The Writers Block

Revision #2

Vistors stroll and lounge
across the museum grounds,
scarves are banners in the breeze,
jackets fly open and whole families tilt
like umbrellas making portraits of themselves.

My first day unaccompanied
from the Menninger Clinic.

In the Greco-Roman enclave headless statues
become sunbathers and expose their flawless,
alabaster muscles.

You were wetted by the lawn sprinkler.
Is it called a jersey, your smock?
Purple as any night that has come on.
Black high heels in your hand.

I took your picture back-dropped
by a delivery truck, diesel smoke
from the exhaust funnel moving opposite
the direction of your long matted hair.

We had not met.
You said: Aimez-vous Rothko?

Maybe i saw someone like you once.
Perhaps in another autumn swirlled with rain
as we walked. I think of wind turned cold,
a storm calmly blown against us
and the smell of freshly fallen leaves.

You said I was handsome as the Prince of Wales.
We sat together like old friends until a lattice
of shadows fell across your face and the final
patrons retraced their steps and disappeared.

Even now, when we kiss and your lips
are red as a fire eater
and your teeth white as cherry orchard,
I’m not completely out of danger.












Revision #1

At that hour on the museum grounds
a sun, moon white fills the shallows.

Vistors stroll and lounge,
scarves become banners in the breeze,
jackets fly open and whole families tilt
like umbrellas making portraits of themselves.

My first day unaccompanied
from the Menninger Clinic.

In the Greco-Roman enclave headless statues
become sunbathers and expose their flawless,
alabaster muscles.

You were wetted by the lawn sprinkler.
Is it called a jersey, your smock?
Purple as any night that has come on.
Black high heels in your hand.

I took your picture back-dropped
by a delivery truck, diesel smoke
from the exhaust funnel moving opposite
the direction of your long matted hair.

We had not met.
You said: Aimez-vous Rothko?

Maybe i saw someone like you once.
Perhaps in another autumn swirlled with rain
as we walked. I think of wind turned cold,
a storm calmly blown against us
and the smell of freshly fallen leaves.

You said I was handsome as the Prince of Wales.
We sat together like old friends until a lattice
of shadows fell across your face and the final
patrons retraced their steps and disappeared.

Even now, when we kiss and your lips
are red as a fire eater
and your teeth white as cherry orchard,
I’m not completely out of danger.






Original

At that hour on the museum grounds
a bandage white sun filled the shallows,
strollers in flapping yellows and reds
on the fallow grass, a silver nitrate
opening on the photographer’s glass plate.

In the Greco-Roman enclave
headless statues turned alabaster stomachs
toward the afternoon.

Wet by the lawn sprinkler I took your picture
back dropped by a delivery truck, diesel smoke
from the exhaust funnel moving in the opposite
direction of your long matted hair.

We had not met, you said: Aimez-vous Rothko?

Even now, when we kiss and your lips are red
as a fire eater and your teeth white as cherry orchard,
I’m not completely out of danger.

Here are my tweaks to make this more immediate and tight. I love the end and could even have another stanza about why she is so dangerous. What does she do to you? Is she a painter? I want more!!!



At that hour on the museum grounds
a bandage white sun filled the shallows, ***i am in love with this up to the words "streaming colors"
strollers on the fallow grass
streaming colors like silver nitrate opening ***this is hard to imagine
on the photographer's glass plate.

In the Greco-Roman enclave
headless statues turned alabaster stomachs ***make turned 'turn'
toward the afternoon.

You were wetted by the lawn sprinkler ***wet
and I took your picture back dropped ***back-dropped
by a delivery truck, diesel smoke
from the exhaust funnel moving in the opposite
direction of your long matted hair. ***long, matted

We had not met, you said: Aimez-vous Rothko? *** We had not met. You said: Aimez-vous Rothko?

Even now, when we kiss and your lips are red
as a fire eater and your teeth white as cherry orchard, ***Maybe 'petals in a cherry orchard'
I’m not completely out of danger.

J---


i've picked up your corrections except one.

i like "wetted."

the situation is odd, a woman becoming wet from a sprinkler at a museum, so wanted a small recognition there and i also like that the word fits this narrator. you wondered out loud about additional story, i've added lines that might flesh that out, but not so much that we identify the narrator's low grade paranoia.

menningers, of course, a well known psychiatric center---once in topeka kansas where many movie stars came for treatment.



as for petals...sorry, don't like that word in this context...i think you see why.


thanks so much.


bernie

Mojave,

I see this changed while I was still digesting the first draft. So, let me just ask about this part now:


You said i was handsome like the Prince of Whales.
My shirt tale was out, I flapped like a dry sheet
on a washing line.

"Whales" and "tales" or Wales and tails? Thanks.

pen

Pen---


thanks.


wales



bernie

Bernie, this is really getting there! Love the additional details. See my notes below.



At that hour on the museum grounds
a bandage white sun filled the shallows,
strollers on the fallow grass
stream colors, jackets boil in the breeze, ***like jackets boil, but not in the breeze
scarves trail like banners, whole families if there is a 'bandage white sun',
tilt and form portraits as i look on.

My first day unaccompanied ***perfect, that's all we need to know
off the Menninger grounds.

In the Greco-Roman enclave ***great/
headless statues turn the flawless
muscles of their alabaster stomachs
toward the afternoon like sunbathers.

You were wetted by the lawn sprinkler.
Is it called a jersey, your smock? ***also, perfect. Now we know she's a painter.
Purple as any night that has come on. ***superb line!!!
Your underwear discretely out of sight, ***don't know if you need this
the black high heels in your hand.

I took your picture back-dropped
by a delivery truck, diesel smoke
from the exhaust funnel
moving in the opposite direction
of your long, matted hair.

We had not met.
You said: Aimez-vous Rothko?

Maybe i saw someone
like you once in a crowd.
Perhaps another autumn swelled
with rain as we walked by.
I think of wind turned cold,
a storm calmly blown against us ***maybe remove 'calmly'
and the smell everywhere
of freshly fallen leaves.

You said i was handsome
like the Prince of Wales.
My shirt tale was out,
I flapped like a dry sheet
on a washing line. ****great stanza

Even now, when we share a kiss ****I think this works better without 'share'
and your lips are red as a fire eater
and your teeth white as cherry orchard,
I’m not completely out of danger.

Yes, prince of whales was interesting, I thought of a blue tailed captain towering over a school of dolphins.

The poem was very descriptive and I assume refers to the phychiatric clinic in Texas set up by Meninger. Meninger apparantly thought that mental illness was indictaive of demon possesion. In the first version the peot speaks of museum grounds, in the sceond he changed tack and inserts Menninger, if it is a mental clinic it is reinforced with the term 'Bandage white'.

The silver nitrite and glass plates seems to date the period of the poem as early 19th century. 'Off the Menninger grounds' is a puzzle, dos it mean escorted off, or should it be on?

Diesel smoke suggest a later date for the time frame, maybe 1930's.

Is matted hair right? Do you mean plaited heir, isn't matted a refreence to disorder, if the person is apteint then her her could very well be matted, untidy, a mess.

There was a guy on Poet's dot org who played up every time a simile was used, he hatted them, and ever since I have tried to keep my similes to a minimum, I don't know if anyone has noticed. I am not sure about this but things do seem to flow better without similes.

I am not sure about jackets boiling in the breeze, it seems a contradiction somehow, are the Texas winds cool or blazing hot?
Fallow and bandage are in your last two poems , have you noticed.

Maybe I saw someone like you once, who is the speaker the lady in purple or you?

Maybe nickpicking, but you could lose 'everywhere', it seems redundant somehow.

It took me two minutes to work out 'white as a cherry orchard' until I realised the blossums, nice making us stop and think.

The small 'i's' are diconcerting, is there a reason for this other than typos?

'Purple as any night that has come on', 'purple as any night', would do just as well imho.

The 7th stanza was just right, I enjoyed it and read it several time, maybe dop the everywhere, it's not needed is it. 'Maybe I saw someone'.

It's rather subdued for a love story but it works, it reocunts, the problem is if it is a mental clinic, who are the two people? Doctors, visitors or patients. I would say the POV was a patient because at one point he was allowed to walk the grounds unaccompanied. or do you mean the first day outside of the grounds.

Still, it is rather nice to wonder who is who and who is a pateint or a visitor, unless I have read it comletly worng whitch I can do very easily.

Jennifer---
Ieuanaphyw---

made most of the changes you advised.

believe the poem is stronger now.

and yes, jennifer, the underwear is gone.

was remembering a line from the michael mann movie, manhunter---that became silence of the lambs. the blind woman tells the serial murderer in a tender scene that she likes him, because he is so direct.

stuck with me. this narrator is direct, too. that's why he mentions the underwear and even his own latent paranoia.


this poem began with only one thought, that last line. writing, often, involves constructing and not waiting for achieved inspiration. i believe in posting, using the resource of other poets. doctors do that, they gather over a case, consult, advise each other.

i also like to experiment, i'm not the insecure type and i feel confident that when a good line comes, i'll know it. however, that decision need not be rushed. every poem need not be perfect at the time of posting. i trust the process.


I---

like and as.

i sure understand.

but i go my own way, reducing or eliminating when possible, but there is no absolute rule in my mind. i believe i know the individual you mention, retired and a former teacher of english.

i often use like and as for placeholders, to allow me to concentrate on the image first, then specific support language. that often allows elimination of the simile like construction.

but the idea is to write, edit later. hence, repeating the bandage image and the word fallow---both gone now. mistakes, typos, and miscalculations---as Blance says in streetcar named desire: i rely on the kindness of strangers.


sorry to be rushed just now, but it is almost 8am and the day job beckons.


I---good to see you writing and so active---plz continue. and jennifer, you seem to be taking more chances yourself---good.


i was just re-reading some ted hughes/sylvia plath correspondence---this plath poem reminded itself to me regarding similie:

Morning Song

by Sylvia Plath


Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise likeballoons.




Love set you going likea fat gold watch.

love/sex that made a baby.







bernie

Bernie,

I did a stanza by stanza and it did not post. I will try again later. I am heartbroken.

pen

I was afflicted with the same thing, Pen and Bernie. I will have to come back and start again.

Cheers,

Bernie,

I do not normally do this because it tears, pulls from inside, but, here it is, an excerpt from Rilke's Requiem to a Friend, source, http://www.paratheatrical.com/requiemtext.html

"And that is how I have cherished you -- deep inside the mirror, where you put yourself, far away from all the world. Why have you come like this and so denied yourself ? Why do you want to make me think that in the amber beads of your self-portrait, there was still a heaviness that can’t exist in the serene heaven of paintings ? Why do you show me an evil omen in the way you stand ? What makes you read the contours of your body like the lines engraved inside a palm, so I cannot see them now except as fate ? Come into the candlelight. I’m not afraid to look the dead in the face. When they return, they have a right, as much as other things do, to pause and refresh themselves within our vision. Come; and we will be silent for a while. Look at the rose on the corner of my desk: isn’t the light around it just as timid as the light on you ? It too should not be here, it should have bloomed or faded in the garden, outside, never involved with me. But now it lives on in its small porcelain vase: what meaning does it find in my awareness ? Don’t be frightened if I understand it now; it’s rising in me, ah, I’m trying to grasp it, must grasp it, even if I die of it. Must grasp that you are here. As a blind man grasps an object, I feel your fate, although I cannot name it. Let us lament together that someone pulled you out of your mirror’s depths."
----

There is much more in that link, and it is not too long.

You commented on paranoia; museum grounds paired against a sick moon white sun that fills the shallows (the light, for some), turned to a sort of paradise in the revision, strollers laugh and eat , scarves become banners and the image in my mind is of angels and those statues later are so white, so still, so flawless, and here, too the self-portraits, mirrors of themselves.

Then, she appears, and it seems the narrator has seen her in the past, mentions autumn, the descent to winter, yet she is brought back to life, mirrors, memory, reality merge in timelessness as statues do. The sensuality of the wet t-shirt picture, yet the color is purple, so close to a night blue sky, and she is on her way out, in her work clothes, shoes in her hand, and fate, "two straight lines can only meet at one point where they cross," an absolute. Mindless, without a worry, perhaps, "headless", no need to dig for depths, it is all spelled out.

The narrator rises on his own again and I think of a resurrection of sorts, he, too, seeks the light, the beauty, the echo, mirror, evidence of fate, 'have I seen you before, have we something in common, art'? Fresh smell of leaves yet afraid, of what?

*This is not what I had posted but did not paste before. I will try again.

pen

Bernie,

I wish I could repeat, but I start anew, so no preliminary comments now, sorry about this, meaning mostly pointing to minor details.

The beach comes in, and I wonder if it would do just as well without it as without sunbathers, as you have those statues perfect bodies and the setting is a museum and sprinklers go off in its grounds.

Kin looking down, reminds me of how they look at newborn babies, doctors at patients, so on. I am not supposed to do this, but I find it inevitable to wonder about the author's mind, how much is intentional and how much comes from way inside, unawares, and I question myself in this as well; why is it that we need to express, besides the obvious need to communicate; to hear ourselves, to understand ourselves, to allow our own expression to speak to us and reveal to us what sneaks out in diverse and mysterious forms?

The following stanza is sheer inspiration, almost out of context, a sort of evidence of an apparition, let the photo capture it so it/she will not escape; wonderful.

I took your picture
back-dropped by a delivery truck,
diesel smoke from the exhaust funnel
moving in the opposite direction
of your long, matted hair.


(Above, the smoke moving in the opposite direction, again, something slips away, fate plays a trick, holographic existence, Killianesque).


My comments seem to have gone the way of a quote before redoing this, so I will not repeat, but mention that a storm calmly blown
has a peacefulness about it that I like, a wish of lingering moment expressed as subtly as the thought passes through my mind as I read, reenforced by the fresh smell of leaves. Why not just 'fresh' to avoid two adverbs ending in 'ly'?

I lost the quote now, but there was something about commas, twice, where they are really optional correct to add or allow one modifier to modify the modifier, one I recall is "long matted hair" I believe. There was another such instance, I think before alabaster muscles, and my question is, if a pause is desirable, then, comma, but to me, a pause in these two instances is not desirable; purely personal.

I do not get to imagine the shirttail pulled out as a dry towel and I also think the picture is plenty good without the towel.

The vampiresque ending is intriguing. Its ambiguity leaves this reader uneasy, and if that is the author's intent, it works. I do not mind imagining the meaning, answering the question of what the danger may consist of, leave it to the reader's changing mood as he rereads.

A poem that evoking several senses and with more 'intangible' depth than it lets on with its mostly concrete descriptions.

Great poem!

pen

Hello Bernie-

This satisfies like a well prepared meal. The excerpt Pen posted has a similiar tinge to yours. It is quite lovely.


Revision #1

At that hour
on the museum grounds
a sick room white sun (I miss "a bandage white sun" I remember the civil one that appeard in another poem but I like it here too)
fills the shallows,
strollers laugh and eat, (At first I thought baby carriages= strollers, so I thought it strange but then I went aha and all was well)
jackets fly open,
scarves become banners
in the breeze
and whole families tilt
like beach umbrellas (Oh, I love this image)
making portraits of themselves
as i look on. <-- Do you really need this?

My first day (Intiguing. Enjoyed learning this about the speaker)
unaccompanied
from the Menninger clinic.

The next 5 lines are beautiful.

In the Greco-Roman enclave
headless statues
become sunbathers and expose
their flawless, alabaster muscles
to the afternoon.

And now we know a bit about her. I like the those heels in her hand very much

You were wetted
by the lawn sprinkler.
Is it called a jersey, your smock?
Purple as any night that has come on.
Black high heels in your hand.

The next lines is such a touristy thing to do yet it feels personal, like I'm spying on the spy.

I took your picture
back-dropped by a delivery truck,
diesel smoke from the exhaust funnel
moving in the opposite direction
of your long, matted hair.

We had not met.
You said: Aimez-vous Rothko? (Ah, her inspiration?)

The following is wonderfully expressed. It takes a turn inward which I enjoyed.

Maybe i saw someone like you once
in a crowd. Perhaps another autumn
swelled with rain as we walked by.
I think of wind turned cold,
a storm calmly blown against us
and the smell of freshly fallen leaves.

You said I was handsome
as the Prince of Wales.
My pulled out shirttail a dry towel
on a wash line.

Even now, when we kiss
and your lips are (red as a) fire eater[s]
and your teeth white as cherry orchard,
I’m not completely out of danger.

Love happy endings.

Pen---

thanks for your detailed comments.

the shirttail is tucked in, or out, somewhere else. goodbye brooks brothers blue shirt, your sleeves rolled and your manicured sides slender as a girl in the Folies Bergère.

LOL.



Yoly---

bandage, sadly, gone back to red cross.

the slightly odd phrasing of the last S i would like to keep. the image is so unconventional, teeth white as cherry orchard...etc.


the Menninger Clinic only lately moved from Topeka, Kansas, to Texas.

the Clinic was the premiere treatment facility for the rich and the famous.

Gene Tierney was there.

years later, i read her autobiography, in which she described hearing lions roar at night. the roaring convinced her she was ill and she redoubled her efforts to accept treatement and get well.

the clinic, well known to local folks like me and my friends, was only a stone throw from the Gage Park Zoo with a fine collection of large, wild animals including handsome lions and tigers.

but if you came from hollywood, there would be no way to know you were almost within walking distance of a wild animal park.

ms tierney was released, married hedy lamar's ex husband, a texas oil tycoon, and was very happy until her death from emphzema some years later. my mother loved ms tierney, but i don't think the story of the lions was known to her.

thanks again for the stroll down memory lane.

aimez-vous rothko?


bernie



White over Red
Mark Rothko


http://www.fulcrumgallery.com/Mark-Roth ... _99833.htm

http://www.fulcrumgallery.com/a24756/Ma ... bAodRibSmA

Thank you for the back-story.
Yo? Not too familiar with it. Un poco.

Bernie,

Beautiful poem! I see a mysterious addition of disappearing guests, a double entendre that I like. You tucked in more than a shirt and did a great job at that.

I am glad you kept the stanza everyone liked for a different reason--how intriguing is that! "Touristy" said Yoly, to me, a painting with so much hidden meaning.

The pousse-caffe, delicieux. Especially those lions roaring at night! I remember the sound of doves mating outside my bedroom window, elsewhere, confused me; I thought it was heavy breathing from the couple who lived nextdoor. (No matter the delicacy, the haute couture, the Mont Blanc with a gold point, I head to the gutter; I won't apologize). Ode to a wet t-shirt, you wrote, as if not, after all. "Wild Animal Park," your next poem? I need a slurpy.

Et oui, j'aime Rothko et je suis toujours a la recherche de la poesie en couleurs et en mots d'une formule magique comme votre expression ici.

Thanks to you, the magician, for our enjoyment.

pen

The first American I met on the net once told me that sometimes he sits and thinks and sometimes he just sits. I thought it hilarious at the time but subsequently realised it is part of American culture, those little jokes that you've all heard before.

Reading the posts are a bit like that, sometimes I enjoy the reviews more than the poems. I liked this poem but preffered the analysis more.

I know you will take these remarks of mine in kindly way.


Ieuan

Ieuan---

oh yes, the spirit of a workshop is that each poet must feel free to express a view fully. in that environment, even a negative review is helpful.

as for comments, i notice that more than a few times a crit poster is clearer and more effective when simply writing a comment---perhaps freed from the pressure of poem writing the poet is able to articulate a view that slipped from grasp in the poem.


to say nothing of learning new details that we might use for a poem of our own. inspiration occurs in many strange ways, reading the crits is one excellent source.


mojave

Bernie,

Doing rounds of rereading, I see you have two "become" in this poem (First and third stanzas, I think).

What happens if one of them changes to "are" or "are now" or ..........?

Lovely poem.

pen

Pen---


tanks. made that change.





bernie

Love the second revision, your images are lovely all the way through.

Je n'aime pas Rothko, incidentally.

R---


c'est dommage.


merci.


fun novel, francoise sagan's aimez-vous brahms?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92PxaGWBzi8&feature=fvw


mojave