliché anyway, why write jokes when you could write something great?

Probably the single most devastating stain on your brave point of view is that it is endorsed by rockmage - a savage dunce who, when not posting millions of unbelievably dull one lined comments and voting 10s, spends his time bragging about his lack of any formal training whatsoever. Such people think they are beyond education. They refuse to accept that there are countless other people who are more talented than they are, and who work harder than they do. And when the world proclaims them to be cack, it is the world who is mistaken, not the piece of cack. So by all means, go, be a misunderstood genius, but do not come here and claim you wanna play hard ball in the big leagues. You ain't got that kind of muscle, kid. Now beat it!

And yet again I hear the familiar nasal whine of how any artist without any formal training, regardless of actual quality, is the tool of the devil and their work pure garbage. As an “outside” artist who has been consistently selling my paintings and drawings for the last 15 years, I find your statement insulting and absurd. The hate (and jealousy) heaped upon outside artists and similar hell-bred poets usually degrade from an honest attempt to raise public awareness of alternative technique to remarkably childish verbal slap-fights or internal circle-jerks that make everyone involved look like socially stunted malcontents. And therein lies the crux of the problem. It is virtually impossible at any given time to appraise accurately or conclusively artists/poets who have not been dead for roughly a century. In general the most you critics can honestly hope to do is to enlighten your audience as to what an individual artist/poet may be trying to do, and how his/her art relates to the world. But for you to assign any contemporary artist/poet his place (high or low) in history is pure arrogance. Go ahead and continue to label me for purposes of your own and I will continue to ignore these labels in order to create. Oh and to drop another iconoclastic name… Courbet once said “There can be no schools: there are only painters” The same can be said about poets.

Your gregariousness is unseemly, and has got you into trouble again. Keep yourself covered up, in future. Nobody wants to look at the dirty, naughty little girl. When you are about the house, and Master is at home, and not attending to The Important Matters Of The Towne (of which you remain wholly ignorant), then stay in your room until he leaves. If you must move about in order to complete your chores, keep your head lowered, and drape a thick shawl o'er your face

That's 44 comments on this poem. Can we be done now?

Apparently not. But it seems to me darkangel's 'why is that better?' is a skeptical one, with which I answer it IS better for the reader to find his own meaning. And even better if that meaning is the same as the author's.

as i have said before, this poem was written years ago..about how i once felt, but not anymore. I realize that this may not have been the best poem to present on this site, but whats done is done. I cant go back & re-do it. I thought the poem expressed that time in my life well, but obviously this was one that was meant to stay "for my eyes only". My thanks for your constructive critisism.

Holy Jesus Christ on a stick, you're right! Lenore IS committing heresy in his statement, and zodiac in his laudable zeal to tromp down heresy whereever he sees it is inadvertently committing a subtle Error of Doctrine. This is how the Satan of Poetry deceives us! He i not an enemy to be taken lightly.