A Cock For Asclepius

[Leanne]

Edit 2/11/14


Wonder how I ended up
in me.  Remember years of sup-
plication, settling down, like
layers in an unwashed mug
and I, the hemlock, ploughed
and dormant, folded by
domestic drug.

Once the numbness, rigid cold
like coinage. Wipe the mouth, old
winter gone.  You follow fire
and soot its crackling, shadow
strings upon the wall.  Bowed
back to you, open eye
on fading glow.

One draught, the spark flew wild.
Pasture, black to green, defiled:
awakened.  Weeds seed madly,
toxins spreading, stop the breath
of creased, decreased and cowed.
Deal to conjugal lie
a welcome death.




Original

Wonder how I ended up
in me.  Remember years of sup-
plication, settling in, like
layers in an unwashed mug
and I, the hemlock, ploughed
and dormant, folded by
domestic drug.

Once the numbness, rigid cold
like coinage. Wipe the mouth, old
winter gone.  You follow fire
and soot its crackling, shadow
strings upon the wall.  Bowed
back to you, open eye
on fading glow.

One draught, the spark flew wild.
Pasture, black to green, beguiled
awakened.  Weeds seed madly,
toxins spreading, stop the breath
of creased, decreased and cowed.
Deal to conjugal lie
a welcome death.

[billy]

like the rhyme scheme, i have no clue as to the form.
a not so elegant death made eloquent.
the last verse had an Elysian feel about it
though the death felt unheroic

[milo]

Wonder how I ended up
in me. Remember years of sup-
plication, settling in, like
layers in an unwashed mug
and I, the hemlock, ploughed
and dormant, folded by
domestic drug.

Once the numbness, rigid cold
like coinage. Wipe the mouth, old
winter gone. You follow fire
and soot its crackling, shadow
strings upon the wall. Bowed
back to you, open eye
on fading glow.

One draught, the spark flew wild.
Pasture, black to green, beguiled
awakened. Weeds seed madly,
toxins spreading, stop the breath
of creased, decreased and cowed.
Deal to conjugal lie
a welcome death.

This feels like an awful lot of mental gymnastics for miscellaneous . . .

[Leanne]

Billy, thanks for reading.

milo, if it's too intense I'd rather people just skip it -- that's why it's not in the critique forums. I don't want to detract from more worthy poetry.

[milo]

Billy, thanks for reading.

milo, if it's too intense I'd rather people just skip it -- that's why it's not in the critique forums. I don't want to detract from more worthy poetry.

You know I can't do that, leanne

[lucentwavering]

I really like the imagery and the playfulness of the language, especially the phrase 'cold/like coinage.' I feel like more variety in the punctuation would help make the pace more vivid. Also, the last two lines would maybe be stronger with a clear grammatical subject.

[Leanne]

Deal to conjugal lie a welcome death. Sorry, but I'm not sure how that's unclear.

And more variety with the punctuation? Perhaps you could be more specific.

Thank you for reading.

[Leanne]

I don't feel this is finished, so I thought I'd shift it to serious and see how we go.

[just mercedes]

I'm reading and thinking - I've never understood why Critus had to sacrifice a cock to Asclepius for Socrates, whether it was to thank him for a worthy life, or for a death met with honour. I'm seeing reference to Plato, the shadows on the wall of the cave, seeing the fire dying. Conjugal lie - well, he called Xanthippe a bitch, I think, and did he have another wife as well? This reminds me of Shakespeare's bequest to his wife of his second-best bed. But your poem is very dense, and I'll need more time. I'm not sure I can do it justice.

[Leanne]

I always thought -- maybe hoped -- that the cock was in thanks for the opportunity to greet Socrates' daimon face-to-face at last. The shadows on the wall always seem to recur for me, because it's such a powerful image that is so very apt in our society. Perhaps any society, given that not a great deal seems to have changed since the days of The Republic. But oh, the conjugal lie... well, that's mine to own.
Nothing changes, you see.

To be honest, I don't remember why I wrote this, so I come to it only as a reader. I think I prefer it that way.

[billy]

on a purly un-academic note and with no explanation as to why; the enjambement of the first stanza was on par with that of the 2nd and 3rd

mainly because i found this hard to follow.

sup-
plication

[Leanne]

Purely because I'm being a smart arse, billy. It rhymes and there's a pun. I have no excuse for anything, as you should know by now...

[ray]

Though I don't follow the whole story, I get enough and the language and rhythm of the first two verses carry me along. This section in the final verse reads a bit clumsy, beguiled awakened being the worst part.

Pasture, black to green, beguiled

awakened. Weeds seed madly,
toxins spreading, stop the breath
of creased, decreased and cowed.



Wonder how I ended up

in me. Remember years of sup-    - this always seems like cheating to me!
plication, settling in, like
layers in an unwashed mug          - ended up in, settling in, like layers in     - that's a lot of ins 

But I do love the first verse, especially the last few lines

[Leanne]

Many thanks, Ray.

How about defiled instead of beguiled?

It alters the meaning of that line, but not the intent of the stanza.

And I'm going to change settling in to settling down

[ellajam]

I'm taking a swing at this in my own simple way.
I take the title as a sacrifice to the god of healing, with the idea of the poem an emergence from marital misery. The partial sentences disturbed me. Here are a few notes.

Edit 2/11/14


Wonder how I ended up
in me.  Remember years of sup-
plication, settling down, like
layers in an unwashed mug
and I, the hemlock, ploughed
and dormant, folded by
domestic drug.
The opening works for me as the present looking back. The unwashed mug starts a strong Ew factor, with hemlock saying the N considers herself the worst of the layers, or at least the final one. I like the conflict of ploughed and dormant, when applied to domestic drug it says silenced by abuse to me.

Once the numbness, rigid cold
like coinage. Wipe the mouth, old
winter gone.  You follow fire
and soot its crackling, shadow
strings upon the wall.  Bowed
back to you, open eye
on fading glow.
I can't make a complete sentence from your opening here, maybe I'm missing something. I like the fire line but the last sentence is too obscure for me. I do get that this is a transition period.

One draught, the spark flew wild.
Pasture, black to green, defiled:
awakened.  Weeds seed madly,
toxins spreading, stop the breath
of creased, decreased and cowed.
Deal to conjugal lie
a welcome death.
This was an interesting end to me, the sowing of waste and evil as the result of newness. For me it held the hope of a new better season after the poison has been let loose. But I'm an optimist.



Original

Wonder how I ended up
in me.  Remember years of sup-
plication, settling in, like
layers in an unwashed mug
and I, the hemlock, ploughed
and dormant, folded by
domestic drug.

Once the numbness, rigid cold
like coinage. Wipe the mouth, old
winter gone.  You follow fire
and soot its crackling, shadow
strings upon the wall.  Bowed
back to you, open eye
on fading glow.

One draught, the spark flew wild.
Pasture, black to green, beguiled
awakened.  Weeds seed madly,
toxins spreading, stop the breath
of creased, decreased and cowed.
Deal to conjugal lie
a welcome death.

I don't know if this will be any use at all, but I enjoyed trying.

[ray]

Hello Leanne. settling down is what I meant to suggest but forgot.

beguiled awakened / defiled: awakened  - well, on the one hand it's the conjunction of -ed words. I'd prefer then woken, myself. But the more I think about

Pasture, black to green, defiled:

awakened.

the less I understand what you mean by it.

[Leanne]

Ella, thanks for your "try", which tells me that I have indeed put in the right keys because you're on the track I had hoped. Despite the prevailing trend toward poetry that sounds precisely like prose in terms of sentence structure, I don't always follow that and don't often want to -- naturally, like all rules, I always break it for a reason. I, too, am an optimist

Ray, thank you for your return and casting your eyes across this again.

I fear this is all I am prepared to offer in terms of explanation, and even that goes strongly against my instincts:

Hemlock (Conium maclatum) prefers to grow in moist, neglected areas but also invades cultivated fields and pastures. In Australia, it is mostly stock animals that die from hemlock poisoning these days as the dried plant is mixed in with hay and silage. Symptoms of hemlock poisoning include tremors, numbness, ascending paralysis, coma and eventual death from respiratory failure.

This is not about hemlock

[Leanne]

Thank you for your comment. Yes, I'm aware hemlock is a poison -- hence the title, which is an allusion to the last words of Socrates. The second stanza will probably make no sense if you haven't read The Republic -- again, Socrates via Plato. It's the allegory of the cave -- ignorant folk who believe themselves enlightened, watching shadows on the wall of their cave and believing that they are seeing the whole world. It's worth a read.

I'm afraid I've read it several times and, with a careful editor's eye -- aware that people don't live in my head -- I still feel there are sufficient keys.

[just mercedes]

I guess it's just the line 'creased, decreased and cowed' that resists me. I like the musicality of your poem, I'm not worried that I don't understand logically because I do respond to the richness of language and rhythm. I don't need to know why.

[bena]

Thank you for your comment.  Yes, I'm aware hemlock is a poison -- hence the title, which is an allusion to the last words of Socrates.  The second stanza will probably make no sense if you haven't read The Republic -- again, Socrates via Plato.  It's the allegory of the cave -- ignorant folk who believe themselves enlightened, watching shadows on the wall of their cave and believing that they are seeing the whole world.  It's worth a read.

I'm afraid I've read it several times and, with a careful editor's eye -- aware that people don't live in my head -- I still feel there are sufficient keys.

mmmm yummy yummy allegory.  I probably should repost mine, it has all that inside-my-own-head crazy person feel.

Yours is fanatically superior.  There is one sentence that bothers me (Gramma speakin):


You follow fire

and soot its crackling, shadow
strings upon the wall.

I know you are using soot as a verb, but it took me several times reading to figure that out.  Perhaps I was being ignorant....it's been known to happen.


mel.