Clipped Wings

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BobBradshaw
Posts: 2683
Joined: 03 Jun 2016, 21:03

Clipped Wings

#1 Post by BobBradshaw » 06 Dec 2017, 20:39

newest version:

Clipped Wings

 I lead parallel lives:  by day
 I’m as irreproachable

 as a family bible clutched
 to the chest of a young woman.

 At night I’m restless, thinking 
 of you. I stare out windows

lonely, my eyes turned
in your direction.

Work takes you like a migratory bird
north and south, following

the seasons, my heart
a homebody longing

to spend my years
with you.

Suddenly you're here,
your eyes shining like water.

We sprawl on our backs
afterwards, my left arm flung

over your broad chest,
Darling, for too long my heart

has lived like a bird
with clipped
wings.






original version:


Doppler

 I lead parallel lives:  by day
 I’m as irreproachable

 as a family bible clutched
 to the chest of a young woman.

 At night I’m restless, thinking 
 of you.  Isn't a lantern's

 beauty best brought out
 under the cover of darkness?    

 You never stay long in one place.
 For months I have followed you

 by phone and email, recalling
 how your love, a surging tide, 

 overwhelmed my defenses.
 Every night my inner Doppler 

 tracks you:  for days you stalled  
 over the middle of the Pacific,

 your signal as broken up
 as any archipelago.

 My nerves are like storm warning flags,
 fierce winds offshore, 

 and suddenly you're here,
 your eyes shining like water.

 We sprawl on our backs
 afterwards, my left arm flung

 over your broad chest,
 my heart content as a pond,

the air soaked with musky scents 
as after a rain--

my grasslands, darling,
sopping wet.

Bernie01
Posts: 777
Joined: 30 Jul 2015, 11:14

Re: Doppler

#2 Post by Bernie01 » 06 Dec 2017, 23:30

Bob---

At night I’m restless, thinking
of you.



my manners, my disposition
spotless and desperate.




less is more...simple, declarative statement allows the reader to quickly become oriented.

...irreproachable
as a family bible.


I lean into the winds,
lonely, my eyes turned
your direction.





to me, this is enough to set the mood of frustrated yearning.



beauty best brought out
under the cover of darkness?



i don' feel the lantern business...

yes, the doppler motif, but a stretch for me...following someone is not far from creepy. what the poet is saying, is that he has trailing sentiments for the subject of this poem. easy to understand, positive and multi-faceted.


now, 11 verses follow that flesh out this sentiment. and while I rarely meet a metaphor i don't like, these 11 verses push me to my limit.


You never stay long in one place.
For months I have followed you

by phone and email, recalling
how your love, a surging tide,

overwhelmed my defenses.
Every night my inner Doppler



what do you want to tell the reader? what impression do you wish to leave?

a hint.

your passing skirts, flung
carelessly to the heavens.

smiles tossed away,
your face an art work, unassailable.



tracks you: for days you stalled
over the middle of the Pacific,

your signal as broken up
as any archipelago.

My nerves are like storm warning flags,
fierce winds offshore,



maybe find an objective correlative---showing something rather than telling?


yes, more like these lines:



and suddenly you're here,
your eyes shining like water.

We sprawl on our backs
afterwards, my left arm flung
over your broad chest,




yes, this is more like what i'm searching for, a modest proposal that is both declarative and real.


my heart content as a pond,

the air soaked with musky scents
as after a rain--

my grasslands, darling,
sopping wet.


just not crazy about the pond, and musky sends me away from sensuous, and grasslands sopping wet not a strong attribute for a lover. what is unmistakable here, is the word darling...the direct address to the beloved.

you know the modern classic:


Dover Beach

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.



that strong, clear declarative, could be Hemingway, could be Dylan Thomas....Virginia Woolf...


Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.



how clear, yet packed with sentiment.

.....



But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.




i think your poem has the scent of something big, it is best served by just one or two images, a real, voice, and easily understood; and easily digested by the reader. and it is always effective to address, directly, the subject of a poem.


bernie


oh, them great declarative openings...Arnold again:

Cadmus and Harmonia

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD

Far, far from here,
The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay


Bacchanalia

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD

The evening comes, the fields are still.




The Ballad of the Children of the Czar

BY DELMORE SCHWARTZ
1

The children of the Czar
Played with a bouncing ball






Admonition

Babette Deutsch

The graveyard and the garden share

A streetlamp like a gibbous moon.




Babette Deutsch

Sun Bath


Clothed in languor and nothingness





Ulysses
by James Joyce


-- I --



STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of
lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown,
ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He
held the bowl aloft and intoned:

--INTROIBO AD ALTARE DEI.





Introibo ad altare Dei. P: I will go to the altar of God....Internet

BobBradshaw
Posts: 2683
Joined: 03 Jun 2016, 21:03

Re: Doppler

#3 Post by BobBradshaw » 07 Dec 2017, 02:11

I agree. It's too awkward ...well, I'll think about a simpler approach. Your comments are very helpful. Best, Bob

BobBradshaw
Posts: 2683
Joined: 03 Jun 2016, 21:03

Re: Doppler

#4 Post by BobBradshaw » 07 Dec 2017, 10:10

Bernie, I have unscrupulously taken advantage of your generous suggestions, 'borrowing' some of your lines. Who else is so generous with his ideas? Thank you.....Best, Bob

Bernie01
Posts: 777
Joined: 30 Jul 2015, 11:14

Re: Clipped Wings

#5 Post by Bernie01 » 07 Dec 2017, 22:50

Bob---


terrific.


smooth and full of craft---as you say. for example:


Work takes you like a migratory bird
north and south, following

the seasons, my heart
a homebody longing

to spend my years
with you.
----

Darling, for too long my heart

has lived like a bird
with clipped
wings.



terrific



bernie

BobBradshaw
Posts: 2683
Joined: 03 Jun 2016, 21:03

Re: Clipped Wings

#6 Post by BobBradshaw » 07 Dec 2017, 23:00

Thanks, Bernie....I owe any improvement to you....best

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