Snapshots

[sparr0w]

Seems I always come into your threads late into the discussion, and yet here I am again... This is my favorite kind of poetry, the kind I tend to gravitate towards most often. No big statements, just a simple moment captured with elegance. Moments, simple moments, are full of oft unnoticed implications, mirror character, murder "eternity", and then pass to the next, forgotten. Only poetry accounts for them properly, breaks them down for observation. I'll bet the entire moment for which you account here lasted, what, 2 or 3 seconds? Yet when you break it down to its components, I feel I know alot about the couple, and where they feel they stand in life. Great work, sorry for my winded reply. Peace- chris

[PrinceMyshkin]

Seems I always come into your threads late into the discussion, and yet here I am again... This is my favorite kind of poetry, the kind I tend to gravitate towards most often. No big statements, just a simple moment captured with elegance. Moments, simple moments, are full of oft unnoticed implications, mirror character, murder "eternity", and then pass to the next, forgotten. Only poetry accounts for them properly, breaks them down for observation. I'll bet the entire moment for which you account here lasted, what, 2 or 3 seconds? Yet when you break it down to its components, I feel I know alot about the couple, and where they feel they stand in life. Great work, sorry for my winded reply. Peace- chris

Yes, 2 or 3 seconds - if you measure it by quotidian time but in the pleasure one gets from finding the right 8 or 9 words, it seems to last much longer than any length of conventional, obligatory time!

One lives - as a writer, a lover or in one's commitment to a cause - for these deep immersions of the whole of one's self. Thank you for this and your usual deeply felt, deeply thought-out responses to my poems. And in response to your "peace," shanti shanti dah (if I have it right): The peace that passes understanding...

[PrinceMyshkin]

A man writing about something
he loves, but it is never the thing
he writes about as much
as he loves the writing about it.

The magic of it, the beauty,
the precision, yes, even
the sloppiness. Look!
He completes a sentence:

one brick in what may one day
be a building, but there is
no building more beautiful
than any one of its bricks.

[Sweets America]

Interesting, Schweetie-Shou. Something about the love for composition? For the activity itself?

[PrinceMyshkin]

Interesting, Schweetie-Shou. Something about the love for composition? For the activity itself?

Yes, have you not felt it too - even in writing your most sad poem, some element of happiness in writing about and therefore triumphing over it?

Snapshot: X

A woman who is so naked in her clothes,
beneath the sheen of her charcoal-grey stockings
the sheen of her milky thighs
shines out so beckoningly
that I turn away in embarrassment
then look back, again and again.

Her mid-calf length black winter coat
beneath her long, loose brunette tresses
hardly conceals the round of her shoulders,
the thrust of her breasts, the mild hummock
of her tummy and the lissome strength
of her arms, which are such that I want nothing
but to give myself to her, utterly,
utterly.

[Sweets America]

Yes, have you not felt it too - even in writing your most sad poem, some element of happiness in writing about and therefore triumphing over it?

Snapshot: X

A woman who is so naked in her clothes,
beneath the sheen of her charcoal-grey stockings
the sheen of her milky thighs
shines out so beckoningly
that I turn away in embarrassment
then look back, again and again.

Her mid-calf length black winter coat
beneath her long, loose brunette tresses
hardly conceals the round of her shoulders,
the thrust of her breasts, the mild hummock
of her tummy and the lissome strength
of her arms, which are such that I want nothing
but to give myself to her, utterly,
utterly.

What a pervert you are... Just kidding.

[CdnReader]

Snapshot: X

A woman who is so naked in her clothes,
beneath the sheen of her charcoal-grey stockings
the sheen of her milky thighs
shines out so beckoningly
that I turn away in embarrassment
then look back, again and again.

Her mid-calf length black winter coat
beneath her long, loose brunette tresses
hardly conceals the round of her shoulders,
the thrust of her breasts, the mild hummock
of her tummy and the lissome strength
of her arms, which are such that I want nothing
but to give myself to her, utterly,
utterly.

Magnificent! I love the repeat of "sheen" in lines 2 and 3....and "utterly,/utterly."

[PrinceMyshkin]

Pan-handler at the corner.
His usual post.
This time I take the long way around.

[PrinceMyshkin]

On Park Avenue a second storey balcony
sags as if yearning for the ground.
The windows of what was once a restaurant
are covered in manila paper.
The front door is wide open.
The street is still.

[CdnReader]

I love this, and I especially adore the photo of your grandkids. I think manila in this context is spelt with one "L", but I could be wrong. I have been before. Once, I think.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I love this, and I especially adore the photo of your grandkids. I think manila in this context is spelt with one "L",

You're right about that, thanks.

but I could be wrong. I have been before. Once, I think.

But not about this. Your "once" is at least the second time you're wrong!

[Sweets America]

On Park Avenue a second storey balcony
sags as if yearning for the ground.
The windows of what was once a restaurant
are covered in manilla paper.
The front door is wide open.
The street is still.

You know what? This one might be part of my favorites, because it tells so much! To me anyway. In it I hear the ending of something, the start of something new, the expectations and perhaps the fear of what is going to happen, you know it will strike soon but you don't know when. This emptiness is as exciting as it is frightful. Thank you.

[PrinceMyshkin]

You know what? This one might be part of my favorites, because it tells so much! To me anyway. In it I hear the ending of something, the start of something new, the expectations and perhaps the fear of what is going to happen, you know it will strike soon but you don't know when. This emptiness is as exciting as it is frightful. Thank you.

Yes, that is very much how it felt to me. The restaurant in question is on my route back from my Cafe, a familiar part of the street scene, and disturbing to see that it has failed or suffered a catastrophe.

[CdnReader]

Your "once" is at least the second time you're wrong!

[PrinceMyshkin]

There was a shotgun wedding
between truth and willed belief
but, after myriad visits to marriage counsellors,
they decided to split up, dividing between them
their respective ideologies.