The River

[Sparkydashforth]

Hi CRNDLSM,

thanks for these editorial thoughts. They will help in any future edits.

"what is a rusting bloom.  just treating rust growth as a flower?"

That's a good question! I wish I had a good answer for you. My intent was
to envision displaced mechanical (industrial ) parts, and flora mingled together,
but failed to construct the image intelligibly enough. Have o work on that.

Thanks again for taking a thoughtful look at this.

So, I picture a man sitting by the river watching all this flow by.  is this part of the lake that caught fire 60s 70s?  first,  I like the symmetry of 2 short stanzas, then the long, then 2 more.  I wrote it all out to try and put myself there.

They are inside the water - molocules of memory; 'they are' seems to be how you start getting your mind rolling, not helpful to the piece but maybe personal characteristic flair, although, 'they are' also reminds me of a horror film.
horse and buggy, parts of eighteen wheelers,
a girl on a tricycle – squirrel bones,
the sludge of a delving tide.

No one can tell what is missing,this is my favorite stanza, seems to actually say the most about the lIst of losts that flow later
what iis still surfacing, what has become
lathered into womb-bearing suds. Also womb bearing is good all the procreation references later.

A wake nibbles the passing,
heaps up headless pomades,
a filigree of funnel cake,
cotton candy and rum; these items listed I feel could be pasted anywhere within the poem.  
the painted missing parts
of the once and will be.

A momentous loss drifts by -
is found by stooping gulls;
mute tales are diced into mist.
Amid the tremble of reeds,
late summer copulates
with eddy, churn and jism.
Unbuckled slosh slips by a sipping sky.
There are rusting bloomswhat is a rusting bloom.  just treating rust growth as a flower? 
between spent shot shells.
Condoms colonize cattails.
The river slops together
wind-plowed concoctions -
blends the newly-unearthed
with the long abandoned.Id hyphen long-abandoned
Even though this stanza has items almost listed, the movement of it describes the actual river the best.  this stanza could almost stand alone as a poem.

The Ohio dredges itself,
sifts moments in fish-guts of time.
There are long trod dreads,I like 'long trod dreads', because I think 'treading trodden trails'
sweet smoke in hair-spun ecstasies.
Unseen acts that still beat
against eroding banks.

The backwash seeps as moon-spill,
or drives a John Deere
deeper into boggy entrails,
while barges slowly push
each muddy footprint like objects lost in the river are footprints in time. but it all comes off as trash anyway.
toward an empty shoe.

The beauty in describing the horrors here has an effective impact on my need to clean.
I'm sure this poem could be twice as long with original disgusting descriptions, or you could cut half and probly have the same impact.  it is what it is.

---

Hi tectac

this is a full and challenging edit from you.  I need to work on the construction of images better.

"first of all, as you are by now aware, this is the workshopping forum which does NOT mean that the crits are there to do the work. Come on, spelling and grammar matter as much as typos...when you cannot be bothered to get such basics right. Onwards"

Yep, I've ben told, and agree. No excuse for sloppy.

I am not happy with the opening lines of the poem. Really I need to find a way to get into the memory
of the water (river), without stating the obvious.


horse and buggy, parts of eighteen wheelers,
a girl on a tricycle – squirrel bones,
the sludge of a delving tide.

You found the above incomprehensible, but I want to defend the lines (to an extent).
My intent was to infer that each thing discarded into the river has a back story behind it,
and that story can be dark, light or trivial. For instance unsolved child murders.
I do think that tidal forces do delve and expose these memories and stories.
Though one has to be careful when speaking of 'tides' in inland waterways.

Your thoughts will help me lift this poem immensely.

Very much obliged to you.

Hello spark,
first of all, as you are by now aware, this is the workshopping forum which does NOT mean that the crits are there to do the work. Come on, spelling and grammar matter as much as typos...when you cannot be bothered to get such basics right. Onwards



They are inside the water - molocules of memory;molecules. A hyphen then a semicolon is a problem if only because of the confusion. You see, I lost trust in what you were saying in the first line. Is it " They are inside the water; molecules of memory." or "They are inside the water molecules of memory". Your call because I cannot.
horse and buggy, parts of eighteen wheelers,
a girl on a tricycle – squirrel bones,
the sludge of a delving tide. Now how nice it would be to say I know what you are talking about...I have no idea what you are talking about.OK, OK...fragments of memory, yes, I get the idea but what the hell is a "tricycle-squirrel bones"? What on this good earth is a "delving tide"? No doubt someone who knows knows and will tell me...but this is POETRY we are reading. I long for the days when google was not required. It ain't gonna happen so I need YOU, the writer, to create an image in my head that describes what you saw and memorised. Believe me, a girl on a tricycle-squirrel bones leaves me grounded. Help.

No one can tell what is missing,
what iis still surfacing, what has become
lathered into womb-bearing suds. Quite apart from the "iis" typo, shame on you for not reading your OWN STUFF, this interjecting little stanza has no poetic qualities whatsoever...it should not be here because it takes away from, rather than adds to, the piece. Any poetic device which for its raison d'etre relies upon open-ended questions must inevitably give up the aswers, otherwise the reader moves on and moves on the next time imponderables are introduced. I am unclear. What I am trying to say is if "no one" can tell what is missing then I am certainly not going to try...so next. But wait...aha, hidden beneath the waves, eh? Perhaps if I wait for a delving tide I will find out...oh...hang on, I can just see it bobbing up...damn it, lost it again beneath the foam....but, hell, it sure looked like a womb to me. Now I am not trying to be cynical, I don't need to it comes naturally, but the frustration factor is always highest when the poetic endeavour is at its lowest. I can hear the purists shout out "prose, you dummy" and I take it on the metaphorical chin, but believe me a good moon-june still trumps in-um-uds; particularly when there is nothing else to finesse.

A wake nibbles the passing,
heaps up headless pomades,
a filigree of funnel cake,
cotton candy and rum;
the painted missing parts
of the once and will be. Now very oddly, and this happens to me a good deal, I actually LIKE this stanza because it DOES add to the piece. You have some nice rhythm in the first line, some altruistic alliteration in the second, third and fourth, and nonsense in the fifth and sixth...so three out of five does it for me. Not to be considered an ignoramous, I like it for that other reason...the title still comes back to me and reminds me of what the poem is about, just enough to interpret the last two lines. I don't do obscure. What is the point in a piece so potentially rich in imagery and thence clarity? Just paint me a picture and I will do the rest. Still, I LIKE this stanza.

A momentous loss drifts by - Again with the single N (?) dash. What grammatical function is it intended to serve here? By its use you compromised the next line and went as far as to behead it through no fault of its own. " A momentous loss drifts by, plundered by stooping gulls" gives meaning. Someone's loss is someone else's gain. How boring to say that a momentous loss has been found. End.
is found by stooping gulls;
mute tales are diced into mist. You may hate me for this but I believe that the poem starts with this stanza. Notwithstanding the runaway alliteration, clearly compromising , flailingly foolish, irritatingly irrational ...et al...you really are on a museful high. Calm down, clarify, flow like a river, suck me in. More cometh
Amid the tremble of reeds,
late summer copulates
with eddy, churn and jism. This is excellent if "jism" is taken to be slang vernacular, rather than its source which is, I believe, Hindi body, not bodhi ( I used it myself one, and got into terrible difficulties with erthona. Ah, those were the days). OK. some may say it is gratuitous...it is gratuitous..BUT, BUT...there is nothing wrong with that.
Unbuckled slosh slips by a sipping sky. Drop "slosh". You will become fixated on the easy and lose your desire to find EXACTLY the right word. Oh, see, further down...you almost did it again but changed it to "slops". Tell me I am wrong
There are rusting blooms
between spent shot shells.
Condoms colonize cattails.
The river slops together
wind-plowed concoctions -
blends the newly-unearthed
with the long abandoned. Like. Like .Like....but not the bloody n dash. It really does compromise whatever follows. It is almost being used to substitute for thought and so I will focus on what the sentence structure says. It says "the river (blah blah blah bla) blends the newly unearthed with the long abandoned". That is the point. It is up to you to get out the descriptors of these two mixed metaphors in some intelligible way. I still don't know what you have against "long-abandoned"...but I am very-glad. Harrruuummmphhhhh.

The Ohio dredges itself,
sifts moments in fish-guts of time.
There are long trod dreads,
sweet smoke in hair-spun ecstasies.
Unseen acts that still beat
against eroding banks.

The backwash seeps as moon-spill,
or drives a John Deere
deeper into boggy entrails,
while barges slowly push
each muddy footprint
toward an empty shoe. Last two stanzas...top drawer. Well done. This piece better as it improved

Some quite unique imagery in the later stages but I really do believe you could make this piece shine by buffing out the irregularities. It is geographically sensitive and may not travel well but from where I sit in the "barren wind-swept heath-land, moor-land bracken-brown and broken-bricked with failed-farms" it STILL makes sense. Thank you for it.
tectak