Fight.Now.(Version I)

[Jeos]

Inspired upon my experience on martial arts sparring.

120 beats per minute:
-Fight. Now.
It’s time to fight:
- Sky glide over your opponent
as an eagle around the prey
gathering power as a volcano
about to erupt
and when you move do-not-move
-but–slide, Silent & Invisible
like the passage of an archangel ...

it’s time to fight -
throw the body into the strife.
Hitting like an avalanche
there is none to strike - only striking
and a few minutes and a limited scope
have a bitter-sweet taste:
-The taste of Chaos and eternity and
above all the taste of Chaos ...

each time we give all we have
it’s as we had just come into the world
without unclosed scars
nor unhealed injuries…
smile flowing wings hatching
our eyes become again

the mirror of the soul…

[Delta40]

Jeos, firstly I would remove the colons, dashes and continued sentences and then see how your poem stands by itself. They do nothing to help or emphasize what you're trying to say and so only get in the way. Take them out and let your words speak for themselves.

My other suggestion is to personalize it. Make it about I rather than we. This would make the last stanza particularly more powerful when replaced with 'I'

[hillwalker]

Sorry, Jeos - but disastrously distracting punctuation aside - is it an eagle? or a volcano? or an archangel? or an avalanche?

I don't have a clue what you're trying to convey here. It left me wondering what on earth you were trying to make us focus on. Far too muddled.

And that closing line has nothing to do with the rest of the poem. It's a worn out cliche well past its sell-by date.

H

[Jeos]

Sorry, Jeos - but disastrously distracting punctuation aside - is it an eagle? or a volcano? or an archangel? or an avalanche?

I don't have a clue what you're trying to convey here. It left me wondering what on earth you were trying to make us focus on. Far too muddled.

And that closing line has nothing to do with the rest of the poem. It's a worn out cliche well past its sell-by date.

H

Thank you for having noticed my text and for your comments.
Now let's see:
- About what i'm trying to make you to focus on: so our fellow poet Delta understood it perfectly but not you...?
-Hillwalker the meaning is clear as crystal-water: it’s about what a fighter might feel during a fight…but instead of writing it in the first person I’m addressing myself to a fellow (but less experienced) martial arts practitioner. The volcan, the eagle,etc: Certain processes of collecting and/or expressing energy during a fight can be compared to natural phenomena or to the behaviour of some predators.
- Punctuation: any poem is susceptible of improvement still I remember you your own words - "there are no rules in contemporary poetry". Be patient and give me a concrete exemple .

Best

[Jeos]

Jeos, firstly I would remove the colons, dashes and continued sentences and then see how your poem stands by itself. They do nothing to help or emphasize what you're trying to say and so only get in the way. Take them out and let your words speak for themselves.

My other suggestion is to personalize it. Make it about I rather than we. This would make the last stanza particularly more powerful when replaced with 'I'

Thanks Delta.
You could have been an excellent martial artist for you had no problems with what I’m trying to make you focus on...So you are an adept of completely abolishing punctuation? Even "stops"(.)?Interesting...I'm going to try it, ...together with the "I" thing,why not.

[Delta40]

I mean only use that punctuation which is necessary. For example - : & ... do not give your poem any value whatsoever and are distracting. Your poem only requires commas and fullstops, perhaps an exclamation after 'Now' if that is the effect you wish to achieve. Another way to get an effect is to look at the format of the poem. Where your line breaks happen will make a difference too.

[Bar22do]

I got the meaning, Jeos, perhaps because I have some notions of the martial arts. However, I agree with Hill, "the mirror of the soul" is totally unnecessary here, especially as your poem's closure. I'd to without the repetition and therefore would leave out "It's time to fight" (L3). "Silent and invisible" don't need to capitalized, IMO and I prefer "and" to "&". Likewise, in my view, L10 doesn't add to your poem's flow. Try your poem without them. Only a suggestion, of course.
Delta gives you a perfect guidance as punctuation is concerned.
Thanks a lot for sharing, Jeos, greetings.

[Jeos]

I got the meaning, Jeos, perhaps because I have some notions of the martial arts. However, I agree with Hill, "the mirror of the soul" is totally unnecessary here, especially as your poem's closure. I'd to without the repetition and therefore would leave out "It's time to fight" (L3). "Silent and invisible" don't need to capitalized, IMO and I prefer "and" to "&". Likewise, in my view, L10 doesn't add to your poem's flow. Try your poem without them. Only a suggestion, of course.
Delta gives you a perfect guidance as punctuation is concerned.
Thanks a lot for sharing, Jeos, greetings.

it is for me to thank you - Bar22 (excellent rhyme hein). I'm already preparing a rigorous revised version according my filtering of all the constructive comments.

Best

[Haunted]

Thank you for having noticed my text and for your comments.
Now let's see:
- About what i'm trying to make you to focus on: so our fellow poet Delta understood it perfectly but not you...?
-Hillwalker the meaning is clear as crystal-water: it’s about what a fighter might feel during a fight…but instead of writing it in the first person I’m addressing myself to a fellow (but less experienced) martial arts practitioner. The volcan, the eagle,etc: Certain processes of collecting and/or expressing energy during a fight can be compared to natural phenomena or to the behaviour of some predators.
- Punctuation: any poem is susceptible of improvement still I remember you your own words - "there are no rules in contemporary poetry". Be patient and give me a concrete exemple .

Best

I saw your feistiness in the "when your through" thread and the sourness is carried into here. If you keep this up, it will hurt you in the end.

You can't expect people to leave you comments, and you certainly can't demand it, and then be sarcastic when they do.

People don't read everything, and we are not paid to write comments. Most only read what interest them. So take that as a clue. If no one is commenting, maybe your work is not that good or interesting enough to get anyone's attention.

So that leads to rule #1:
You can't bore people into reading your stuff.

OTOH you would get people to comment if it's really awful. That's reverse psychology and it's really not practical. Its a waste of everyone's time.

If there's anyone here who you look up to and he/she isn't commenting, you can PM or VM them and ask them NICELY.

And that leads to rule #2:
You can't denigrate people into saying good things about your stuff.

Rebuttals like "So our fellow poet Delta understood it perfectly but not you...? Hillwalker the meaning is clear as crystal-water" is just dumb. Are you trying to diminish the commenter? And you wonder why no one was commenting on your work???

Seriously why do you feel you have to pit one commenter against another? Just because Delta understands you, doesn't mean everyone will understand you. You need to point the question back at yourself: why didn't everyone understand it?

Reason: people are on different wavelength so there will be people who don't see it your way AND it's ok!

Another possible reason: Just because you think it is "clear as crystal-water" doesn't mean it is. You need go back and revisit what you wrote, tear it apart if you should. It's more productive to find another way to connect with them, tweeting or rewriting, than criticizing them. If you are totally comfortable with it, then stick with what you've got.

I really suggest you drop the attitude and instead focus on making your writing interesting enough to warrant comments.

[Volya]

I like the first two stanzas, and the third one was decent. I understood it all perfectly except for the final few lines:

'smile flowing wings hatching
our eyes become again

the mirror of the soul… '

Not quite sure what you're trying to say there.

I also echo Delta's earlier comment about removing some of the punctuation, it makes it harder on the eyes and doesn't add anything to it really.

[Jeos]

Thank you for your good taste and constructive comments, Volya. You know what's good, despite your young age.

[Jeos]

Woooaaoohh ! I will not waste my time replying more than this.

I saw your feistiness in the "when your through" thread and the sourness is carried into here. If you keep this up, it will hurt you in the end.

You can't expect people to leave you comments, and you certainly can't demand it, and then be sarcastic when they do.

People don't read everything, and we are not paid to write comments. Most only read what interest them. So take that as a clue. If no one is commenting, maybe your work is not that good or interesting enough to get anyone's attention.

So that leads to rule #1:
You can't bore people into reading your stuff.

OTOH you would get people to comment if it's really awful. That's reverse psychology and it's really not practical. Its a waste of everyone's time.

If there's anyone here who you look up to and he/she isn't commenting, you can PM or VM them and ask them NICELY.

And that leads to rule #2:
You can't denigrate people into saying good things about your stuff.

Rebuttals like "So our fellow poet Delta understood it perfectly but not you...? Hillwalker the meaning is clear as crystal-water" is just dumb. Are you trying to diminish the commenter? And you wonder why no one was commenting on your work???

Seriously why do you feel you have to pit one commenter against another? Just because Delta understands you, doesn't mean everyone will understand you. You need to point the question back at yourself: why didn't everyone understand it?

Reason: people are on different wavelength so there will be people who don't see it your way AND it's ok!

Another possible reason: Just because you think it is "clear as crystal-water" doesn't mean it is. You need go back and revisit what you wrote, tear it apart if you should. It's more productive to find another way to connect with them, tweeting or rewriting, than criticizing them. If you are totally comfortable with it, then stick with what you've got.

I really suggest you drop the attitude and instead focus on making your writing interesting enough to warrant comments.

[Volya]

Thank you for your good taste and constructive comments, Volya. You know what's good, despite your young age.

I dislike the arrogance that seems to pervade this post.

[hillwalker]

Thank you for your good taste and constructive comments, Volya. You know what's good, despite your young age.

You obviously appreciate when someone offers you flattery and embarrass those who offer it by pitting their opinions against those of us who find your efforts less than perfect.

- - - - -

Now the gloves come off (see - I also have an understanding of martial arts, grasshopper).

Unfortunately, I also lack patience with so-called poets who consider themselves so fragile and their work so precious that a little criticism here and there doesn't suit their egos.
Take it from a discerning reader - this poem is a disaster area.

Forget about rules - whether they exist or not. Concentrate on writing in such a manner that your readers can visualise what you are trying to show them. 'Crystal-clear'? You're making a fool of yourself.

- - - - -

The first line presumably refers to your heart rate - accelerating as you prepare for combat. It's a vivid opening.

But why the hyphen before 'Fight'? And why 'Now' also as a separate sentence? You're breaking up the flow - intentionally one assumes. But for two heart beats it hardly seems worth the effort.

Then 'It's time to fight' repeats what you have already told us - and it's obviously not a recognisable line of poetry so it can be dispensed with. Take us to the action instead of delaying.

Another hyphen - (preceded by nothing so it's unnecessary) then we get to the 'poetry':

Sky glide over your opponent
as an eagle around the prey
gathering power as a volcano
about to erupt

Now we suddenly have three images that bear little relationship to each other - but you've placed them in your poem to convey the stages a fighter goes through.
'sky glide' - is this supposed to mean a sky diver (someone who leaps out of a plane) or is it a creature gliding 'over' his opponent (in the sky)? I'm confused by the word 'sky' in this context. Then you tell us you are 'over' your opponent like an eagle 'around' the prey. Eagles hover above their prey - they don't go 'around' anything. This image could have been made clearer and simpler by something like 'glide like an eagle above your prey' if that's what you wanted us to envisage.
So far so good.

But then we have the new image of a 'volcano... gathering power to erupt'. Eagles don't behave like this, so we're supposed to erase that picture from our minds and focus on a volcano now.
That's why it's not working for me. You're not extending the metaphor of the fighter's graceful, predatory instincts like an eagle - you're drawing a picture of uncontrollable fury. So presumably we are now inside the fighter's head rather than watching his fluid movements. The two need to be kept apart because neither is linked to the other. The best way to do this would be to have them examined more closely in separate stanzas.

Then we are given some enigmatic extract from an oriental self-defence manual:
and when you move do-not-move
-but–slide, Silent & Invisible
like the passage of an archangel followed by an ellipsis.

It's rather amusing to watch someone create nonsense like this and expect us to take it seriously - but it's not poetry. Why are so many words conjoined by hyphens again? And where does an 'archangel' fit into this metaphor? It's ostentatious - and again not particularly poetic.

The next stanza repeats what you have already told us earlier:
it’s time to fight
followed by an awkward line
throw the body into the strife. - 'strife' in this context meaning the fight, rather than a general discord or conflict presumably. A strange choice of words. And again it reads like a set of instructions rather than a line of poetry.

Hitting like an avalanche

Avalanches engulf in an instant - they don't 'hit' so much as annihilate. An ineffective metaphor - and the next 3 lines that follow make even less sense:
there is none to strike - only striking
and a few minutes and a limited scope
have a bitter-sweet taste:

Then we have more bizarre punctuation:
-The taste of Chaos and eternity and
above all the taste of Chaos ...
This in my opinion is baloney, I'm sorry to say. Why you choose to link 'chaos' with 'eternity' I can't imagine - and neither have a taste since they are abstract concepts... I think you're trying to appear enigmatic but failing miserably.

By this time I realised you'd stopped writing about the fight and gone on some other trip who knows where:

each time we give all we have
it’s as we had just come into the world
without unclosed scars
nor unhealed injuries…
Can you explain what the underlined couplet means?

smile flowing wings hatching
Is this the eagle again - before it was a chick?
Anyone who can make sense of this deserves a medal.

And that closing pair of lines -
our eyes become again
the mirror of the soul...

If you think this is inspirational poetry than good luck.
As for your dwindling fan club - consider my membership cancelled. Your arrogance is breathtaking.

H

[Bar22do]

Your sense of your own (present) abilities as a poet, Jeos, may be largely exaggerated.

Hill is a gift for whoever is offered his comment here, whether tough or appreciative. We all learn loads from him. If you take his guidance you'll have a greater chance to grow in the field of poetry. He's been more than patient (and certainly generous) while analyzing your version I here, especially seeing your attitude.
Haunted is a wonderful poetess and the last person to get irritated. Your contemptuous attitude towards her honest, justified warning jeopardizes your chances to get read and commented on this forum.

I suggest you put aside your ego and learn from this experience.