The best...and worst of EvilToasterElf
EvilToasterElf
Posts: 1,119
Alright, I'm trying to crank out a manuscript and get a full book of poetry published. So I'm going to throw stuff on here as I update and tweak it, I want nit-picking up the ying-yang. We'll start with one of my newer pieces, and I guess work backward from there. And for those of you who haven't seen them, I hope you enjoy.
oh by the way, the working title for the book is: Fog In the Suburbs
ETE
Country Real Estate
After pacing his house for sixty years,
his body became those hardwood floors,
that groan under the pressure of footsteps.
He paced for fifteen of those years
before bending into the slope of his cane,
slowly falling into the black vinyl
of his wheelchair.
The months between visits whittle his bones
like the oak crossbeams,
blessed by the appetite of termites.
His joints hollowed into
an instrument of complaint.
The lives within his dusty rolodex
continued to gather speed
when the music of liver pills and calcium drinks,
was silenced by a wind
over the floorboards.
A couple from Connecticut came two weeks later
to buy his house. The years pass quietly
as a divorced man loses touch with his children
and paces his own path,
into the dark, warped wood.
oh by the way, the working title for the book is: Fog In the Suburbs
ETE
Country Real Estate
After pacing his house for sixty years,
his body became those hardwood floors,
that groan under the pressure of footsteps.
He paced for fifteen of those years
before bending into the slope of his cane,
slowly falling into the black vinyl
of his wheelchair.
The months between visits whittle his bones
like the oak crossbeams,
blessed by the appetite of termites.
His joints hollowed into
an instrument of complaint.
The lives within his dusty rolodex
continued to gather speed
when the music of liver pills and calcium drinks,
was silenced by a wind
over the floorboards.
A couple from Connecticut came two weeks later
to buy his house. The years pass quietly
as a divorced man loses touch with his children
and paces his own path,
into the dark, warped wood.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
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Nice..ete..."s"...
Youre getting it togetherthen?A whisper and a thrill
A whisper and a chill
adv2005
"Why do I bother?"
The 11th Commandment.
"Whatever"
PETITION TO STOP THE BAN OF SMOKING IN BARS IN THE UNITED STATES....Anyone?0 -
Ali wrote:Nice..ete..."s"...
Youre getting it togetherthen?
I'm aiming for about 60 poems I think, I'm hoping when I move to Japan and sever the ties so to speak I can really focus on getting it done, it's drips and drabs right now, I'm too comfortable at home, it's a kind of opiate for aspiration.0 -
I like they way you write.0
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Very good.60 is good.EvilToasterElf wrote:I'm aiming for about 60 poems I think, I'm hoping when I move to Japan and sever the ties so to speak I can really focus on getting it done, it's drips and drabs right now, I'm too comfortable at home, it's a kind of opiate for aspiration.
I feel as though comfort is the best zone to write in.It relaxes you and settles your mind.You really need a focal point.But thats just for me.
You should come see my play's reading in Trenton in Nov.:)
Just wishful thinking....I like having an intelligent audience:)A whisper and a thrill
A whisper and a chill
adv2005
"Why do I bother?"
The 11th Commandment.
"Whatever"
PETITION TO STOP THE BAN OF SMOKING IN BARS IN THE UNITED STATES....Anyone?0 -
Well, I'm trying to pick it apart, but it just ain't happening. I like it just how it is and I don't think you should change it. That's just my two cents.0
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Next...this is a newer and much less polished piece
Chance
In Trabzon the streets bleed into the Black Sea,
which isn’t black, more the color of a vast bruise
below the flesh of the horizon.
It is the color of every small city,
the color of used cars and used clothes.
Families live in the revolving door
of generations, spilling into the same
jobs, the same marriages, the same
dreams as their parents.
Thousands of seagulls drift upwards
with the fireworks that accompany
a wedding reception.
Their wings flicker like snow
suspended in the distance;
their squawks become white noise
against the moonlit screen of clouds.
We play Turkish monopoly on a rooftop,
the hat pays rent to the battleship,
and I look into the face of a girl
whose name translates to waterfall,
when the sounds of seagulls bursts
into a wave of Arabic song.
I follow the sounds of a wrinkled voice,
beseeching me to praise the creator of all things.
The call to prayer comes in stereo,
the desert God’s dirge bounces
from the mountains and surrounds me
for a time, before it fades
into the watery bruise of the sea;
black now under the half moon,
which lolls in the night sky,
a picture on the chalkboard
smudged by an absent minded teacher.
Thinking of old classrooms my gaze wanders
to the windows, to the sky, to the water;
and I see a train of lights along the coast.
The moisture rising from the water turns
the lines of streetlights and houselights
into a procession of flickering torches.
The landing strip for an angry mob,
at the climax of an old horror movie.
Coming for the monster who thinks
there is poetry in daily struggle.
The hat lands on a square
and my friend translates my monopoly directions
on the back of a card that reads:
Chance0 -
I'm going to print out your poems, and when I can sit away from a computer I'll nit pick up the ying yang. I like to do that.There is no such thing as leftover pizza. There is now pizza and later pizza. - anonymous
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird0 -
Bibliobella wrote:I'm going to print out your poems, and when I can sit away from a computer I'll nit pick up the ying yang. I like to do that.
Thankyou, that would be much appreciated0 -
Next...
The joy of accidental life
Cigar smoke clings to my sprawled hair,
and blue pack mules carry
the luggage under my eyes,
squeezed closer to my nose
by the vice of my two hands.
I sit down at this glass table
and stare at my shaking knees.
My socks plant in the hard wood,
white cacti in the empty desert,
thirsty for that summer storm
that folds the horizon
and scatters the timid vultures.
I can’t look at the swollen belly,
of the 16 year old who wielded
destiny like a toy in her fist,
because her hunger to see the world
is a plate fit for two.
Her jeans became elastic bands,
as belly rings became a bulge.
The mirror became a place of memory,
and denial. The pictures of smiles,
the tight fitting clothes:
those years were all packed
away in boxes,
because her own closet
made her cry.
Maternity was not fit for
this mona lisa.0 -
You're a potential VS Naipaul.0
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FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:You're a potential VS Naipaul.
Thankyou for the huge compliment fins, but I don't need the Nobel, I'll be perfectly satisfied with the national book award. Or maybe a Guggenheim fellowship.
I wish I could come up with a proper comparison to your own talents, but let's just say I'd be happy to be the runner up watching you atop any podium.0 -
I heard this the other night, and I think all mountains of any artistic kind were climbed here. The artist died fifteen days after this recording:
http://www.jimihendrix.com/media/19700903.ram0 -
although I liked all of three of them, the last was my favourite......I just wonder whether such image-laden fare might detract from the meaning......I mean sometimes the similes and metaphors are so tightly-packed as to be obstructive......also (I must emphasize that I really like them), but something is missing......there's no greatness in them, and I think you could produce something with greatness, maybe they're too studied.....too self-conscious, if you really let go and were more free, you might produce poems of genius......do you know what I mean? (I might qualify this criticism with the statement that I'm a crap poet compared to you, but I've read a lot of poetry, and I think I might raise the bar with my own soon, and start taking it a bit more seriously.....maybe)....they're asking me to prove why I should be allowed to stay with my baby in Australia, because I'm mentally ill......and they think I should leave......0
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Country Real Estate
After pacing his house for sixty years,
his body became those hardwood floors,
that groan under the pressure of footsteps.
[Good image]
The last fifteen of those years
he bends into the slope of his cane,
slowly falling into the black vinyl
of his wheelchair.
[I changed a little. See what you think]
The months between visits [what visits] whittle his bones
like the oak crossbeams,
blessed by the appetite of termites.
[Good image. Is the smaller time reference suppose to speed up the poem?]
His joints hollowed into
an instrument of complaint.
[Nice image but it says what was just said. It doesn't reinforce - more like redundant.]
The lives within his dusty rolodex
continued to gather speed
[not sure what this means]
when the music of liver pills and calcium drinks,
was silenced by a wind
over the floorboards.
[Is this an empty house, now?]
A couple from Connecticut came two weeks later
to buy his house. [The K in weeks really stops the poem. After a few readings I see the time references getting smaller in scope, but the k is like a jolt.]
The years pass quietly
as a divorced man loses touch with his children
and paces his own path,
into the dark, warped wood.
[Who is this?]
I see two points of this poem the time and the man. The man is very interesting to me, and if you decide to keep all of the time references in the poem then you would need to explore a particular time [day] for the man. By the way, once that man leaves the house the last time, for me the poem ends. It seems rushed at the end, and all of a sudden people are introduced and they are not as interesting. How does the man leave the house? Really, he is a very interesting character, and there is so much life in him within the space of that house that he has known so many years. I didn't see the man creaking like floorboards creaking, which is good, because that is an overused metaphor. Does this man interest you?There is no such thing as leftover pizza. There is now pizza and later pizza. - anonymous
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird0 -
In Trabzon the streets bleed into the Black Sea,
which isn’t black, more the color of a vast bruise
below the flesh of the horizon.
It is the color of every small city,
the color of used cars and used clothes.
Families live in the revolving door
of generations, spilling into the same
jobs, the same marriages, the same
dreams as their parents.
Thousands of seagulls drift upwards
with the fireworks that accompany
a wedding reception.
Their wings flicker like snow
suspended in the distance;
their squawks become white noise
against the moonlit screen of clouds.
We play Turkish monopoly on a rooftop,
the hat pays rent to the battleship,
and I look into the face of a girl
whose name translates to waterfall,
when the sounds of seagulls bursts
into a wave of Arabic song.
I follow the sounds of a wrinkled voice,
beseeching me to praise the creator of all things.
The call to prayer comes in stereo,
the desert God’s dirge bounces
from the mountains and surrounds me
for a time, before it fades
into the watery bruise of the sea;
black now under the half moon,
which lolls in the night sky,
a picture on the chalkboard
smudged by an absent minded teacher.
Thinking of old classrooms my gaze wanders
to the windows, to the sky, to the water;
and I see a train of lights along the coast.
The moisture rising from the water turns
the lines of streetlights and houselights
into a procession of flickering torches.
The landing strip for an angry mob,
at the climax of an old horror movie.
Coming for the monster who thinks
there is poetry in daily struggle.
The hat lands on a square
and my friend translates my monopoly directions
on the back of a card that reads:
Chance
I like this poem. The life comes right off the page. This flows very well, and the stanzas connect. The images are clear.
You open the poem with a negative image "bruise" and it seems to color the next image of generations/rituals. The author makes a judgement on rituals through this image of the bruise. However, the rituals in the rest of the poem (monopoly, birds, praying) do not seem to be colored by the bruise, and seem very positive. There's comfort in these rituals. Or do you want them to be colored by the bruise, also? The teacher metaphor lost me, even though I see how you used it to connect stanzas. I don't see the classroom in the image following the mention of classrooms. The monster/mob/poet image is very good. It seems that the author is interested in what is going on here. Were you?There is no such thing as leftover pizza. There is now pizza and later pizza. - anonymous
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird0 -
ISN wrote:although I liked all of three of them, the last was my favourite......I just wonder whether such image-laden fare might detract from the meaning......I mean sometimes the similes and metaphors are so tightly-packed as to be obstructive......also (I must emphasize that I really like them), but something is missing......there's no greatness in them, and I think you could produce something with greatness, maybe they're too studied.....too self-conscious, if you really let go and were more free, you might produce poems of genius......do you know what I mean? (I might qualify this criticism with the statement that I'm a crap poet compared to you, but I've read a lot of poetry, and I think I might raise the bar with my own soon, and start taking it a bit more seriously.....maybe)
No qualification is necessary at all, and it's good to have some broad assertions, it means you're feeling something missing rather than thinking about small grammar points and such. I am not entirely sure, what you mean, but I will say I can't remember ever reading a single poem, and know I was staring at something phenomenal, however, when I read an entire book of some of my favorite poets, I know I am reading something great, because the poems reinforce each other. The feelings behind the characters strengthen. I think that is what I am trying to create. Thankyou though, it's been a while since I've had much encouragement for improvement, and I need a little kickstart every once and a while.0 -
Bibliobella wrote:Country Real Estate
After pacing his house for sixty years,
his body became those hardwood floors,
that groan under the pressure of footsteps.
[Good image]
The last fifteen of those years
he bends into the slope of his cane,
slowly falling into the black vinyl
of his wheelchair.
[I changed a little. See what you think]
The months between visits [what visits] whittle his bones
like the oak crossbeams,
blessed by the appetite of termites.
[Good image. Is the smaller time reference suppose to speed up the poem?]
His joints hollowed into
an instrument of complaint.
[Nice image but it says what was just said. It doesn't reinforce - more like redundant.]
The lives within his dusty rolodex
continued to gather speed
[not sure what this means]
when the music of liver pills and calcium drinks,
was silenced by a wind
over the floorboards.
[Is this an empty house, now?]
A couple from Connecticut came two weeks later
to buy his house. [The K in weeks really stops the poem. After a few readings I see the time references getting smaller in scope, but the k is like a jolt.]
The years pass quietly
as a divorced man loses touch with his children
and paces his own path,
into the dark, warped wood.
[Who is this?]
I see two points of this poem the time and the man. The man is very interesting to me, and if you decide to keep all of the time references in the poem then you would need to explore a particular time [day] for the man. By the way, once that man leaves the house the last time, for me the poem ends. It seems rushed at the end, and all of a sudden people are introduced and they are not as interesting. How does the man leave the house? Really, he is a very interesting character, and there is so much life in him within the space of that house that he has known so many years. I didn't see the man creaking like floorboards creaking, which is good, because that is an overused metaphor. Does this man interest you?
Awesome! Thankyou so much for this. Some of these things are so simple, but once you've read you're own poem so many times, you fill in the tiny gaps yourself without reading that they were missing.
As far as the other questions, I wanted to jump into the life of an old lonely man, he doesn't have a name, he can be any old, lonely man, who begins to replace the comfort of people who don't have time for him anymore, with the comfort of a place, which creaks, and ages, and in a way dies as he does. but stays on to watch the same thing happen to its next occupant. The purpose of the end of the poem is to emphasize the the most important part of the poem was not the man, but the setting. Whether it works or not of course is the real question. You don't think it does, so I'm going to have to think about it again.0 -
Ex-Wife’s Wedding
Her happiness inflicts a sort of insanity,
but it still draws me, a runaway
coming home with empty pockets.
Her smile is a timeline,
a year for every enamel.
When we speak, each phrase is a vault,
that stores the things we cannot say,
every glance, the sum of a recurring
dream we called our marriage.
Where her hand touched my chest,
fabric rusts through my sternum
like a frost beaten muffler,
before I tear off my copper tie
and slam it into the bar.
I order three shots of Jack,
to chase the oxidized tie chips,
and I see them in crude-oil whiskey,
sinking to the bottom of my
stomach. I shake my head
to eliminate the aftertaste,
and the pictures in my mind.
Leaving room in that dark attic to wonder
if we are more human when ideas
string together in Christmas lights,
or when the blown fuse box of thought
fills that crawlspace with memories,
and a blank smile.
I stumble back to the reception,
and stare at the bride’s table, that rectangle,
filled with romantic thoughts.
She looks perfect up there,
her sun-streaked hair
coils onto her shoulders.
A white dress wraps her frame.
She could crack the equator with her heel.
I stand up with a shaking wine glass,
she glances at me with her green eyes
and tiny crystal bells chime all
around me.
My dark space fills as I stare down
at the suited multitude shouting, “Toast!”0 -
good stuff evil toaster elf. but, why did you title the thread best and worst of ete?
i liked your poems. i personally didn't quite understand(feel) the last paragraph of the first poem.
i am looking forward to reading more of your poems!0 -
gluten919 wrote:good stuff evil toaster elf. but, why did you title the thread best and worst of ete?
i liked your poems. i personally didn't quite understand(feel) the last paragraph of the first poem.
i am looking forward to reading more of your poems!
Well thankyou, it's called best and worst, becuause their will be a little of both, but sometimes people like the poems I hate the most, or vice-versa.
It seems the last stanza of country real estate needs work still. But the point of the poem is not the man, it's the house, hence the title. And the last stanza is supposed to show that although so much of this old man is attached to the house, another man can come in and submit to the same cycle. Also the second man comes in for the part of his life that we missed from the first character, young and married with kids, yet still succumbs to the same fate inside that country house.0
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