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Joined: Aug 2011
This is a very, very old poem which hasn't seen the light of day for years! I am trying to show you a scene through my eyes.
Through bulrushes and tangled reeds,
a narrow boat thrusts its way
over badly-spoken bikes,
drowned prams and lost boots,
whilst sticklebacks dart under her beam.
Undulating eddies annoy
the bank-bound fishermen
as they idle in the collapsed afternoon,
casting covetous glances
at her back
as she steams nonchalantly by.
Her tow-path meanders in tandem
with the somnolent canal,
where hedgerows cramp its freedom
as it cuts through freshly harvested fields.
Succulent, dust-free blackberries
decorate each bramble hedge
like purple dew-drop clusters
awaiting children’s lips
as dragon-flies show-off their shot-silk
shirts to the dowdy horse-fly swarms
who in turn tease
the long-lashed cows,
browsing in the afternoon’s warmth.
Posts: 444
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Joined: Nov 2011
Indeed! Nice 'old' poem. Am always on the look-out for "dust-free
blackberries". I had to look up 'shot-silk' in the wiki as I'd never heard
the term before. Turns out I'd been admiring it all my life and never
knew what it was called. Later, I asked my wife and she replied instantly,
amazed at my ignorance. (I guess this was a notable deficit as usually
she isn't even amazed.) But anyway, now that I know, I think it's a
great description. I love dragonflies. There are many down here in
Baytown, Texas. I have three waterlily "ponds" (actually livestock
watering troughs) and they just love them. They have this amazing
mating dance, ever seen it?
a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions
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Joined: Dec 2016
This has a nice cadence. The only two places I had to stop and reload was in stanza 2 because I couldn't figure out who "she" was. And the odd break over stanzas 4 and 5. This is sort of a modernist pastoral poem. I think this sort of image is about as close to a modern Shepard and his Flock and we are likely get. In exchange for that pairing have "sticklebacks and fishermen".
Ray,
I grew up with both dragon flies and Horned Toad, or Horny Toad as we called it, and have seen neither for quite some time. Every now and again I will get a lost dragonfly wandering through, but as I keep the water sources dry in order to combat the mosquitoes, I have nothing to attract them. I do think as I said above it is a good substitute for the traditional pastoral. The days of a Shepard and his flock are quickly fading, not just from existence but from memory as we learn how to efficiently impersonal raise and kill animals through the creative adaptation of modern mechanization, so I think the image of spend an relaxing idle in the countryside is beginning to take the place of the original. We seem to be in act two of the "Age of Reason" where we really turn the thumb screws on nature. Before we wanted to control nature, now we wish to allow it no breath. I think a number of us (which would include me) might starve to death if we had to go back to butchering what we eat. We have become antiseptic, even in or vices, no matter it's origin, it is already sterilized and shrink wrapped by the time it reaches us.
I like the look of "shot-silk", it reminds me of Carnival Glass. It reminds me of the pattern of linen in terms of texture, but beside carnival glass, I can think of nothing that comes close to the iridescence. Growing up I saw similar material as covers for couches and chairs. I remember spending a fair amount of time just sitting on a couch or chair, running my hand back and forth over such material with my eyes closed what a wonderful sensation! Even so, such luxuries, as I reckoned them then, were more a thing of my grandparents generation, than anything I would ever possess, although I did inherit an overly stuffed rocking chair covered in that material. Just a few years after I had gotten, so large person plopped down in it, and broke the two back slats/beams into splinters. After that I went to heavy wood furniture, until the impermanence of my life forced me to divest myself of well built furniture. Let me tell you a full Duncan Fife china closet and and buffet, along with a dinning table with two large round pillars that weighed about a hundred pounds each.
"blackberries" yum!
Dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
