On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 13:07:07 +0000, HarryLime wrote:
Will-Dockery wrote:
Faraway Star wrote:
Moon Water Dance
Negativity of the past
taints my future.
Implanted between
the buttons.
Oh, Fate
bring me answers.
To the questions
I cannot bear to ask.
Enchanted time
sitting on a bank of sand.
Aquatic energy flows
millions of gallons moving.
To my eyes
from the night sky.
I watch the Moon dance
over Venus.
~~Faraway Star
Another Zod classic.
It's far from being a classic, Donkey.
Although, admittedly, it's better than most of your "unspeakable shit."
Negativity of the past
taints my future.
This is the sort of opening line that would send PJR's "experienced
readers" running.
It reads like the New Agey gobbledygook of some hippie-dippy spiritual
guru. It's so clich‚d as to constitute self-parody (albeit
unintentionally, which is never a good thing).
Implanted between
the buttons.
This is not a sentence, as it lacks both a subject and a predicate. I understand that you and Stinky G are Fragmentists, but there's simply no reason to butcher the language in this manner, when a single piece of punctuation can make an intelligible sentence of it:
Negativity of the past
taints my future;
implanted between
the buttons.
We wouldn't put a semicolon after the 2nd line, because the second
fragment is not an independent clause. It still needs a subject.
Of course, this is still a piece of pretentious (in the worst possible
way), meaningless swill. What buttons is this negativity being
implanted between? The buttons on Stinky's shirt? The buttons (keys)
on his computer? The buttons on an elevator, or some other piece of machinery? The buttons on his Walkman? His Obama phone? Some
metaphorical buttons inside his pointy little head? Or some vaguely conceived astral buttons by which the universe (and/or Fate) is
controlled?
Buttons on his pants.
Khayyam compared the universe to a "Chequer-board." The difference is
that Khayyam's metaphor is clearly defined and sustained throughout the quatrain:
'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
And, let's face it... Stinky G is not worthy of touching the hem of Mr. Khayyam's robe.
Omar would have to discard the robe.
Oh, Fate
bring me answers.
To the questions
I cannot bear to ask.
This is obviously one sentence, as opposed to the sentence and fragment
that Stinky has arbitrarily opted to make it. Apparently, Stinky felt
that the first and third line of every verse needed to be capitalized regardless of whether it was justified grammatically.
Stinky G was passed from grade to grade because the other option was
tossing him over the Falls.
And, again, this is clich‚d and pretentious in the worst possible way.
You aren't going to get diamonds out of cat litter.
To clarify: Merriam-Webster defines "Pretentious" as "making usually unjustified or excessive claims (as of value or standing)." The
melodramatic use of "Oh, Fate" is a laughable attempt to turn a piece of clich‚-ridden twaddle into "serious" verse.
It doesn't make any sense to appeal to Fate, since Fate has already
determined Stinky's fate.
From a psychological perspective, the concept is telling. Stinky G is evading taking any responsibility for straightening out his totally
f*cked up life. He wants Fate to hand him the answers, even though he's
too weak (morally) to bring himself to recognize the questions.
He not only wants the answers but wants Fate to BRING them to him.
Stinky G is not about to go anywhere out of his way. Does he want the
answers by Uber?
Pathetic.
This is the opposite of the sentiment expressed by Henley's "Invictus":
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
Enchanted time
sitting on a bank of sand.
Aquatic energy flows
millions of gallons moving.
To my eyes
from the night sky.
I watch the Moon dance
over Venus.
The punctuation, grammar, and overall composition here is so atrocious
as to render the entire passage unintelligible.
Verdict: Unintelligible.
As written, "Enchanted time (is) sitting on a bank of sand." I suppose
one might make an amusing piece of light verse wherein Father Time takes
a vacation to Miami Beach, and relaxes on the sand (rather than using
its grains to measure out men's lives)... but one doubts that this was
Stinky George's intent.
Stinky G imitates Will Dockery in all things.
Rather, let us assume that it is Stinky G who is lying on the bank of
sand, along the polluted waters of the Chattahoochee, no doubt.
And, while Stinky sits on the bank he feels the "energy" (more New Agey mumbo-jumbo) from several million gallons of flowing water. That is,
one assumes that the gallons are of water, since Stinky G never bothers
to identify what they are (water, milk, sludge, bum piss...?).
Urine!
Now here comes the tricky part: Apparently the millions of gallons of
said unidentified substance are moving to Stinky's eyes. Not only has
our Fragmentist poet broken this sentiment into two incomplete
sentences, but he has placed the broken fragments in two different
verses!
"Good catch!" Drugs make Stinky G's eyes water a lot.
There is a common belief among low-grade autodidacts that the profundity
of an idea can be measured in direct ratio to the difficulty one has in understanding it. Ergo, a poem gains intellectual "depth" in accordance
with its incomprehensibility. Stinky attempts to accomplish this by mutilating the language in which his "poem" is composed.
Again, imitating Will Dockery.
The movement of the water makes the reflection of the moon and Venus
appear to be dancing.
The basic gist of all this nonsense is that a bum realizes he's screwed (probably for life), wishes to learn how to get back on his feet without having to ponder it out himself; opts, instead, to relax by a river and
feel the energy of its flowing water. He watches the moon and Venus' reflections in the water.
And then drowns.
The poem seems to have been intentionally left open-ended in that we
don't know whether the astral "energy" of the "moving water" and the "dancing" moon have provided the bum with the answers he's too lazy to
ask for. However, on closer examination, there's really no ambiguity
here at all. The bum has allowed the hum of the water and reflected
light of the moon to hypnotically lull him into a state of complacency
with his totally f*cked up life.
And then he dies.
This would actually be a good concept to base a real poem around -- an exploration of the psychological/spiritual inertia by which men piss
away their lives. Cut out the nonsense about negativity implanted
between buttons, clarify the speaker's situation (a homeless, alcoholic pissbum), and strengthen the connections between his failure to examine
the "negativity" of his past life choices and his present tendency to
tune out in a drunken stupor and watch the starlight dancing on the
water.
Stinky G could never get his sodden mind around such a concept.
If only Stinky G possessed the ability for self-reflection, and had
acquired the grammatical skills with which to express himself
intelligibly, he might have made a worthwhile poet.
If, if, if, not going to happen. Might was well think that Stinky G is worrying about the stock market.
Pity.
"Not really."
This is a response to the post seen at: http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=661057009#661057009
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