A Short Collection of Trashy Poems

Always so nice to get your feedback Bar, your comment brightens up my day. Thanks!

There are planes with 2/5/2 seating so if you pick the center row and no one else sits there, you can stretch out and sleep. Also if you get the right and left rows which just have 2 seats, it's great for traveling with a companion, more private. Downside is you can't stretch out. There are also 3/3/3 seating, not so good for hogging and sleeping but much better for "inside" people getting out as they don't have to tramble on so many people :D

stranded in a nor’easter


as if hypothermia
would take too long
the 50-mile gust wind
fills the slack
shooting off ice pellets
across the dim and
deserted mall parking lot

my face burns
before it goes numb

that's the cost
of closure

at least I got a refund
returning your present

the glass doors at Macy’s
slam open close open close
until they smash

I hold on to the shopping bag
as empty as the house
I'm going back to

Bravo for this last one! ^^^^ The last two stanzas are especially effective,
but I loved all of it.


Just returned from a short outing with my bitter half and the icy wind was actually painful. It's supposedly thirty-seven degrees, but the wind chill makes it seem like we're in Antarctica. (If it's like this in February, what are the notorious March winds going to be like? Still very little snow, though. I guess that's good, except for the ski resorts.)

would you believe? just returned from a meeting here where the holy city's gusts of wind lashed my whole body and got me frozen to the marrow! my face burned before it got numbed... you can't escape the cold wherever you are!
however, to read your "cold" poetry (under a warm quilt at the time like this!) is always heart warming while this poems tears it too, alas... but perhaps there is hope for N, for nature abhors emptiness and fills it as soon as it can!

keep warm, dear Haunted, ah, and the introductory lines to your poem are especially classy:

"as if hypothermia
would take too long..."

bravo!

from Bar

Hi Haunted,

a powerful, if chilly, image, but this line in S1 reads oddly to my Anglicised ear:

"the 50-mile gust wind
fills the slack"

To me it reads that the gust is 50 miles long as one would have expected to see "an hour" after, 'mile'. This would have made the line rather ungainly though. Is this a standard way of indicating wind speed on your side of the pond? You don't really need the word, 'wind' as gust is sufficient, and I would have gone for 'knot' rather than mile, as a knot, in context, is a measurment of speed. Also, slack is not so much filled as "taken up," but is slack the right word? Slack what? A slack sail could be filled by wind, I suppose, but hyopothermia is the subject of the sentence.

try:

"a fifty-knot gust
adds some chill"

In case you were wondering, I like the poem though - ;)

Live and be well - H

A joy to read. I could go on, but a joy to read should capture it. You were always good. You got even better.

There must be a nor'easter in cyberspace, I typed up a long reply and as if a gust of wind just blew it off my screen, poof, it was gone. Gone! arrrrhhh. So I apologized for a delayed thank you to everyone.

All the planets must have lined up that day, what are the odds that Auntie, Bar and Haunted all bowed to the same force of nature?

Auntie, exactly! Was trying to capture how painful it was, with the icy wind and sleet beating on the skin. It must be downright excruciating Upstate. But no snow is good where you are. We didn't' get much of anything here this year either. They said it's the jet stream. Usually they blame it on the poor guy El Nino. Now I'm rambling. Thanks for your kind words!!

Bar, just when I thought Jerusalem is all milk and honey! I hope you got out of the wind, especially if it carries sand. It must be cozy to be under the quilt afterwards. Yes, it will/would get better, because the emptiness is of the "house", not "life". Thanks for "tolerating" the cold in the poem in your sweet ways!

Hawk, I know, I wrote "gust" and somehow "wind" got added to it, don't ask me how!! I abbreviate things when I talk, I usually just say "50 mile wind", I assume everyone knows it's calculated as per hour. Anyway I do like the way it reads to you, a 50 mile long wind. I actually like that interpretation, can I keep it? Oh, keep that Anglicised ear open, I know I'll need help again. Glad you still find things to like in the poem.

Jerry, more joy to me to read your comments. I treasure every one of them. x

mirage



the heat was
a hologram
I could touch

in the distance
the lanes were shiny
like it just rained

and there you were
far up the road
wavy quivery
in the midday air

I raced to catch up with you
but no matter how fast I drove
you stayed distant

this can't be real

I stopped
swung the door open
doubled over
and retched
until there was nothing
left of me

I like this Haunt. The only suggestion I might make, would be to cut S3. Everything else about the poem is observational narrative, whereas this stanza is a speculative digression which doesn't really add much. For me it slows the poem down and dissipates its punch. The poem's ok as it is, but I feel it would be better without.

One thing though, there is a tense change in the penultimate single line stanza. everything else is in past tense but this one is present tense. I don't necessarily think this is a problem though. It is in the last stanza though, there's is a contraction for 'there is' and as this stanza has jumped back into past tense it should be, "there was."

to be honest I think the best fix would be to keep in present tense in the last stanza, altering its beginning to:

I stop
get out
double over
and retch
until there's nothing
left of me

Live and be well - H

Hawk, good call. I totally agree about S3. I took that out and instead elaborated on the mirage.

I'm always tense-challenged! I was aware of the single line, it's meant to be a thought of that moment. I could have ital'd it but... The last stanza is now all in past tense. Thanks for your help!

As often with your writing, this poem to has moved me and stopped my breath.
Just a thought, perhaps you could consider compacting S3 and 4, something like:

you seemed
quivery in the midday air,
distant,
no matter how fast I drove

I'd cut "this can't be real", too, I feel it somehow in the way. However, minor remarks aside, this is a heart tearing poem.

Thank you for sharing your art and its deep realities, dear Haunted.

Stunning.

This one has three remarkable features:

--those short, A. R. Ammons-style lines and the tight little stanzas ("strophes")

--accomplishes something it's very hard for a writer to do and that's extend the metaphor throughout the whole poem. From beginning to end, it never loses sight of its central motif, the mirage.

-- the word choices--"wavy, quivery" very expressive. Shows that even poems with sad themes can exhibit wit.

Splendid job.

Yr envious auntie
"A louse in the locks of literature."

Bar, I'm glad you feel the effects of this poem. I like your suggestion, it does read well. Because of the ending, I'll keep the narrative progression. As for that single line, I too find it a bit redundant. But the poem needs something to slow it down and the exclamatory emphasis seems ok. Thank you so much for your and sweet and thoughtful comment!


Jerry, so kind. Cheers.


Dear Aunt, I was really delighted by your encouraging words. Yes I try to be disciplined, so many thanks for validating that. As always your time in reading and commenting means a lot to me.

I especially like the word quivery Haunted and the effect of the mirage on after a rainy downpour on a hot day.