I sometimes feel like a grumpy old man...

[PoetryAndPhysics]

Moments before cones stop polarizing color
sofas and CD racks hover lonely atop impotent sunlight.
But they're just slow thinkers in this twilight:
I videoed my flat screen, 7 to 9pm,
and discover it wobbling about, babbling to a vase.

Outside, what light that lingers orbits street lamps:
orbs of unstable fissile material,
or colonies of impatient fireflies, instantly whizzing away
after I impact glass with my baseball bat.

I make nervous ellipses about this ageing dimension.
One mindless flick will zoom electricity in to kill the twilight:
a late 19th century murderer, flashing like a peacock,
threatening hostages with Maxwell's fluorescent hammer.

I lust for the time before Orsted,
when lives broke sun-up/sun-down,
candles churned out intellectual endeavors,
and society didn't mainline alternating current.

[Darkblue]

Moments before cones stop polarizing color
sofas and CD racks hover lonely atop impotent sunlight. I'm having a hard time grasping this image. Why exactly sofas and CD racks? Based on the rest of the poem, I'm guessing "impotent sunlight" is referring to sunlight being inferior to electric lights, but I'm not certain.
But they're just slow thinkers in this twilight: Who is they? The cones? The sofas and CD racks?
I videoed my flat screen, 7 to 9pm,
and discover it wobbling about, babbling to a vase. I love this image. It was confusing at first, but it made me want to keep coming back to it until I understood (or at least arrived at an answer that was satisfying to me).

Outside, what light that lingers orbits street lamps: Great sound to this line and lovely image.
orbs of unstable fissile material, I would go with either "unstable" or "fissile," but both is too much.
or colonies of impatient fireflies, instantly whizzing away
after I impact glass with my baseball bat. Great imagery throughout this stanza.

I make nervous ellipses about this aging dimension. By "about", do you mean "around"? I think "around" would convey the image better.
One mindless flick will zoom electricity in to kill the twilight:
a late 19th century murderer, flashing like a peacock,
threatening hostages with Maxwell's florescent hammer*. I'm a little lost by the end of this stanza. I looked up the reference (is it from Beatles song, maybe?), but I still don't understand how it fits in or what exactly you're getting at with this stanza.

I lust for the time before Orsted, Looked up this reference too and liked this stanza more with that knowledge. Hans Christian Orsted?
when lives broke sun-up/sun-down,
candles churned out intellectual endeavors,
and society didn't mainline alternating current. All of this is great. I really get a sense of the longing for a different time as illustrated by the influences of different forms of light.



*You get points from me if you know both references... no googling

I get no points because I googled. But only to help me wrap my head around this! I'm still not entirely sure about the Maxwell reference or its purpose, but I think the poem is a lot stronger knowing who Orsted was. I don't know how willing most poetry readers are to look up things they don't understand, but ending the poem with two fairly obscure (or maybe not obscure... what do I know?) references sort of makes the poem lose some momentum there at the end. I may have given up on it had I not really liked it from the start and been curious enough to want to know what I was missing. If you can come up with some kind of subtle way to slip in a quick explanation of what either reference is referring to, it might be more accessible. Or maybe you don't want it to be that easily accessibly, and that's cool too. Just my two bits!

[billy]

i'm a beatle fan so i got one of thme (only one has an identifier on it

anyway, the poem. it's a little psychotropic to say the least. after a few reads it's not as trippy as one might think. i'm sure the 1st stanza needs a little edit but i don't know where or how maybe make it more accessible to the reader.

thanks for the read.

Moments before cones stop polarizing color now i got to the bottom, the top becomes i alive, the cones are in the eye of the beholder clever and good (unless i'm off the mark )
sofas and CD racks hover lonely atop impotent sunlight.
But they're just slow thinkers in this twilight:
I videoed my flat screen, 7 to 9pm,
and discover it wobbling about, babbling to a vase. after i read this stanza i think i was tripping, it feels very Salvador Dali, but i don't get it, nor the age reference from the title. okay it's as trippy as i thought, but still trippy

Outside, what light that lingers orbits street lamps:
orbs of unstable fissile material,
or colonies of impatient fireflies, instantly whizzing away
after I impact glass with my baseball bat. again, very trippy (the street lights seem to be very low) it has a good Luddite feel to it.

I make nervous ellipses about this aging dimension.
One mindless flick will zoom electricity in to kill the twilight:
a late 19th century murderer, flashing like a peacock,
threatening hostages with Maxwell's florescent hammer*. no real probs with this stanza, (take away the little star think and make the poem less of a quizz

I lust for the time before Orsted, nice use of the name instead of the measurment
when lives broke sun-up/sun-down,
candles churned out intellectual endeavors,
and society didn't mainline alternating current. this stanza is almost excellent, it has the anger, it has reference to bygone times it has it all.



*You get points from me if you know both references... no googling

[tectak]

Moments before cones stop polarizing color I'm not convinced you can mix poetry and physics. One is an art and poetry is a science You would be hard put to polarise colour with a cone...polarising does not change wavelength, only orientation (if you are tv screen, twist is a better word. Do I get a bonus point?)
sofas and CD racks hover lonely atop impotent sunlight. Do not get impotent but it sounds good...are we physics here? If so, it sucks; or are we poetry, if so, it sucks. What you mean?
But they're just slow thinkers in this twilight: Who they? Do you know? Yes? Then tell me.
I videoed my flat screen, 7 to 9pm,
and discover it wobbling about, babbling to a vase. Hmm. Esoteric or "Oh,no! Not another drug delivery." Please say it is not...or say what you think you mean after a rest and a rub-down with a caffeine scrub. Again, I am questioning why this is poetry. It is becoming incoherent...like a seminar on quantum leaps on stimulated elliptical electron orbits breaking the coulomb barrier in lenr. What?
Outside, what light that lingers orbits street lamps:
orbs of unstable fissile material, Well, you can fool some of the people all of the time, I suppose. That's poetry I guess.
or colonies of impatient fireflies, instantly whizzing away
after I impact glass with my baseball bat.

I make nervous ellipses about this aging dimension. ageing
One mindless flick will zoom electricity in to kill the twilight:
a late 19th century murderer, flashing like a peacock,
threatening hostages with Maxwell's florescent hammer*. fluorescent

I lust for the time before Orsted, Maxwell and Orsted would be clued more convincingly if you had expounded on magnetic field theory. First finger rules OK?...but then Fleming would come into it all!
when lives broke sun-up/sun-down,
candles churned out intellectual endeavors,
and society didn't mainline alternating current.

Hi p and p,
Overall, I didn't get it...but that is not all down to you. I was already north to north after a few lines. You need more poetry. The physics is open to conjecture, as always; but poetry it ain't...and that is a fact.
I cannot kick the idea into some hyperbolic orbit because I want you to come back with this.
Best,
tectak



*You get points from me if you know both references... no googling

---

[/quote]

[jdguyb]

I'm having trouble gasping the message from lines 1-3. It just seems like random writing to me. Lines 4 and 5 aren't much better. What's the message your trying to convey? What made you angry enough to impact glass wit your baseball bat? It seems like a random line. Where did the hostages come from? I understand where your coming from with the fluorescent hammer line. You outlined it well. The last stanza is great though

[PoetryAndPhysics]

Thanks everyone for the crits, spot on. This one's sort of along the same lines as the TV poem I recently posted (though that one's more personal for me). All in all, I'm getting a bit tired of listening to myself complaining about things. I'll try to edit some of the problems in this and add on a revision... though fair warning, I'm not yet used to revising things right away (if anything, I try again with another version a year later).

Also, I probably should have left out the sarcastic quiz comment, sorry about that. Beatles, and James Clerk Maxwell, though the line needs work because I doubt Maxwell had anything to do with things "fluorescent" (maybe he did, I didn't check).

darkblue- I actually didn't mean it to be as inaccessible as it came out to be. Sofas and CD racks are there for the same reason that my flat screen and vase are: I was in my living room during twilight (which has sofas, CD racks, a flat screen... yes, could've been more poetic). Impotent sunlight describes the twilight and is not meant to be negative. “They” in line three refers (badly) to the sofas and CD racks.

billy- thanks again for taking a look here. You (and tectak) give me too much credit with the cones reference (yes, eyes). Just before posting, I realized I should use that line to compare action potentials to electric current, but I didn't do that, so all that line means is "Just before I stop seeing color". Polarize is only there because I thought "hyperpolarize" would be too technical (no connection with how light is polarized). Yeah, those street lamps aren't the right size.

tectak- ugh, spelling will forever be my downfall, I blame Linux spellcheck. The intro isn't very good, will try to revise. You give me too much credit with the physics. Aside from the cones (which I didn't handle well), Maxwell, Orsted, and AC, there's no other physics references here (fissile material was just poetic, and lazy I'll admit).