Going Back

[Delta40]

I can't go back
to where I once was.
In the grey of yesterday;
Along steel tracks,
I meander
Under thick cloud
I huddle as if lost
like a love I once knew
The meaningless sound of
click, click, click
takes me nowhere
I can't go back
and tumble down
green valleys and rolling hills
or trip over a dead man.
Till I am ferried
to the other side
Here, alas, I remain
for an eternity of 32 seconds
till I can refresh my page
Never again will I doze
under a maple tree
My back button
won't let me sample
your written verse
like wines at a vineyard
I cannot linger
like a hanging corpse in a hallway
My mouse scurries away
each time I try to return

[PrinceMyshkin]

This reads to me simultaneously like a glitch on your computer and some deeper quandary, and it's all presented so gracefully. I was puzzled by the reference to tripping over a dead man; wasn't sure whether that was some cyber term I didn't recognize or something from whatever that experience called up, but I had to and did accept it in the sweep of this poem. One of your best, I think.

[dafydd manton]

Call me odd, but I really like the lack of punctuation, I think it's one of the more attractive elements of your poetry. Makes you look longer and think harder, about the whole rather than any single element. As ever, much enjoyed it,

[hillwalker]

This is a great poem Delta - not a passing thought (like many of your shorter pieces - good as they are).

I love the analogy between life (reflected here in tones of grey) and a laptop/web browser where our time is measured in clicks on the keyboard rather than tick-tocks of the clock (Mary's perhaps?) and where pressing that Back button in the top left hand corner or Refresh are so tempting when we goof up, but aren't up to the job of putting things right.

One of your best poems without a doubt.

[Delta40]

Thanks Hill. You're right that I often just write passing thoughts.

[dafydd manton]

Maybe so, but as one who knows little about poetry in the purest sense, I find that the instantaneous ones are more revealing, better and more entertaining than many of the laboured ones we see. OK, there are some beautifully crafted works, that isn't what I , ut sometimes we do come across the forced, the contrived, even (In my case) the crass, but these little snapshots to use Prince's phrase, are great. Long may it be so.

[Jerrybaldy]

A different Delta. Very undeltaesque. You lost me in a few places, but thats fine, the fun is as much in trying to understand as in acheiving. I have noticed a lot of railway line references, here, in hawks poem and in my poem of yesterday and I had a passing thought that Haunted's new avatar has subliminally influenced us!
cheers vegemite
Jerry

[Delta40]

My back button isn't working so I have to wait between searches and i am lamenting the places where I can't be or am stuck!

[hillwalker]

ah.... that dreaded place cyber-limbo cropping up yet again.

As Jerry suggests we seem to be metamorphosing into one collective mind; writing different poems but all inspired by a single set number of muses. Creepy!

[Delta40]

we'll grow out of it, I'm sure. I was thinking of the poems I had read when I penned this one though.

[Jerrybaldy]

Yes Hill. The railways and cyberland are running through various threads the last day or two. One collective mind.... yikes get out of there Daffy.

[Delta40]

don't forget the dead bodies....

[hillwalker]

Poor daf, I think one of us should go in after him. I volunteer... Jerry.

[dafydd manton]

Listen to the pouring rain
I left my lap-top on the train

Don't worry, chaps. 'Tis a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done before....

I'm just popping outside, I may be some time.....

[Jerrybaldy]

Come back Daf. matron says its time for your electric shock therapy. (Sod that Hill, you go and get him)

Oh yea Delta and dead bodies. OMG we have all morphed

[Delta40]

Deljerhilffy.....arrrgh!

[hillwalker]

No problem. I'll set the foxhounds loose..... Tally Ho!

[Delta40]

Hildel Jerffyd
was a morris dancer
who handled old ladies
and executed verse
while flying
from a tree branch

[Jerrybaldy]

delhaunmar danced the lambada
with a twist of eclectic knees
Hill set the foxhounds free
and the antipodean new yorkers
were all bitten but still corkers

[angliholic]

This is excellent at first read!
Like others said, Delta, your genre has also changed!
And I think it's good for you!

[Delta40]

..or is it Hildel Jerffy

[blank|verse]

Good stuff again, Delta.

The short lines work well here to express the seemingly depressed narrator's woes. I was a bit disappointed when the poem became more light-hearted and it was clear it was only a computer problem to blame, but that's just me!

[Delta40]

Good stuff again, Delta.

The short lines work well here to express the seemingly depressed narrator's woes. I was a bit disappointed when the poem became more light-hearted and it was clear it was only a computer problem to blame, but that's just me!

I wanted to write a quirky poem from the beginning but it got a little more sombre in its development. I might review this, take out the techno stuff and focus on its stronger theme