Another Across the Great Divide Moment

[cidermaid]

Thought i would slack off from work and indulge myself in poetry so back again.

This is one that has got under my skin because it is striking such a chord of resonance. (from the other comments i think i am not alone in this and you have managed to capture something in this one).
I know everyone will get different things from this. I am reading it as a self depreciating grumble against the banality of life. I got a very strong picture of life being sold as an "A" side, No 1 experiance but the reality is definiatly "B" side.

Another Across the Great Divide Moment

Pick-up over pepperoni pizza: I get what the Pick up is meant to convey but it gets lost in the first line rush to get into the poem so that initially I was thinking why "over" - this reads odd.
a pitcher of darkish beer— I am not sure about how you have set this out re-punctuation (em dash thing ...I know every one is keen to try out the new key we have found but perhaps a and between the two lines would serve as well)
half pack of reds—
at the local pizza place. Not sure I needed the repitition of pizza for this line and just local would strengthen the image of low rent for me.
Across the booth —waiting— to follow me down I love all of the next 8 lines, I think they would stand as a stanza. Only thought would be to change the first line order round to read Waiting - accross the booth - to follow me down. just a suggestion.
is a little mousy, hip-hugging, bell bottom wearing,
hairy underarms, limp-chest, dirty dishwater
pseudo blonde feminist easy to bed hippy-chick.
Moderately warm,
Moderately stoned,
Moderately lost—not looking for home,
Moderately ill-informed,
Moderately born!
She’s standing on the dock of the bay love the song line but as she was in her booth a moment ago it made me stumble. but as with other comment when i think how it could be changed i get nothing and as it pluggs me so strongly into that whole era of sound and images i think it needs to stay...but just mentioning it did make me stumble and want to re-read to check where she was in the narrative
—an idiot wind that is blowing as the times they are a changing—
every time she opines her mouth Is this a typo and should read opens or did you mean her opines as in her thoughts opinions? If the latter is is an odd read.
as though she’s heading south, Also think the following lines are a second reason to break the two segments down. It is all on the level as a read up to moderatly born and then the write takes a dive into the acid test experiance (down to fonda stakes). It works well as a read - makes me want to shake my head to try and clear my thinking to make sense of what I'm reading.
or somewhere, down there, or there somewhere ‘round about.
Pretending she’s pretending to be on the bus;
afraid to take the acid test, needing more time to study first,
but that kind of knowledge just brings a cool-aid thirst,
never getting better, only getting worse.
You know the rules: you can’t stay on,
unless you turn on, tune in…
drop and give me fifty you shaved long haired dope head.
Don’t matter though, you’ll most likely be dead
—in a year—
if not they’ll get you when you get back.
Utilizing the correct attack plan of the man,
to kill those vampire Vets from Vee-eet-nam;
—get ‘em—
right through the heart with mis-in-formed
acid hate—toxic sharpened—Fonda stakes.

Right there, In the darkness, on the edge of town,
everybody’s getting funky, getting dead or getting down.
Everyone, daughter and son, is turning Japanese,
or whatever for the moment passes as commercial sleeve,
while falling in a lust-love scented breeze with my Sharona!
She’s getting big and round, a big round drown,
as Billy Joe goes face down
into the river without a sound, in my little town.
Till the factory shuts down, and moves outta town
leaving us with debts no honest man could slay,
and still trying, trying, trying, to do as we please:
trying to run while standing on our knees!
We’re looking out for number one,
cause girl’s just wanna have fun,
by putting things on the Great America lay
away to get a foot in and a hand from
the looking for Mr. Goodbar disillusionment plan,
so that whatever anyone did we’d have our say,
like political statements by King Kong and Faye Wray… no comments on this for now. it works but feels a bit long - but again ? what could be cut. It is strong in the convenance of the predictable tedium and the banality of a pop culture in a PC world. Well this is what I read in this

“Mikhail, play ball!
Tear down this god-damned wall!” A curve ball from the East...like it and god is demoted to a lower case g (intentional or happy typo - it works for me to underline a second message "From whence comes my help?" --not the Lord ...but from my old foe...everything is arse backwards!)

…and let the terrorist fall
wherever it is that they may.
It’s a fiber bran, brand new day
coming, then going, but never slowing;
and you can see it if you try,
and if your Dendrites aren’t acid fried,
with a slice of RK or colored contacts:

talking ‘bout peace—talking ‘bout love,
talking ‘bout…Haute Couture… The above lines feel like the meat of the subject - no crit

Talking about needing a bigger closet
for all this stuff just purchased @ 19.36%
per centrist rate of compounding disinterest,
to keep the ‘merican, I have a dream-sickle cell bohemian
alive or at least a reasonable “just the-facts-simile”
or metaphor, if you’ve been there once, but not before,
the names have been changed to protect the insouciant
font of Courier & I’ve fallen down, and I can’t get passed,
these de-partied desktop icons of dead iconoclasts;
Flash in the pannus Janis Jimmy nonaspirate, and Jim more or less,
never mastered, who were cut and plastered,
In this cut and dried, paste and past, “two score years ago-go,
we really had no desire and we didn’t start the fire;
regardless we’re now depending on “Dobie the UN
House Elf,” or anyone but whythefuckus to put it out.
Cause we don’t want to get our paltrier hands dirty,
because there are just some things that:

–Dawn can’t take grease out of
–Mr. Whipple can’t stack
–Madge can’t soften…
and Mrs. Butterworth can’t sweet–
sixteen anymore the way it use to be…

…because

“Things today are really serious man!
Two score and two years ago
we only had nuclear annihilation,
and mass human extinction
to–why me–worry about.”

But in the…

“I survived the Y2K” millennium,
you’ve got big–ass–shit–stuff:
the—red/blue, thesis/antithesis split
the—you can’t call Muslim-terrorist, terrorist
the—war we’re mired in as quagmire—
as our life blood slowly ebbs away,
while we’re only half a percentage point away
from being owned by the “Paper Tiger”. from the bigger closet line down to here I am hanging on to my read. i get lost in some of the referances which are probably just me being slow. What I do get is the grumble becoming a rant of frustration at what is going on in the world, thinly disguised as a humerous poke...it works well on both levels i think. I still have no suggestions of whar to edit but still feel it is not quite there.
Today, today, today:

you can—be dying for sex
you can—be dying to have sex
you can—be dying from having had sex

as Gabriel’s trumpet is pealing,
for lack of Gaye sexual healing.

“I don’t want to die, but…I really want to
do I want to really do, to do what I want to do.”

“Yeah man, do your own thing!”

“I want to do what I want, when I want and as I want,
and be given approval and praise as well!”

“Far out man, power to the people—totally groovy”

“Well I don’t know about groovy?

But!
I know what I want,
and I should be able to have it,
because it’s my right,
and I have a right to what I want,
because it says so in the con-stay-two-shun.”

“Right on Brother! Totally disestablishmentarianism.”

“You’re kind of weird, you know?”

“I’m your brother, man, and you are mine! I’m in you and you’re in me, I am the Walrus, coo-coo-ahchoo”

“Yeah… uh, sure man, whateveryousay. Guess I’ll
see you at the next peace march! Seeyoulaterthen”

“Own word to the dog! Amoeba! Turn off, tune up…aw Man, damn short term Kool-Aid acid memory test loss!

–Erthona


©2000-2011

sorry Dale still not much to help with any suggestions to trim lines.
Stick with it - there is a lot in here that is really good.