on To Making Do by Dovina
27 May 2005, 2:27 AM
"exes".
on Acrylic French Nails by Dovina
31 May 2005, 5:36 AM
I have to admit, it was a bit of a letdown getting to the end only to find the meaning was "she employs devices to look different". Well, I mean, duh. For one, everyone employs devices all the time to look different from how they'd look nude. For another thing, I imagine if she wanted to look different without employing devices, she'd have to (a) practice holding some really distinctive facial expression or posture all the time (which is a device when you get down to it) or (b) accept that she just looks different enough as she is, unless she's an identical twin or something (which we both know is kind of crap.) And would I be totally wrong if I guessed you really meant "she employs devices to look ugly or different from me"?
on Nesting Instinct of Women by Dovina
31 May 2005, 5:47 AM
"Virtue"
- Cynthia Huntington
All the houses are white;
all the yards have yellow flowers
attended by bees.
If you must be born female
try coming as an insect -
they have the edge. Bees
spoil their little brothers just
so long and then they're through.
The queen has a hundred lovers,
her daughters, none. A nation of sisters
lives forever: wasps and ants.
Here in New England
you'll come across old family plots
- farmers with two or three wives
set down in a row; prayers and faint praise
for the good woman, wife, mother:
modest and weary, homely as a shoe.
How she stirred and kneaded,
baked, sewed, scrubbed, and bore down.
I let the ants come in my kitchen
and carry off bread crumbs.
Girl soldiers, all discipline and grit.
Flies buzz the heads of stupefied cows,
up to their knees in yarrow,
hissing: "wake up, wake up!"
Their teats swell, heavy with milk,
long after their done
being anyone's mother.
In the corner of the garage
a spider devours her mate,
wraps up what she can't finish
and hangs it to dry. Mosquitos
murmur for blood in the high grasses.
A car door slams down the street.
Milk and honey, butter and jam,
what virtue in living as a slave?
In the kitchen I unpack groceries:
sweet peas, cider, wild honey, pears
burst from the flowering branch.
(copied without permission from Poetry Daily, www.poems.com)
- Cynthia Huntington
All the houses are white;
all the yards have yellow flowers
attended by bees.
If you must be born female
try coming as an insect -
they have the edge. Bees
spoil their little brothers just
so long and then they're through.
The queen has a hundred lovers,
her daughters, none. A nation of sisters
lives forever: wasps and ants.
Here in New England
you'll come across old family plots
- farmers with two or three wives
set down in a row; prayers and faint praise
for the good woman, wife, mother:
modest and weary, homely as a shoe.
How she stirred and kneaded,
baked, sewed, scrubbed, and bore down.
I let the ants come in my kitchen
and carry off bread crumbs.
Girl soldiers, all discipline and grit.
Flies buzz the heads of stupefied cows,
up to their knees in yarrow,
hissing: "wake up, wake up!"
Their teats swell, heavy with milk,
long after their done
being anyone's mother.
In the corner of the garage
a spider devours her mate,
wraps up what she can't finish
and hangs it to dry. Mosquitos
murmur for blood in the high grasses.
A car door slams down the street.
Milk and honey, butter and jam,
what virtue in living as a slave?
In the kitchen I unpack groceries:
sweet peas, cider, wild honey, pears
burst from the flowering branch.
(copied without permission from Poetry Daily, www.poems.com)
on Heaven or Hell by lil_evil_boi
2 Jun 2005, 3:55 AM
The best part was where you described heaven as "heavenly" and hell as "hellish".
on lawngazing by skaskowski
4 Jun 2005, 6:50 AM
How were the bottles busted on a blanket? Not that it matters, I'm just curious.
on Vote Goats by ALChemy
6 Jun 2005, 5:59 AM
If I told you my name is John Updike, would that make a difference?
Yes, you'd say, Ha ha, more like 'Up Johndick'.
Real mature. -10-
Yes, you'd say, Ha ha, more like 'Up Johndick'.
Real mature. -10-
on some deleted poem
4 Jun 2005, 6:49 AM
Oddly, there is in fact a boy at the special education center where I work who calls me "Mom". -10-
on some deleted poem
6 Jun 2005, 6:01 AM
Good but for knowing it's a silly punchline with poem attached. At least you're writing about real culture now. -10-
on some deleted poem
6 Jun 2005, 6:02 AM
I'd like to submit that you really meant 'joped'. And it makes more sense that way.
on The Comedy of Mighty Rockmage: Combatting Old Age. by Don-Quixote
6 Jun 2005, 6:05 AM
Except for "pretends only he be humble", which is incomprehensible, the best oldey talk you've ever written.
on fireflies die too by hendrimike
6 Jun 2005, 6:06 AM
its hope. No apostrophe.
on some deleted poem
6 Jun 2005, 6:07 AM
Nice. assistent should be assistant.
on Carte Blanche by ALChemy
6 Jun 2005, 6:08 AM
Please try to not post comments explaining your poems. -10-
on Smoky Mountain High by Dovina
6 Jun 2005, 5:16 AM
Do you mean "comes summer's answer" or "come summer's answers"? Or is there another subject somewhere I haven't noticed?
Would you consider dropping the last line? I liked it the first time, though. Really.
The title made me think of both the actual Smoky Mountains, in my home part of the world, and the Rocky Mountains of the song. Neither of which are referenced in the poem.
PS-I do wish you'd stop taking Shuushin's word about end-line punctuation.
PPS-Very good, overall.
Would you consider dropping the last line? I liked it the first time, though. Really.
The title made me think of both the actual Smoky Mountains, in my home part of the world, and the Rocky Mountains of the song. Neither of which are referenced in the poem.
PS-I do wish you'd stop taking Shuushin's word about end-line punctuation.
PPS-Very good, overall.
on -750,000 in Rwanda by ALChemy
8 Jun 2005, 10:58 PM
Okay, sleep isn't worth keeping in the second line just for the rhyme. Also, as far as I know, most of them didn't die in heaps, as the poem suggests. At least, it would be extremely impractical to get people into heaps and then get them to wait while you killed them. If I were a warring tribesman, I'd kill them wherever they were and THEN put them in heaps. Assuming they didn't find a way to do it, that kills about your whole first four lines.
Also, check this out: "KIGALI (Reuters) - The 1994 Rwandan genocide claimed 937,000 victims according to a census the Rwandan government conducted in 2001, a cabinet minister said on Sunday." So, apparently the census takers and calculators, et al, did do the job and you've got the wrong figure in your title (unless you're counting only Tutsis, which isn't exactly fair.)
I don't understand fire brigade. I mean, yes, there was burning, but I think you mean the term to mean the people shooting, not the people burning. The firing squad is never called a fire brigade. The fire department is.
"bleekness" -> bleakness.
Also, check this out: "KIGALI (Reuters) - The 1994 Rwandan genocide claimed 937,000 victims according to a census the Rwandan government conducted in 2001, a cabinet minister said on Sunday." So, apparently the census takers and calculators, et al, did do the job and you've got the wrong figure in your title (unless you're counting only Tutsis, which isn't exactly fair.)
I don't understand fire brigade. I mean, yes, there was burning, but I think you mean the term to mean the people shooting, not the people burning. The firing squad is never called a fire brigade. The fire department is.
"bleekness" -> bleakness.
on matrimonal enemy by hendrimike
8 Jun 2005, 10:46 PM
Idle question: Is there any machine in any part of America that still runs on nickles?
PS-Your votes disappear when you edit. Don't bother complaining to nentwined about it. It'll just make you embarassed in the morning.
PS-Your votes disappear when you edit. Don't bother complaining to nentwined about it. It'll just make you embarassed in the morning.
on The Comedy of Mighty Rockmage: Combatting Old Age. by Don-Quixote
8 Jun 2005, 10:16 PM
Horus8, on rockmage:
"What you did was give nentwined, shushin, intransit, richa, abcedarian, and shanon8764565, triple sets of tens on all of their poems to cover your ass, so no one would mind when you gave me 900 zeros."
15-Nov-03
-=Dark_Angel=-,P.I.:
"rockmage awarded this poeme 9. The average score awarded by rockmage is 9.51. Therefore rockmage has deemed this poeme to be below average."
27-Jan-04
zodiac:
"penguin received on his last post the lowest score I've ever seen rockmage give - a 5."
27-Jan-04
Horus:
"So let me get this straight you give people you like tens whether you've read the material or not, and people you don't like zeros using the same method? And we wonder what went wrong with democracy? lol."
15-Nov-03
Fraser Allonby:
"I think it's silly to have more than one username. By the way, I notice that rockmage has many additional usernames: newagepoet2000, fatmansinging, sixtoedwonder, flouredweevle, assisenormus, masticatedmess, andyourhorsetoo, wahwahwahwha, gourdgrabber, sickerofdogs, foothangingoutofass, smarmyfaurt, lackoforiginality, Isureamstupid, and bulgingbuttocks."
4-Feb-04
rockmage:
"Tis true. From my zero war with horus8."
4-Feb-04
The surprising thing about all of this isn't that it's all been done before, nor even that someone could think most of our poems deserve zeros. It's that rockmage still seems to be under the illusion that he's objective and literary.
"What you did was give nentwined, shushin, intransit, richa, abcedarian, and shanon8764565, triple sets of tens on all of their poems to cover your ass, so no one would mind when you gave me 900 zeros."
15-Nov-03
-=Dark_Angel=-,P.I.:
"rockmage awarded this poeme 9. The average score awarded by rockmage is 9.51. Therefore rockmage has deemed this poeme to be below average."
27-Jan-04
zodiac:
"penguin received on his last post the lowest score I've ever seen rockmage give - a 5."
27-Jan-04
Horus:
"So let me get this straight you give people you like tens whether you've read the material or not, and people you don't like zeros using the same method? And we wonder what went wrong with democracy? lol."
15-Nov-03
Fraser Allonby:
"I think it's silly to have more than one username. By the way, I notice that rockmage has many additional usernames: newagepoet2000, fatmansinging, sixtoedwonder, flouredweevle, assisenormus, masticatedmess, andyourhorsetoo, wahwahwahwha, gourdgrabber, sickerofdogs, foothangingoutofass, smarmyfaurt, lackoforiginality, Isureamstupid, and bulgingbuttocks."
4-Feb-04
rockmage:
"Tis true. From my zero war with horus8."
4-Feb-04
The surprising thing about all of this isn't that it's all been done before, nor even that someone could think most of our poems deserve zeros. It's that rockmage still seems to be under the illusion that he's objective and literary.
1) Don't assume we criticize because we can't cope. The truth is we all cope better than you, and the middle-school English teacher who told you people criticize because they can't cope couldn't cope.
2) re: "Do you feel better when you take away hope?
" Do you feel better being hopeless? A: Only if you can somehow stop every single person on the planet from pointing out how hopeless you are. Which I imagine involves stopping time itself.
3) Writing for onesself is fantastic. I, for one, would never criticize someone for writing all kinds of smarm for their own private purposes. You, however, are doing something extra. Can you tell what? (Hint: it involves the internet and a site called poemRANKER.)
4) Because you obviously want real criticism, here: Don't rhyme knife and life ever ever again.
5) Punctuate consistently. If you can't figure out how, write your whole poem out like it's prose, like a story, and see where you've forgotten periods, commas, and other such. (Hint: Check the ends of lines!)
6) Of course we know what you're going through. We were there. About 100 years ago. People gave us all hell then, too, just like we're doing for you. Those of us who didn't cut it are over at autobodymechanicranker.com. Check them out.
7) re: "the way that they write is not up to you." Oh. I thought you were posting here to get our opinions. Oh, I see: not that kind of opinion. Is this one better. This is the best poem I've ever read and you're obviously a beautiful, gentle soul I had exactly the same experience once.
8) You're thinking of going to my poem list and zeroing the first title you see there. Please, by all means, do. Join the Dark Side.
-10-
2) re: "Do you feel better when you take away hope?
" Do you feel better being hopeless? A: Only if you can somehow stop every single person on the planet from pointing out how hopeless you are. Which I imagine involves stopping time itself.
3) Writing for onesself is fantastic. I, for one, would never criticize someone for writing all kinds of smarm for their own private purposes. You, however, are doing something extra. Can you tell what? (Hint: it involves the internet and a site called poemRANKER.)
4) Because you obviously want real criticism, here: Don't rhyme knife and life ever ever again.
5) Punctuate consistently. If you can't figure out how, write your whole poem out like it's prose, like a story, and see where you've forgotten periods, commas, and other such. (Hint: Check the ends of lines!)
6) Of course we know what you're going through. We were there. About 100 years ago. People gave us all hell then, too, just like we're doing for you. Those of us who didn't cut it are over at autobodymechanicranker.com. Check them out.
7) re: "the way that they write is not up to you." Oh. I thought you were posting here to get our opinions. Oh, I see: not that kind of opinion. Is this one better. This is the best poem I've ever read and you're obviously a beautiful, gentle soul I had exactly the same experience once.
8) You're thinking of going to my poem list and zeroing the first title you see there. Please, by all means, do. Join the Dark Side.
-10-