Automontage

[Leanne]

Revised as ballade 27/9/2011

Somewhere beneath the sheets of yesterday
Your happiness was cutting threads of me
As faintly I heard Jimi Hendrix play
Beethoven’s vulgar second sympony
On mandolin with Mr Morrissey
Whose aria was verging on sublime
And anguished angels sported on the lea
While patience pulled me backwards out of time

From off, someone had thrown a dead bouquet
To splash across the redness of the sea
A colander of finest Beaujolais
With Eucharist to match quite swimmingly
The trappings of a jaded bourgeoisie
Participants in some imagined crime
All locked up with a popped-up minor key
While patience pulled me backwards out of time

And to the left of yellow disarray
You wandered into Rick’s café at three
And ordered burgers from the cold buffet
Then washed your filthy feet in Sencha tea
Your Buddha belly out for all to see
A testament to corporeal grime
I shrunk behind your gross discourtesy
While patience pulled me backwards out of time

At supper, folded into leased esprit
I finally decreased; and out of mime
I fell into the depths of liberty
While patience pulled me backwards out of time

(Just a very quick reworking, I'm obviously not leaving it as is, all suggestions most welcome)


Original version

Somewhere under yesterday
your happiness was killing me
I heard Jimi Hendrix play
Beethoven’s second symphony
on mandolin with Morrissey
whose aria was heavenly

Someone threw a dead bouquet
a colander of Beaujolais
the trappings of the bourgeoisie
all locked up with a minor key

Left of yellow disarray
you wandered into Rick’s café
and ordered from the cold buffet
then washed your feet in Sencha tea
your Buddha belly on display
in corpulent discourtesy

Folded into leased esprit
I decreased and stole away
and fallen into liberty
I made it over yesterday

[billy]

Somewhere under yesterday
your happiness was killing me
I heard Jimi Hendrix play
Beethoven’s second symphony
on mandolin with Morrissey
whose aria was heavenly
trippy and good opening verse the weight of the first line feels heavy and palpable

Someone threw a dead bouquet
a colander of Beaujolais the use of colander and wine reminds me more of confetti when connected to the top line something that's a great image but doesn't work well in conjunction with the next line. (jmo)
the trappings of the bourgeoisie
all locked up with a minor key these two lines are a good image use to have a tantalus, though i never locked it up like some men do wit their women.

Left of yellow disarray
you wandered into Rick’s café
and ordered from the cold buffet
then washed your feet in Sencha tea
your Buddha belly on display i get the image of pregnancy here
in corpulent discourtesy

Folded into leased esprit
I decreased and stole away i'm hoping this means leaves a partner
and fallen into liberty
I made it over yesterday this last verse feels like like an achievement. that the person has moved on with freedom.

nothing strong to stay construction wise. the end rhymes and meter are spot on depending how i pronounce aria.
there feels to be an underlying sense of achievement at the end of poem.
and the hendrix verse was stunning in placing the time , the opening line was spotless. i have no idea what automontage means or refers to though it does feel like autoplioting a scene
apart from not being sure about the title i really enjoyed the piece, (all jmo) thanks for the read.

[Leanne]

Cheers Billy, that gives me a good bit to consider -- but the Buddha belly is just that he's a lazy fat ignorant bastard Oh, and Automontage sounded a good idea at the time... I was thinking of those great montages in Rocky etc, where he goes from zero to hero in just a few flashy scenes... and auto, because of "self".

[billy]

that crossed mind as well cos i have a rather extensive gut meself it looks like i were close enough with the title though

[ICSoria]

On first read, this came across as a sort of blind-date gone bad but I suppose one's imagination will always interfere with the poet's intended reality--not necessarily a bad thing as I have come to understand.

I usually tend to observe rhyme and meter before other things. I consider you expert at both and thus am curious to understand your choice in this particular rhyme pattern, besides having fun with rhyme, I am sure.
You always do so well with rhymes and these are simple, effective, and unforced. In my mind, simple rhyme scheme, along with a shorter tetrameter give poems a less serious feel and if combined with longer strophe's can create a slightly more tedious read overall. Though I realize you did not intend this to be a totally serious piece, I do not see it as entirely facetious either. Because I greatly admire your word usage skill, I would rather have seen you create something slightly more complex with these rhymes, perhaps a bit of internal rhyme, with extended metric lines, and more compact strophe’s.
Just one pathetic poet’s opinion here.

Sid

[Ca ne fait rien]

You rhymed Morrissey with Bourgeoisie :O
Under yesterday and over yesterday and inbetween such weavings of brightly coloured threads - a montage worthy of...well whoever does those marvellous photomontages combined with collage (I forget the artist-)
It has a retro feel to it- tbh it brings as many personal images to me on reading it that it creates another montage of memories and personal images in my head. It is also like a social commentary, the decline of civilisation as it wallows in decadence and doesn't even know it is doing it. Ahem.
Nah, this is art.

[Todd]

Fun read Leanne! Rhymes and rhythm and some wicked phrasing.

The title makes you read this in quick scene cuts (which with the imagery causes this to be very visual).

Somewhere under yesterday--love this line. What a great way to refer to the buried past. By using under, I take the speaker to be saying that I'm not sure why I feel this way, it's hidden in my subconscious (somewhere), but it is there
your happiness was killing me--again great line, a second line strong enough to be the lead in. This is the setup before the montage. It makes you wonder why someones happiness (or maybe it's the dreadful need to maintain that happiness at the cost of the speaker's own) was killing them.
I heard Jimi Hendrix play
Beethoven’s second symphony
on mandolin with Morrissey
whose aria was heavenly--Now we set up the background music. I like the cultural images, the juxtaposition of it all...again though, this to me is the attached soundtrack.

Someone threw a dead bouquet
a colander of Beaujolais
the trappings of the bourgeoisie
all locked up with a minor key--love the word choices of these fast scene cuts. I also like the subtle trappings and locked combination.

Left of yellow disarray--With all your good lines here it feels weird to me that I like this one so much. Left of yellow disarray just seems wonderfully non-sequitor. The direction, the color, linking it too disarray. It's phrasing like this that strikes me as poetry without being overly clever and self-satisfied (not sure if that makes sense at all)...on a side note though, it did make me condider some elements in the kaolin baths piece and interpret the line a little differently. Poems get more nuanced when you've read an author for a bit
you wandered into Rick’s café--great movie reference
and ordered from the cold buffet
then washed your feet in Sencha tea
your Buddha belly on display
in corpulent discourtesy

Folded into leased esprit--We're back from the montage, and I like the contrast we have the you with the budda belly spilling out all over the place, and the I who has allowed themselves to be folded into themselves. That it is leased esprit makes me think of it being the mask of the moment.
I decreased and stole away--great line
and fallen into liberty--a nice happenstance
I made it over yesterday--and we're back where we started with someone that came to grips with a situation or themselves.

Very enjoyable poem Leanne.

Best,

Todd

[Leanne]

On first read, this came across as a sort of blind-date gone bad but I suppose one's imagination will always interfere with the poet's intended reality--not necessarily a bad thing as I have come to understand.

I usually tend to observe rhyme and meter before other things. I consider you expert at both and thus am curious to understand your choice in this particular rhyme pattern, besides having fun with rhyme, I am sure.
You always do so well with rhymes and these are simple, effective, and unforced. In my mind, simple rhyme scheme, along with a shorter tetrameter give poems a less serious feel and if combined with longer strophe's can create a slightly more tedious read overall. Though I realize you did not intend this to be a totally serious piece, I do not see it as entirely facetious either. Because I greatly admire your word usage skill, I would rather have seen you create something slightly more complex with these rhymes, perhaps a bit of internal rhyme, with extended metric lines, and more compact strophe’s.
Just one pathetic poet’s opinion here.

Sid

Thanks Sid -- all very valid points. To be honest, when I started writing the first stanza I had Simon & Garfunkel's "Homeward Bound" stuck in my head and the rest of the poem was partly an attempt to exorcise that damned tune! The rhymes fell where they would -- this was originally as close to automatic writing as I've ever come, and I get a little bored with rigid schemes from time to time. Plenty of those in the portfolio already

It is probably one of my least facetious pieces -- I'm sure you've noticed my occasional tendency toward the not-very-serious. Unfortunately, for me that generally means addressing a subject I have very little wish to touch on directly, hence the aversion to complex and anguished lines.

Many thanks for reading.

[Leanne]

You rhymed Morrissey with Bourgeoisie :O
Under yesterday and over yesterday and inbetween such weavings of brightly coloured threads - a montage worthy of...well whoever does those marvellous photomontages combined with collage (I forget the artist-)
It has a retro feel to it- tbh it brings as many personal images to me on reading it that it creates another montage of memories and personal images in my head. It is also like a social commentary, the decline of civilisation as it wallows in decadence and doesn't even know it is doing it. Ahem.
Nah, this is art.

Don't tell Morrissey, he'd try to stare at me miserably until I expired from not caring about his angst (I really do love him, of course!)

It's funny how some people we encounter in life are representative of the world's ills. The catalyst for this particular poem views art as something to match the decor, and ceremony is to be endured for the gratification at the end of it. Don't get me wrong, I like a good wallow in decadence myself now and then, but I do wonder if shallow people are just too stupid to know there's more below the surface.

Thanks for wandering through, Stef

[Leanne]

Todd, thanks as always for a wonderful review. Although they were written quite a bit apart, I tend to always think of this as a companion piece to "Kaolin Baths" -- slightly different treatments of pretty much exactly the same thing -- I have limited experience to draw on, you see

In the last stanza, I keep toying with L2. I really don't know whether it works better as

I decreased and stole away

or

I was decreased and stole away

Any thoughts?

[Todd]

My own preference is for I decreased. It feels stronger without the was.

[Leanne]

Thanks I also thought about making it de-creased, but figured the pun should stay subtle.

[ICSoria]

...The rhymes fell where they would -- this was originally as close to automatic writing as I've ever come, and I get a little bored with rigid schemes from time to time. Plenty of those in the portfolio already

Well, then damned if you don't give me more to admire and envy about your skills. I understand how difficult it can be to write in such a devil-may-care fashion. All poets claim to possess the skill but not all are good, or even marginally effective at it. I would still like to see how far you can take this particular piece.

Sid

[Leanne]

I will probably rework it at some point in an entirely different form -- I was thinking it might make a decent ballade actually. When I have a spare hour or so, they're not so easy to come by these days!

[Leanne]

I have reworked... but I'm definitely not convinced it's the right path.

[Todd]

Okay, not what someone wants to hear on a revision but I think the first version is stronger. The longer lines in the revision feel like they're weighing the poem down. The shorter lines feel more surprising and more montage-like.

Sorry, just my initial reaction

[Leanne]

Don't apologise, as it happens I absolutely agree with you -- I think the more fast-paced tetrameter says what I want to say the way I want to say it Thought it was worth an experiment though...

[billy]

after reading both of them i think they're both as valid as the other.
they stand alone as separate poems, while the first is tighter, the latter is more expressive with
a more drawn out imagery,
the hendrix line being a prime example, the use of faintly adds an extra depth to the picture.
i suppose the ideal would be somewhere in between the two but from here, they both look good and stand on their own merit. (jmo)

[Leanne]

If I'd written it first as a given form -- not necessarily the ballade -- I'd probably be perfectly happy with it that way, but I still read it and get that effing tune stuck in my head! I don't know. Some distance is probably necessary.

[only rob]

I will leace the serious crit to those above. I enjoyed this read to the fullest, and still hold you up as my hero of modern rhyme. Did I mention how happy I am to be reading you again? lol


Rob