Untimed Love

[Delta40]

Hitting a moving target
is like spoon feeding our baby
without any spillage
but the mashed vegies
still land in globs on the floor
and when you arrive home,
tossing your briefcase down,
you pass us by on your way to the lounge.
My hungry lips miss that soft place on your face
and I get a cursory taste of ear wax instead.
Our baby shivers at the awful concoction
I so lovingly prepared and screws up her face.
She cries on cue when you drown us out with the telly.
I coax her with another spoonful, quivering inside,
knowing once again the timing of our love
was always going to be out of sync.

[thebagman]

What about this one?

[Delta40]

What about this one?

lol. How about if you create your own interpretation of my poetry from now on?

[thebagman]

I'm not a big fan of poetry. Why can't people just say what they want to say in a more simpler way? I will admit that some of it does sound very pretty.

Your writing sounds scary and kinda depressing. You do know it is harder to write something joyful/positive and make it good rather than sad/depressing?

Is it something about neglect? I'm sorry, I don't know.

[Doralace]

It's such a sad, but well achieved poem (I hesitate re the last two lines, would you consider ending at "sync"?).

The bagman, I think you're trying to learn to feel poetry, on the contrary. Otherwise, would you be on these pages? Read Delta again (and others), but without preconceptions if you can; you'll discover a world of speaking images, a music of sounds, an arrow of pain...

[Delta40]

Thanks Dora. It's funny you say about ending at sync since it was the original ending and then I added the last two lines as an afterthought. Edited at your suggestion.

@ Bagman. It just so happens I do write happy poetry. I write historical, social and silly poems too. I use poetry as an outlet to express my creative self and I trust my mood at the time.

It can take a lifetime to get in touch with yourself and find the courage to voice it. I don't want to feel discouraged because it makes some people uncomfortable.

[thebagman]

I wasn't trying to say that all you write is negative poetry or even that it is a bad thing. I like negative art! It's easier to connect to (which is probably why it is easier to create). It's just every time I'm on here and I read your stuff it's always depressing.

To make something joyful and to share that feeling with others, that's where it's really at.

And shouldn't I be able to interpret poetry in any way I want?

[Delta40]

I wasn't trying to say that all you write is negative poetry or even that it is a bad thing. I like negative art! It's easier to connect to (which is probably why it is easier to create). It's just every time I'm on here and I read your stuff it's always depressing.

To make something joyful and to share that feeling with others, that's where it's really at.

And shouldn't I be able to interpret poetry in any way I want?

Yes you can interpret poetry in any way you want. It certainly saves the poet from having to explain to the reader!

To make something joyful and to share that feeling with others is also a good thing but I'm not sure what you mean by 'that's where it's really at' I can only assume you mean that you personally find happy joyful poems much more fulfilling than any other type. I don't have an issue with any readers personal preferences since I write first and foremost for myself.

[Twota]

Delta, I really like this one ;D specially ''I coax her with another spoonful, quivering inside'' the poor baby :D

[thebagman]

I mean that's what I think is the mark of a really gifted writer/artist.

To make something that celebrates life and not have someone look at it and go, "yeah, that's lame".

Not saying your work is lame, I'm just trying to explain my point of view.

[Twota]

hmm, bagman, i think it all depends on the mood, if you're depressed and sad, you 'ld like to read depressing poems to know you're not alone or so, human nature, i guess ''yeah, that's lame'' would make him feel better. If you are happy, you surely don't want to read about tears and sadness, my opinion. ;o

[PrinceMyshkin]

The poem is both painful and superb. And I read with interest your patient and respectful debate with Bagman about the relative value of "negative" and "positive" poems. Of course I don't agree at all that poems about suffering, disillusion or injustice are 'negative' poems. The only negative I can think of is too have expressed oneself glibly or in a manipulative manner.

[Delta40]

I mean that's what I think is the mark of a really gifted writer/artist.

To make something that celebrates life and not have someone look at it and go, "yeah, that's lame".

Not saying your work is lame, I'm just trying to explain my point of view.

I appreciate your point of view Bagman but a happy poem is not the mark of a really gifted writer.

This link gives some insight into what makes a poem good.

http://www.shortpoems.org/poems/what_makes_good_poem.html

[everyadventure]

Bagman, why are you spending time on poetry forums if you don't enjoy poetry? IMHO, a good poem is one that you read and think, "yes, that's TRUE!" I'm not talking about fiction vs. non-fiction, I'm talking about how a poem speaks to you, stirs you, makes you feel a spark of recognition. And Delta manages that with her poetry consistently.

As for this particular poem, I don't see where the confusion lies, it's very straightforward. Perhaps you have not had enough life experience to be able to relate to it? I, for one, have definitely been there.

Another gem, Delta.

[Dr.reid_16]

Bagman - In response to your question "Why can't people just say what they want to say in a more simpler way?" - to a poet, there are only very few words that please them, or get their point across. Delta has a massive vocab, and she uses it, it makes her happy. Poets should not have to please the readers, they just have to please themselves.

And another great one Delta, I enjoyed it! (:

[hillwalker]

Bagman - In response to your question "Why can't people just say what they want to say in a more simpler way?"

People can say what they want in a simpler way - that's what advertising copywriters are paid to do (treating the consumer like an imbecile).

Poets are not here to say things in a (more???) simpler way - they're here to open the reader's mind to other possible interpretations of life and experience.

I'm guessing you have yet to discover the point of poetry - or literature in general. Hopefully, spending more time on here you will eventually see that simpler doesn't always equal better.

H

[thebagman]

Hopefully I will learn to appreciate and understand poetry and literature in general by spending more time on these forums. Thanks for your thoughts Hillwalker and other people as well.

You know, how about you open my mind to new interpretations and life by explaining what this poem means to me?

Write a happy poem Delta! (or maybe you can't?)


I'm talking about how a poem speaks to you, stirs you, makes you feel a spark of recognition. And Delta manages that with her poetry consistently.

That's not what I was saying at all. All I was saying was that it is easier to be miserable and see things in a miserable way than it is to be happy or to see a brighter way and that is reflected in most peoples writing/poetry/art. Take a walk down the street. Do you see more smiles or frowns?

[everyadventure]

Okay, Bagman, show us how it's done. I could definitely go for a happy poem to lift my spirits today. Would you share a poem about something that makes you happy? Maybe you'll inspire us to pen something cheery.

[Delta40]

Are you daring me to write a happy poem Bagman? lol.

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62750

Well I dare you to understand it!

[Delta40]

Hopefully, spending more time on here you will eventually see that simpler doesn't always equal better.

H

Spot on. Just like the easy path doesn't make it the right path.

[hillwalker]

You know, how about you open my mind to new interpretations and life by explaining what this poem means to me?

My interpretation is that sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we never quite manage to get in complete sync with other people or situations. Our best intentions can go unnoticed because our timing was wrong; our plans can misfire because the other people involved had different agendas...

I could go on and on - basically it's about how we try to communicate with other people, and often fail.

If you weren't able to perceive any of the above from Delta's poem perhaps you need to pay more attention - you're beginning to remind me of someone sat in a cinema audience who keeps nudging the person sitting next to them and saying 'what was that?' - 'what just happened then?' - 'I don't get it'.

H :yawnb:

[thebagman]

Well I'm sorry, you know, I was hoping that maybe someone could help me understand poetry and maybe even like it but I don't think that will happen here. Poetry is, I guess, not for me and I should leave it to you people.

[beautiful_heart]

This is really a nice poem Delta. The lines quoted below are the ones which I like the most:

"She cries on cue when you drown us out with the telly.
I coax her with another spoonful, quivering inside,
knowing once again the timing of our love
was always going to be out of sync."

[yuka]

The last two lines are wonderful. Delta. I like

Sometimes some negative point maybe good for a writer, always positive, praising help nothing, just keep you stay still.

I reread your ‘My Pagan Gal” and found the original is much more poetic. If a writher create in some way for a long time, of course he/she will be much more smoothly to manage in that way, and the other way will be somehow difficult for him/her to control, another word, managing a familiar way to create definitely will lead to a better result, this is no doubt. Delta, I do agree with you that the easy path isn’t the right path, so, my experience told me, don’t believe those easy writing, they just blunt your inspiration of creating.

When it comes to the simplified, I believe every poem has its own simplified version, but it needs the writer to try to find it. It’s never easy. The genius exception! Like you said, poems demand different approaches according to their theme. It’s true, but I see no contradiction between it with simplified .

However, no matter what cases, as writers, we still own our easy-handle way to output our emotion, my meaning is, like Horace says, take a subject equal to your power, I edited it into: take a subject and descriptive way equal to your power. That is always the right thing for us to do.

[Delta40]

Thanks Yuka. What you say is insightful and I am happy to support you in your own poetic development.

Thanks BH. I don't really feel this poem is amongst my best and it was written more as a need to write rather than anything else.

Bagman I wish you well in other pursuits.