07-23-2021, 12:03 AM
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Hi TqB.
One or two thoughts
Population Minus Zero, revision no. 3
(Not keen on having population in the title and then the second line, if it would work I'd suggest 'Gogol's Bluff' as the title)
1 (my numbers, for convenience)
At sunset in Broken Soul (population unknown)
the mouths of the condemned exhale
dry lightning.
(what's the effect of this? Within the context of the poem?)
They dance up a storm
and conspire to invoke anthems of submission
for the town boss’ delight.
(Whatever you're trying to do here, 'they dance up a storm' really doesn't help. I think you need to build the town a bit more before introducing McDoom, would the 'flickering lanterns' verse work here? Or the 'Morse code'?)
2
Big Boss Leroy McDoom is an amalgam
(so wanted him to be an 'anagram' )
of gunpowder and grin
who took the town under his black wings
(bit too much cliché with 'black' perhaps?)
not long after God and the railroad
erased its existence from the map made at Satan’s insistence.
('from the map' seems a bit superfluous given the preceding)
3
Morse’s code has been banned
as a tool of divinity
but the telegraph hums
at a scorpion’s command,
sending out cryptic messages of temptations
composed for the ears
of those God has exempted.
(why is this verse here?)
4
Flickering lanterns hang
from an unneeded gallows
(if the gallows are 'unneeded' how are the 'condemned' meant to die?)
the town’s feral children born of crystal and lead
('crystal and lead' took me to stained glass')
play jump through the noose
on a squeaking trapdoor.
(I think the last three lines of this make the first two redundant - love, 'jump the noose', though I'm not sure 'squeaking' gives sufficient jeopardy)
5
A foot-long cockroach plays sheriff,
(why 'plays'?)
his badge of office so small, a dwarf’s pocket watch,
he does McDoom’s bidding
scurrying up and down the town’s only street
tickling out of dust
('tickling'? initially read this as 'ticking' following on from pocket watch)
the gamble of time’s last relenting.
(from 'last relenting' to 'Last Baptist'?
6
The pews of Last Baptist, a religious way station,
now an opium den where vultures perch
on the sleepers, hungry scavengers
(are the 'sleepers' the congregation or 'railway sleepers'?)
who listen to the news
(this verse makes me wonder why they bothered to ban 'morse code')
6b
recited by a blind prospector
who has memorized every issue
of the Daily Inspector.
(because ... ?)
7
Inside a saloon called the Pink Goddamn
toads wait at the swing door of the town’s only whore
who sheds her skin every spring.
(the next three lines don't seem to develop the saloon scene, for me. What's the whore's name, for instance?)
Sitting on ant-hills littered with gold,
citizen slaves sip an incipient brew
of bone char, alcohol and lust.
8
In a schoolhouse built out of buffalo skulls,
wild turkeys and hogs do sums
while Clio, the drunken schoolmarm,
chants Rimbaud for children not absent
('class' for 'children'?)
but in limbo. Clio’s the goal of every game played
and the game is never forsaken.
9
The daily attraction, christened Frank DeSade
(It seems to take an awfully long time to introduce the 'hero')
rides in at dawn looking wide-eyed with joy
a wandering boy from the desert,
carrying flowers for the hogs
and whiskey for Clio, his indifferent darling.
10
High noon is a myth, it’s really eleven
when McDoom issues his challenge:
a game of Gogol’s Bluff as it’s called
played with a double deck of Tarot
and six-shooters
The stakes are simple: DeSade’s soul
('simple'? )
if he wins, or his sweetheart if he loses.
('sweetheart' after 'indifferent darling'?)
11
No matter how often he plays
(shouldn't 'he' be 'they'?
The game lasts ten seconds,
or ten days in the Bible.
DeSade wins and loses.
The same cards flash in his eyes.
McDoom snatches them back
as the lights in the drifter’s eyes fail.
(feels like you rush things here, not really clear on what's going on. Reads a bit like a game of 'snap')
12
DeSade is not dead, only soulless
until the wasteland’s false dawn.
He wakes every morning and mounts up once more
to ride to the only destiny he knows.
Where twilight and blood orbit, Broken Soul waits,
deadlocked between zero and tomorrow.
(not really working as an ending. Feels like too many endings, one after another, and none satisfy)
So, a poem of three parts (or possibly five )
I. The town
II. McDoom
III. DeSade/The Game
which jumps around a bit too much in the first half, for me; and the last four verses seem almost a complete, self-contained poem in themselves (problems with the ending notwithstanding).
I'm not sure what the 'morse code' and 'Last Baptist' verses are adding to the piece.
I think the focus of the 'schoolhouse' verse should be Clio, not the building, something like
In a schoolhouse of buffalo skulls,
Clio chants Rimbaud for the children
not absent but in limbo. All the while
hogs and wild turkeys, sat in rows, do sums
scratching out the odds on their slates.
She's the schoolmarm and the prize
of every game played
(why is she drunk?)
I think it's improved with the revision, TqB, but while a lot of the parts work, they don't add up to a successful 'sum' ... yet.
Can't figure out verse 6 (my numbers) but would suggest exploring this order - 1,4,3,5,2, 7 - 12
Best, Knot
.
Hi TqB.
One or two thoughts
Population Minus Zero, revision no. 3
(Not keen on having population in the title and then the second line, if it would work I'd suggest 'Gogol's Bluff' as the title)
1 (my numbers, for convenience)
At sunset in Broken Soul (population unknown)
the mouths of the condemned exhale
dry lightning.
(what's the effect of this? Within the context of the poem?)
They dance up a storm
and conspire to invoke anthems of submission
for the town boss’ delight.
(Whatever you're trying to do here, 'they dance up a storm' really doesn't help. I think you need to build the town a bit more before introducing McDoom, would the 'flickering lanterns' verse work here? Or the 'Morse code'?)
2
Big Boss Leroy McDoom is an amalgam
(so wanted him to be an 'anagram'
)of gunpowder and grin
who took the town under his black wings
(bit too much cliché with 'black' perhaps?)
not long after God and the railroad
erased its existence from the map made at Satan’s insistence.
('from the map' seems a bit superfluous given the preceding)
3
Morse’s code has been banned
as a tool of divinity
but the telegraph hums
at a scorpion’s command,
sending out cryptic messages of temptations
composed for the ears
of those God has exempted.
(why is this verse here?)
4
Flickering lanterns hang
from an unneeded gallows
(if the gallows are 'unneeded' how are the 'condemned' meant to die?)
the town’s feral children born of crystal and lead
('crystal and lead' took me to stained glass')
play jump through the noose
on a squeaking trapdoor.
(I think the last three lines of this make the first two redundant - love, 'jump the noose', though I'm not sure 'squeaking' gives sufficient jeopardy)
5
A foot-long cockroach plays sheriff,
(why 'plays'?)
his badge of office so small, a dwarf’s pocket watch,
he does McDoom’s bidding
scurrying up and down the town’s only street
tickling out of dust
('tickling'? initially read this as 'ticking' following on from pocket watch)
the gamble of time’s last relenting.
(from 'last relenting' to 'Last Baptist'?
6
The pews of Last Baptist, a religious way station,
now an opium den where vultures perch
on the sleepers, hungry scavengers
(are the 'sleepers' the congregation or 'railway sleepers'?)
who listen to the news
(this verse makes me wonder why they bothered to ban 'morse code')
6b
recited by a blind prospector
who has memorized every issue
of the Daily Inspector.
(because ... ?)
7
Inside a saloon called the Pink Goddamn
toads wait at the swing door of the town’s only whore
who sheds her skin every spring.
(the next three lines don't seem to develop the saloon scene, for me. What's the whore's name, for instance?)
Sitting on ant-hills littered with gold,
citizen slaves sip an incipient brew
of bone char, alcohol and lust.
8
In a schoolhouse built out of buffalo skulls,
wild turkeys and hogs do sums
while Clio, the drunken schoolmarm,
chants Rimbaud for children not absent
('class' for 'children'?)
but in limbo. Clio’s the goal of every game played
and the game is never forsaken.
9
The daily attraction, christened Frank DeSade
(It seems to take an awfully long time to introduce the 'hero')
rides in at dawn looking wide-eyed with joy
a wandering boy from the desert,
carrying flowers for the hogs
and whiskey for Clio, his indifferent darling.
10
High noon is a myth, it’s really eleven
when McDoom issues his challenge:
a game of Gogol’s Bluff as it’s called
played with a double deck of Tarot
and six-shooters
The stakes are simple: DeSade’s soul
('simple'? )
if he wins, or his sweetheart if he loses.
('sweetheart' after 'indifferent darling'?)
11
No matter how often he plays
(shouldn't 'he' be 'they'?
The game lasts ten seconds,
or ten days in the Bible.
DeSade wins and loses.
The same cards flash in his eyes.
McDoom snatches them back
as the lights in the drifter’s eyes fail.
(feels like you rush things here, not really clear on what's going on. Reads a bit like a game of 'snap')
12
DeSade is not dead, only soulless
until the wasteland’s false dawn.
He wakes every morning and mounts up once more
to ride to the only destiny he knows.
Where twilight and blood orbit, Broken Soul waits,
deadlocked between zero and tomorrow.
(not really working as an ending. Feels like too many endings, one after another, and none satisfy)
So, a poem of three parts (or possibly five
)I. The town
II. McDoom
III. DeSade/The Game
which jumps around a bit too much in the first half, for me; and the last four verses seem almost a complete, self-contained poem in themselves (problems with the ending notwithstanding).
I'm not sure what the 'morse code' and 'Last Baptist' verses are adding to the piece.
I think the focus of the 'schoolhouse' verse should be Clio, not the building, something like
In a schoolhouse of buffalo skulls,
Clio chants Rimbaud for the children
not absent but in limbo. All the while
hogs and wild turkeys, sat in rows, do sums
scratching out the odds on their slates.
She's the schoolmarm and the prize
of every game played
(why is she drunk?)
I think it's improved with the revision, TqB, but while a lot of the parts work, they don't add up to a successful 'sum' ... yet.
Can't figure out verse 6 (my numbers) but would suggest exploring this order - 1,4,3,5,2, 7 - 12
Best, Knot
.