7/7
the day of loss began with a phone call
my arms unwrapped her
and reached for the siren
her back turned to face me
her body in bed
painting a soft skinned canvas of the future
her back turned to face me
she’s going away
somewhere in london they’re counting the dead
sober words wash through with whispers of nightmares
a bus explodes
i’ll be there
to pick you both up in the car
we’ll drive to the airport
(the loss the low)
cut short and caught moving slow
the radio scratches
my hands on her shoulders scrape for moments
final sensations
stored in memory
myth
kisses
what do they mean to the dead?
traipsing through trenches with travellers
trenches of neon shop movers
lovers
leaving
crossing vast lands and deep seas
an ocean atlantic that starts with some duty free
now separates us
her
there
here
me
it ends with a kiss
kisses
what do they mean to the burnt
the broken and blistered in london?
what do they mean to the dead?
life is swirling around my head and i’m reminded why we live
for love
for chest bursting moments that bloom and then bleed
i see why we live
to steal life
is to steal love
and that (today) i can not forgive
Thinking of you, and of the people of London, and thinking and thinking and thinking….all I come up with is this: will it never end? A stupid question, no answers
that is a courageous attempt at writing poetry. perhaps you need to get a little better before you “commemorate” future terrorist strikes. With any luck each time they strike you’ll get a little better. Maybe by 2012 your poems might have the aesthetic appeal of a constipated chiwawawawawawawa.
Wow, what a response, Oswald…
The anonymity of pseudonyms and quick click answers allows you to attack what I have written without courage or face - not unlike a terrorist strike - and that saddens me. Perhaps one day we could meet face to face and you could tell me what you truly think about my poem and hold my eye?
Are my thoughts and feelings in words so atrocious to you to deserve such a strange and vitriolic response? I can only wish and hope and sigh for my understanding of humanity that you misinterpreted my poem and my pain. For if you interpreted it as it was meant, my heart bleeds for your cynicism.
My heart broke again and again on the 7th of the 7th and your destruction of my attempt at putting words to my feelings hurts. Perhaps that’s something that you can’t understand or perhaps it is something that you are feeling but you sense within yourself that you are isolated in that sorrow. If that’s the case, allow me to reassure you, you are not alone. Every beautiful individual feels sorrow, feels love, pain, hurt and loss… and that is (I hope you got this at least) kind of what my poem was about. Causing those emotions within others is wrong.
My girlfriend left the country for good the day of this horrific attack on life and love and everything that we all, individually and communally hope and pray for, and I was just trying to draw a stupid fucking parallel.
Man… right now I don’t feel like writing anything ever again. You cunt.
My phone number is 07876 514 604.
You’re a fucking wally Oswald.
GA, chin up fella. There are many kinds of terrorists.
I love this poem
do no feed the trolls!
fans of the internet will know what I mean
It was lovely to have so much concern from everyone about everyone else’s safety. People were talking in the streets! Can you imagine? Telephonic communication companys must have made large sums from such a pointless pathetic stupid waste of life and explosives.
“I can only wish and hope and sigh for my understanding of humanity that you misinterpreted my poem and my pain.”
I didn’t misinterpret anything. I simply wanted to make it be known that I think your poem is a bad poem. I find that annoying. That’s all.
Why should you be able to write absolute twaddle just so you can assauge your ‘pain’, or some such bollocks? You can’t just throw your toys out the pram because I highlight the FACT that your poem is rubbish. I mean if you’re going to write a poem about a terrorist attack, you could at least have the good taste to make it respectable. At least in one respect you are correct, “I was just trying to draw a stupid fucking parallel.” I’m sorry for your sadness about your girlfriend and about the attacks, but you really could exhibit some more self control. You can’t just splurge out ernest heartache because you feel bad. Or maybe you can, but you then can’t get upset if someone questions it’s poetic merit. It’s truly objectionable. And, in any case, this is a public forum that has given you a platform for your ‘poetry’ and I am well within my rights to comment on your ‘work’ and I have no obligation to consider how you were feeling or your motivations for writing your ‘poem’. Just because your “heart broke again and again on the 7th of the 7th” it doesn’t add anything to your poem. It’s a redundant point. You say to cause pain, sorrow, etc within others is wrong. I agree, so in future please refrain from inflicting you particularly tortuous ‘poetry’ - not unlike a terrorist strike - upon the general public.
It’s true that alittlepoison’s comments are an open forum but as Aristotle said “don’t speak at an open forum if you are a wanker.”
Now, run along and read about Nietsche’s Appolonian theory for dealing with the existential crisis… it might be the real therapy you need.
A shallow and transparent attempt to dismissively and patronisingly determine your intellectual superiority. With no riposte, you casually recommend that I read some Nietzche and advice me to `’run along”. Good One! Yeeaaaahhhh! Woooooooooow! Don’t dish out recommended reading when you so patently haven’t garnered much from whatever poetry you’ve read. Everybody’s read Neitzche. You probably read Orwell, Heller and Huxley. Maybe an Amis or a McEwan. A Steinbeck here, a Miller there. Possibly The Dubliners. You’ve read The Wasteland. You probably read Chomsky and Zephaniah. You’re so well read it’s not true.
Neitzche’s Appolonian theory suggests that dealing with grief through the creation of art is a useful way of combating the existential crisis. It is, effectively, a form of purging all of the demons inside oneself and pouring that energy into the creation of something beautiful (subjective thought, I know, and perhaps we will have to agree to disagree on beauty.)
It’s not an issue of being well read… it’s an interesting idea.
The demons seem to be clogging up your life, Oswald. Why not try building rather than destroying for a change, you might just enjoy it? Deliberate and needlessly unkind provocation just to cause a stir is a waste of all of our time. Get your kicks elsewhere. Bully a child in the park or better still, write us a poem.
Neitzche’s idea is my worst nightmare. I like the way you perist in characterising my failure to appreciate your poem as indicative of my need for help/therapy, etc. That is an amusing idea. Anyway, enough already. Good luck to you in whatever you do. And, I apologise if my referal to your poem as less appealing than a constipated chiwawawawa was hurtful. Still, if you have any creative aspirations you will surely have to learn to take criticism on the chin and to recognise that not all poetry is art and not all creativity is valid, worthwhile, beautiful or commendable.I’m off to the park to pull legs of insects and feed them to small children and to call out insults to teenage mothers and then run and hide behind a bush.
Oswald and out.
yo oswaldo
I think criticism, when constructive, can be incredibly useful and necessary, but I don’t think your criticism was quite developed enough. You didn’t even say why you were so strongly moved to diss the work, or why you thought it was a bad poem. Obviously all art is viewed subjectively and you’re well entitled to your own opinions of it, but if you’re going to criticise I think you should make your arguments more clear. I don’t think that a rant or a bitter remark, while being valid forms of self expression, are particularly constructive forms of citicism, and while it might make you feel a little better it could well make others feel worse, and for no constructive reason. While freedom of opinion and speech is so important, I don’t think your comments were particularly useful. But maybe they weren’t supposed to be.
I suppose that it says something though - that a peice of art, in this case a poem, could provoke such a strong reaction in a person. That’s probably better than provoking no reaction at all.
“In future please refrain from inflicting you particularly tortuous ‘poetry’ - not unlike a terrorist strike - upon the general public.”
????
Come on, grow up.
That’s what he, Gary, said to me - if you can believe it! I was being ironic! his statement was “you…attack what I have written without courage or face - not unlike a terrorist strike - and that saddens me”. Pretty nasty and patently ridiculous, I know you’ll agree. As you implied, quite childish.
what was it exactly that you found so objectionable about the poem in the first place?
Yes, criticism is of utmost worth. Abuse is not only worthless but also cruel and a bit sad for abuser and abusee alike. Masked abuse, purposefully designed to get a rise out of others, is not only of no worth but really very pathetic.
If you have any friends or family that care for you, Oswald, show them the comments that you have written on this site… and watch their sorrowful expression form. Nobody likes hatred, old man, so how about we all give it a rest now?
I object to how crap it is. It’s pollution. I object to the splurge-like nature of the poem and I object to the “quick click” mentality that meant that it must have undegone barely any revison or had any thought invested in it. I object to it in principle. I object to the infliction of personal despondance on the reader. I object to it’s flabiness and it’s pomposity. It annoys me that the writer thought it adequate enough to display publicly - it exhibits a lack of care and standards. The poem is shabby. It’s like graffiti tagging - gratuitous and only gratifying for the author in that it provides an outlet for egomania.. It’s like a dog pissing on a tree. Inconsiderate. Plus, it was a poem to do with the terrorist strikes and any poet would struggle to write a poem that adequately addressed that topic. In a way I find it distasteful - this kind of egocentric creative mania. Creativity is not necessarily valid or applaudable. This poem is just not any kind of a contribution. It’s slack and distasteful.
“Slack and distasteful”? Those words bring to mind your first comment more than anything else. Slack - because you rubbished Ablett’s entire effort in three short, smug lines. Distasteful - because you responded to someone’s firsthand account of a painful breakup and a terrorist bombing with nothing but sarcasm and insults. And “inconsiderate”? What about showing a little bit of consideration yourself before you start throwing snide insults around? “A dog pissing on a tree”? I suppose that must be you, Oswald, pissing on this poem.
Ode To Oswald
face puffing red
verbal masturbation
puffing endlessly to the sound only of keyboard clicking
quote quick clicking
spitting vitriol
oswald is scratching around in his hole
too scared to crawl out
and to give me a call
i hesitate
repeatedly
to let his tricks sicken me
but eventually
admitedly
i crumble and give way to this dark and brooding gnome
i do what i do best
what he claimes that he hates me for
i brake down his door in the form of a poem
but i find no one here
no there’s no one at home
no mail awaiting him
a disengaged phone
and i realise that this is what his lonely life is
an emptiness
a vaccuum
the faint smell of piss
abuse on the walls criticising his parents
blaming the government
scribbles of insense
whatever
etcetera
an endless fuck you and a stream of whatever
a therapist who’s sick of his predictable weather
i turn my back
as so many must have
but i leave him a note and a six pack of beer
“to visit one’s home is to know much about them
you know me
i know you
now please will you just get the fuck out of here?”
i think oswald has a point
he might have gone about it in a rather insensitive way but the poem is distinctly flabby
Hey, I finally got a lead role!
Is it the openness and spontaneity of Ablett’s work that Oswald finds objectionable? …If so, perhaps his objection could have been encased in somewhat more charitable terms.
Me, I found the repetitive reference to a small dog with shitting difficulties quite revelatory. Wa wa wa?
Oh, and the ‘fact’ that Oswald wrote Ablett has ‘barely undegone revision’ and despises the poem’s ‘flabiness’ made me smile, before he went on to define ‘egomania’ as a dog pissing on a tree….
That poem is something else! I cannot literally believe that you went to that effort for my benefit! It is just far and away the best thing I’ve EVER read. You have truly “broken down my door with poetry”. Everything I said before - I take it all back, Now I see how good you really are. I cannot believe I behaved for so long like a “dark and brooding gnome”! What linguistic flair! What nuance! What sophistication! I’m just so sorry I ever doubted the poetic merit of your poem. The only consolation I can take from this whole sorry episode is that at least it got me away from “blaming the government” and scrawling abuse about my parents on my bedroom wall. In a way you’ve helped me, I guess. Truly poetry can expand the horizons of ones soul and transfigure the terrestrial shackles bound to our pathetic and ghastly bodies. As i sit here in my piss infested hovel -surrounded by my own pathetic vitriol wall to wall - I am suddenly accutely and profoundly aware of your gift and my own limitations. i am earth bound…you are transcendent.
P.S. Thanks for the six pack. I’m sure it will help the pain. Thing is, now that I feel this bad I might just — yes yes I feel it coming on - I may well have to write a poem! Perhaps you can give me some ideas? Can I scratch around in your arse hole for a while, Gary?
Under Scrutiny says: Slack - because you rubbished Ablett’s entire effort in three short, smug lines.
That’s not slack, that’s taut.
Poetry will always be an easy target - if you wear your heart on your sleeve there will always be a few insects around trying to suck the blood out of it. Thank you, Ablett, for putting this poem online.
I cease hereforth trying to understand and sympathise with this destructive, sarcastic and miserable force. Congratulations Oswald, in a sense you have won. We will pity each other forever and I will not expect your phone call.
Love and peace to you all. Jamie.
PS - I have just read both of my poems Oswald… and both of them are great! The line and rhyme structre and the imagery make a mockeryof every sarcastic word you spit. Come on old boy… stop being a pussy and give me a call!
Ablett, why don’t you pop over to his house for a cup of tea and a chat? I’ll fish out the address for you.
I do agree that the most sophisticated and enjoyable way for Oswald to make a point would be for him to write a poem. I would be interested to see what it was like. I’m reading a book by Ezra Pound at the moment (who I do like despite all his Nazi-isms) in which he states:
It is a waste of time to listen to people talking of things they have not understood sufficiently to perform.
Do one or do one I say.
I absolutely agree with Olvier’s Pound quote. I myself do not write poetry because I don’t understand it sufficiently and because I recognise that I would be unable to make any meaningful contribution. I’m not prepared to be ok at it or to do it to exorcise ‘demons’, as gary says. However, I am extremely well read and I know a good poet and good poetry when I see it. I know a whole lot more about poetry than Gary. I am anything but a philistine and I love good poetry. If Gary, having re-read his poems, actually thinks to himself “yeah, they’re pretty good, I’m pleased with that work” I without hesitation declair that he is an enemy of art. I’m serious. Fair enough you write some bad poems I suppose, but to actually maintain that they’re descent is preposterous. I’m serious. Nobody with any actual serious endeavour actually thinks like that, particularly if they’re at Gary’s present standard. I suppose that some very skilled poets could reel of a good poem in a matter of hours/minutes like Gary did - but you have to earn the write to be that speedy. You have to be something very special. Gary maintains that the “line and rhyme structre and the imagery [in his poems] make a mockery of every sarcastic word [I] spit”. I don’t need to tell you how meaningless a statement this is. Of course formal qualities are vital - unfortunately Gary’s formal qualities are about as refined as a constipated vole. His ‘poems’ would proably work better as songs - they simply don’t stand up to being read. At no point is the imagery or the line and rhyme structure anything more than A-Level standard (and the second poem is nowehre near that standard). If you/he think what he wrote is sophisticated, clever, moving, witty, formally good, philosophically interesting, you simply haven’t read and understood enough good poetry. Anyway, i’m not prepared to analyse Gary’s poems - I’ve neither the time or the inclination - and besides that’s hardly the point. This isn’t personal . The point is that anybody can wear their heart on their sleeve, as Robot Dan says. It’s not brave or corageous - I mean if anything it’s fool hardy. It’s just not sufficient. It could maybe, if you’re so inclined, be a starting point but it should never be the end. These poems are poor. That’s not debatable, at least not if you’re prepared to be honest and if you know what you’re talking about. To maintain otherwise is to uphold and applaud mediocre art. What’s the point in that?
I still like them.
I like them.
Yes but you guys don’t know what you’re talking about. Just because you profess to like them it doesn’t make them good, just as if you liked Crazy Frog it wouldn’t make it good.
I LOVE the crazy frog!
What are you guys doing pissing in the wind in here when we all could be playing out and about in the sunshine?
Oswald, do you like anything on this site? Just out of interest. Also what poetry do you like? I currently love W H Auden, E E cummings and the Shakespeare’s sonnets and his sister.
Looking at it from another angle, Oswald, just because YOU profess to DISLIKE them doesn’t make them bad. I know a lot about poetry too. I know what’s good and what is not. Most importantly, I know what is honest and vital. I am an extremely intelligent man, though shamefully ugly.
On the contrary.When I profess to dislike something I am normally correct. Why? Because I mostly know what I’m talking about. Not all readers have equally valid opinions. Somepeople are better readers. Some people have impecable tatse. And, some people can distinguish good writing from bad writing. A lot of people can’t. Of course, not all opinions carry equal weight. Anyway, if your so good at distinguishing what is “honest and vital” you’ll apreciate everything I’ve written, I’m sure.
the above post is by me
Great stuff Oswald! You know what you like! Go outside and like/dislike anything you may find there.
I wrote The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and that is a good poem no matter what anyone says.
Why does Oswald criticise Ablett’s “splurg(ing) out (of) earnest heartache” and compare his work more than once to that of a constipated animal?
Surely this animal, if it is splurging something out, is diaretic and not constipated. Oswald… you come and go through this room speaking (of) shit.
I LOVE PISS!
“Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water”
W.S.
Not all opinions carry equal weight?
You pompous, disturbed git!
You see nothing but the images you create.
As T S says, you talk shit.
Though Oswald makes a good and fair point, and in a necessarily abrasive way that has so clearly cut to heart of this forum’s M.O., one cannot help but wonder if his eloquent crusade does indeed have the merits of art at the top of its agenda. There is the distinct aroma of a fox amongst ‘constipated’ chickens in the sense that you know he’s just there to stir things up, but wouldn’t really take a bite in case he got a mouthful of shit. I suggest that Oswald, though wanting to appear to be wielding the mace of good taste, knows he could do so with better effect in a more substantial medium where his voice would be more clearly understood. I hope he does so. It thus follows that he may be getting off more on the chase, and the fact that he can display his empirically more refined grasp of these matters to a crowd. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I am though rather surprised that this wasn’t picked up on before and has led to certain undignified responses by those who I assume are meant to be hosting this forum, “Ablett, why don’t you pop over to his house for a cup of tea and a chat? I’ll fish out the address for you.” (sic.) this appears to me to be proof of a clique, from where true discussion will not evolve. Also the almost deliberate mis-reading which led to the comment by Under Scrutiny “”In future please refrain from inflicting you particularly tortuous ‘poetry’ - not unlike a terrorist strike - upon the general public.”????Come on, grow up.” is symptomatic of this problem. I would appreciate any neutral comments.
Gary what was the parallel you were trying to draw between you breaking up with your girlfriend and terrorist bombings? I’ve read your poem a few times, and I don’t really get it. Or what I am picking up from it makes me uncomfortable and I wanted to double check before writing in capitals.
Is this the first time artistic criticism has appeared on the forum? I know we’ve had debates about politics, but is this the first other?
there has been plenty of artistic criticism on this site, this is not unique.
do a seach for the word ‘blean’
then do a search for ‘balloon fiesta’
particularly awful
x
Blean, balloon fiesta, bomb. If I miss a knight’s sleep I could make a conspiracy theory out of this. And papier mache.
Hello Space,
There are a few parallel’s, I suppose. The most simple answer is that both events occured on the same day and the poem is (as the title suggests) a personal reflection on that day. To publish it after revisions, days and hours of work as Oswald suggests, would have yielded a very differen’t poem. And in my estimation would have lost the point.
I wasn’t so much ‘breaking up’ with my girlfriend as she was flying away. Gone. In an instant. She was there and then she wasn’t. While this may seem a flippant parallel to draw with the grievers of those killed in the attacks, I assure you that it didn’t feel so at the time of writing. Nor does it now. It’s the sudden sense of loss that I am empathising with.
To suddenly lose a loved one for no good reason - it wasn’t a decision that either of us could have chosen to make differently - is a horrendous feeling. To inflict that feeling and worse on so many (50 odd killed, hundreds wounded and scarred for life) is, I am sure we would all agree, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Well… I hope that cleared things up a bit. I feel a bit naff (using the word naff for starters but also…) having to deconstruct the piece, but, you asked dear Space and so I thought that I should oblige. I’m thinking that maybe I’ve just had enough of capital letters.
the death of a loved one in such an attack must be unimaginable, but if you are just a spectator then although you can empathise, pain which relates specifically to you will still have a more personal and stronger effect. Leaving a girlfriend/boyfriends and break ups in general are horrible things but stubbing a toe as happened to me this morning was all consumingly painful.
My tortoise once ran away. One hour he was there and the next he was just gone. It was a shock, I can tell you.
Gary says that if he had spent longer on his work “it would have yielded a very different poem`’. That is the purpose of thoughtful revision and re-writing - to arrive at somthing that improves on the original, something different indeed. Still, it wouldn’t make much difference in this instance because the premise of the poem is, as Space For Rent implied, endlessly boring and perhaps somewhat distasteful.
I still like them (50 comments on!)
Sorry… I still “perhaps somewhat etcetera” like them (52 comments on!)
Bloody long this is.
I liked the poem, it was a good read.
not sure about oswald, seems to me you lived your life like a candle in the bin.
blean and balloon fiesta are both my works! i am slightly upset you do not like them. i think oswald should attack me and leave gary alone, hes just a poor boy from a poor family. and i’m a big strong muscle machine ready to take on his words of pain.
anyway chin up kids, it could be worse, i could write a poem.
Hushdie - you can sleep tight. I have a most enjoyable and rich life. Contrary to the constant insinuations on this page, my failure to appreciate Gary’s ‘poem’ is down to nothing more than refined taste and intelligent reading. I love how you guys feel the need to make out that I am somehow emotionally illiterate or in need of help in someway. Really it’s rather sweet. Like a ’special needs’ child. This has just been great. Sleep tight.
I think you’ve all missed the point - Oswald is the code breaker of a terrorist cell based in the U.K, using your comments page to communicate with his followers. Very clever, Os, but I’ve seen through you. ‘Refined taste’ - RADIO TRANSMITTER! ‘Intelligent reading’ - INTERFERING RADAR! ‘Sleep tight’ - SLAVIC TORPEDOS!!!!
oswald i know who you are
touch my nipples
I think its good, not great.
but i don’t think in any way its so bad that it needs 56 comments of angry discussion, in fact i think its probably one of the least offensive (i.e angry comments stuff) poems on this site.