After the thump of winter

[PrinceMyshkin]

After the thump of winter
we pick ourselves up,
shake the frog blossoms
off of our hearts and look
at the waste of our country.


The immediate neighbourhood
is buckled beyond repair and bodies
are heaped up here and there
of those, pickled in despair,
who thought they were immune
to nature's ravages and the heart's.


If only the core of us were made
of wood, all we would need to fear
was the snap of predictable winter,
the crack of thaw.


But the seasons in us
are more random than that. Midnight
and fall are as likely to strike
in the middle of summer, or when
the sun is at its height.




J. Newman copyright

[gothic]

But the seasons in us
are more random than that. Midnight
and fall are as likely to strike
in the middle of summer, or when
the sun is at its height.




J. Newman copyright


WOW! no doubt seasons come and pass through us,prince,but this piece will be saved as a precious souvenir of winter in me.won't say winter is the season that I admire most,but this poem makes me do so! really a chilly poem,still somewhere a warmth was hidden,as I found.

[CdnReader]

Great stuff, Jer. Jen likes it too. :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

Great stuff, Jer. Jen likes it too. :)

Thanks, but in the spirit of the following


A Jewish mother gave her sons two ties for his birthday, a red and a blue one. Next time she saw him, he was wearing the red tie.

“Oh,” she said: “you didn’t like the blue one.”


I observe, "Oh, Hannah didn't like it!"

[motherhubbard]

with the guilt complex I already have, it's a good thing I wasn't born a Jew!

[Virgil]

A very good poem Prince. I like it very much. Only one phrase I didn't care for: "pickled in despair." Those type of phrases (awashed in love or bathed in hapiness) seem rather common and unimaginative. But the rest of the poem is excellent. The last stanza is a burst of imagination:

But the seasons in us
are more random than that. Midnight
and fall are as likely to strike
in the middle of summer, or when
the sun is at its height.

[PrinceMyshkin]

with the guilt complex I already have, it's a good thing I wasn't born a Jew!

Well, some are born Jewish and some have to find some other way to be pains in the--

What's that? I can't use that word here? I ASSumed that I could!

[ampoule]

A very good poem Prince. I like it very much. Only one phrase I didn't care for: "pickled in despair." Those type of phrases (awashed in love or bathed in hapiness) seem rather common and unimaginative. But the rest of the poem is excellent. The last stanza is a burst of imagination:


I still love being pickled in despair or awashed in love or bathed in happiness. **SIGH**
Ooops, sorry, I guess I'm supposed to comment on the writing of the poem and not my personal fantasies. Here it is, my boring old, I love it.

[PrinceMyshkin]

A very good poem Prince. I like it very much. Only one phrase I didn't care for: "pickled in despair." Those type of phrases (awashed in love or bathed in hapiness) seem rather common and unimaginative. But the rest of the poem is excellent. The last stanza is a burst of imagination:

Yes, I'll go along with that - not so much because the phrase is common or unimaginative - I don't believe poetry should strive at every turn to be striking - but rather whereas the rest of the language, I think, is seemingly effortless or spontaneous, this sticks out as the author trying to be striking. What's that saying by Joyce about how the author, like God, should be unseen, something about paring his fingernails...

[PrinceMyshkin]

I still love being pickled in despair or awashed in love or bathed in happiness. **SIGH**

Bravo! And how about your good old lost in a fog or found in a speak-easy in a state of semi-undress!

[AuntShecky]

You had me at "frog blossoms"
There's many a story in the ravages of a winter pothole!