SENSITIZE ©

Argie wrote:Side-effects

Smoke bills drifted around
after the long retained breath
hissed out grey and spent
and the pungent sweet scent
of stratified palls
filled the room...
Connections switched
sensations bewitched
us both,
sounds and senses and love;
and your mouth
was wide open,
gasping, as your heart was.

The heavy silken curtains
embroidered in threads
woven from past lifes
whose ghosts are still present
in the old house
were not enough to stop
a golden ray
that crept through
a crack in the window frame
and hit me
right in the eye:
it doesn't matter
if you are here,
nor whether 'tis day
or night.
It did, but not now.

© 2006 Salvador Oria

Wonderfully atmospheric piece Argie

For me it captures images of someone lying alone in a bed, remembering a past lover. I may be totally wrong here and if so, it wasn't intentional...

I've coloured the word 'lifes' in dark red font simply to serve your purposes. I'm not sure, but wouldn't it work better if the word was 'lives'? If I'm incorrect, email a punch in the face to me and I won't fight back...

Side-Effects: A lovely title too. At first obscure, but as I read and reread this piece, the images surfaced and took form...

Well played dude... Great work

I'm talking about the lives of different people who lived and died there. i.e. lives... thanks, this began as a draft I wrote a few days ago, pasted on here and made some corrections on the spot, direct...no copy kept (now I pinched it for my records) Shall edit right now...

Oh yes, you've got it right: the narrator remembers times past upon a reefer... or was he dreaming in his sleep when the light awoke him back to reality?

Life goes on...

Oriental Proverb - Auther Unknown wrote:"A man falls asleep and dreams he is a butterfly. The butterfly falls asleep and dreams he is a man. When the man wakes up he's not sure if he's a man or a butterfly..."

Very nice Argie - Subliminal ...

Feedback time? Oh good.

Super poem, Argie. Very atmospheric. I disagree with most of your line breaks, however... and a few (very few) other points.

Line one. Bills? I wondered what you meant by the word. Obviously not duck bills, nor bills for telephone/eletricity/car service etc. Then it occurred that maybe you mean the US 'bills' meaning paper money (notes, in other words). Wisps of smoke, like ten bob notes, drifting around? Presumably. It's unfortunate to trip over only the second word of a poem, but there you are; you know me -- picky as hell. If you meant some other, totally different meaning of 'bills', you've lost me completely.

Line two, I kept wanting to read as 'long after the retained breath...' but of course that has a different meaning, and I like the slightly unexpected word order of your original.

Lines three and four have end of line rhymes. These need to be internal. Then they'd work brilliantly. As it is, they're intrusive. No need to change any words, just the line breaks.

I don't much like the ellipsis after 'room'. I can see why it's there, but I still don't like it. I'd have used a stanza break instead. Possibly. I don't know.

Then you've got another couple of end of line rhymes, which again, need to be internal, both from the point of view of rhyme and rhythm, as you really don't want to be introducing a 'tee-tum, tee-tum' rhythm.

At the end of the first stanza, 'as your heart was' is a crude construction grammatically (bad to end a sentence with 'was' like that) so you could fix this by simply saying 'like your heart', but then we're wandering into Mills & Boon/ Harlequin romance territory, so maybe not. I'll have to think about that one.

Second stanza: this suffers, even more than the first did, from choppy line breaks that do the poem no favours. You need much longer lines for this one. This delivery here is too staccato; too abrupt for the subject matter.

Lovely ending (apart from the line breaks).

I'll copy and paste the poem here, and show you what I would have done with the lines to achieve more flow. I won't change any words at all. Probably. No. Really. I won't.


Side-effects

Smoke bills drifted around after the long retained breath
hissed out grey and spent and the pungent sweet scent
of stratified palls filled the room...

Connections switched, sensations bewitched us both,
sounds and senses and love; and your mouth
was wide open, gasping, as your heart was.

The heavy silken curtains embroidered in threads
woven from past lives whose ghosts
are still present in the old house

were not enough to stop a golden ray
that crept through a crack in the window frame
and hit me right in the eye:

it doesn't matter if you are here,
nor whether 'tis day or night.
It did, but not now.


Now that's interesting. It's come out in three line stanzas. I wasn't specifically aiming at that, but I think it looks good and works well. Anyway, it's a thought.

Delph

Whooosh..!

It's definitely got my vote. The whole piece moves freely for this reader. It is almost as though I know it by heart and was reciting it (with notes) to a group of family and friends or in performance at a small venue or theatre. By the way, speaking as a Performance Poet, this is simply superb work folks. Delph and Salvador, I believe this is your first Collaborative Work on Sensitize? Congratulations

I truly am in the presence of really cool writers and I think Sensitize & Upstate Renegade Productions Online © would be delighted if at some point, you both gave us the 'go ahead' to cast, direct, perform and produce this for the world...

I have learned so much from Delph's Critique that I believe I will be super-charged with creative energy, for a long, long time and very soon

Thanks Guys x

Luv Ya Both...

Cool People. Totally Cool

Hi Delph, long time no see ya!
When you began with your "bill" possible meanings I was completely outfoxed. What is this missus talking about? Because upon re-reading the poem my brain "translated" it automatically over and over into billows, as that was the intended word (which my lazy fingers shorthanded to bill) that I thought was there. If you were surprised imagine my own!
As usual you're right at least in your appreciation of how flow shold flow... and I like your three verse longer stanzas (although I'd place them one after the other) turning line end rhymes into internals that sound much better. Fortunately no one here cried for my life for suggesting the use of a forbidden weed. As a matter of fact I had my first puffs while I was in London in 1970. The club where I lived for some months (a posh W1 place in-between Shepherds' Market & Green Park) was very liberal about this and other things that I wouldn't describe here but I might write about one day. A generous guests' supply of reefers, spirits, tickets to shows & discos and friendly gals was always ready. After one two many I could have hanged from the one-arm-bandit and stay there until the sun broke the horizon line or breakfast was served whichever the first. Good ol' times those where one was able to park the Mini almost anywhere, drive all around the City and sunbathe at most public parks without interference.
PS: I'll change bill the kid for billows asap.

Aha! Billows! Don't know why I didn't think of that.

I wonder if I walked past you in London in 1970. Quite possibly. But if I did, I was probably on my way to the opera, or a concert; maybe an art gallery. I'm obviously far posher than you

Btw, you posted a poem about a snake, I think it was, on a site that I'd left some weeks earlier, and asked where I was with my scissors... well, I couldn't reply, as I'd had a major fall out with the management there and flounced off in a huff. I'm sorry you missed my huff. It was quite a good one.

I suspect the only site where both you and I are members, and both posting, is this one; so if you want any critique, please post your wondrous words here.

Cheers,

Delph

Dear Delph,
First of all I ought to apologise for having taken the best part of a month before coming back here to check what was your reaction after learning that the mysterious word was "billows".
We might have been together at Theatre Royal in 1970 since I certainly used a lot of my evening times in theatres (including peep shows if you can call that a kind of acting career), at Drury Lane, Covent Garden &c; the British Museum (ten to twelve times at 4 to 5 hours each), the races (horses, at times greyhounds, what else?) and visiting ancient monuments and protected (Brit. Heritage &c) houses scattered all over Britannia.
I may however have a difference with you over what to be posh is (not the acronym of course) and that is that to me you're either born one or there's nothing that may take you there whatever the effort put into it even getting the appropriate cabins when coming back from Burma. There are things that money can't buy and one Mrs. (definitely not "Ms") Nancy Mitford took the trouble to give a sound explanation about it in her much criticised 1956 booklet "Noblesse Oblige". But I may concede you to be better positioned within the English society than myself, although certain foreigners as me can also have good chances to be considered "one of us" if the proper words are used in the proper sense and the proper construction in ordinary conversation where manners prevail. Accent and certain pronunciation are also considered. The fact that my verbs and overall English construction was, and still is, murderous to your beautiful language, was never enough to keep me off the Junior Carlton and other gentlemen's exclusive clubs, perhaps because other characteristics - invisible to me - might have been taken into account. No, I am NOT a queer...

With regard to my poem about a snake that I found when I was child, posted somewhere else, I'll be honoured if you'd kindly look at it and tell me your ideas which, as you know, I rate as the best possible critique to find in all the web around. I'll open a new thread in the Poetry Section as soon as I find a good version and you'll soon be able to dumb at will your scissors' sharp edges on it. Thank you!

Argie, I'm obviously a low-life scumbag because, horror of horrors, I use serviettes rather than napkins. Miss Mitford would be aghast. However, be that as it may, I am, regrettably, rather posh. I know how to 'do' cutlery. I say the right things in polite society. I speak perfect received English (when I'm in the mood) thanks to an education at a lesser public school. I have an O level in Latin. I speak French (badly) and am accomplished at playing ladylike musical instruments, sketching country scenes, doing embroidery, and making gruel to take round to the peasants. I'm also a loony leftie ultra-feminist, which spoils the effect somewhat.

No, I reckon the thing is to be socially mobile, and I manage that well enough.

Loved the snake poem, by the way. Thanks for posting it.