(no subject)

[proximoception]

Wrote a tiny poem c. 1998-9, among my very first, with a deliberate grammatical error, of which I immediately disliked the H. Rider Haggardness but couldn't come up with a suitable replacement:

The shape of she
Escapes from me
When finally I find her

But she's the kit
That fashioned it
And knits a fit reminder

How could that best have been fixed? I've come up with nothing each time it's called back to mind. I know it's not much of a poem - and you can see how into rhyme I was - but it still tugs as unfinished business. "Her modality" is too long, "Her shape, you see" is superfluously chatty, etc.

Comments

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Hmm. "Her shape (my she)"?

[xhasyxhaxha.livejournal.com]

One way you could do it would be something like-

Her shape slips free,
Escaping me,

But that's using two verbs to do the work of one.
Everything else I thought of orphans the last syllable of 'finally'.

[xhasyxhaxha.livejournal.com]

(...commas optional I guess.)

Also, this made me think of Patti Smith's song 'Dancing Barefoot'!

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's perfect!

Wasn't there a scene in Amadeus where Mozart extemporaneously riffs on something of Salieri's, just for fun, improving it infinitely without a thought, right in front of him?

[xhasyxhaxha.livejournal.com]

You'lda prob'ly thought up the same lines yourself if you could've looked at it fresh! I And thought about it for a long time to be honest!

[xhasyxhaxha.livejournal.com]

AND I. You see I hardly can write a sentence.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

[Names changed to protect the identity of david.]

me: Good grief. Did you see that? That's phenomenal.

Shingly the Worm-Turner: see what

me: me jehnal, mite

cor

SWT: i thought was fine to begin with. 21 y/o's or thereabouts can get away with bad grammar.

two verbs is troublesome

me: Eh, whatever. It solves the problem without sounding stupid, and that's better than I could ever do.

me: Also he adds more alliteration and alliteration is awesome as fuck.

Everyone knows it is.

SWT: sh and sl dont alliterate

me: slips/escapes and free/finally are close enough

me: Anyway why can't there be two verbs? You guys sound like Howard Roark removing collonades.

Fuckin' haiku police.

SWT: verbs are the meaning-weight of a poem! two verbs doing the work of one means two weak verbs

me: Nah they're fine/

It was a non weightbearing verb.

[xhasyxhaxha.livejournal.com]

David is our Andalusian Bird-friend? I nearly stopped myself from commenting yesterday, just to give him the chance to do a better job of it first...

Whoever he is, that's a pretty elaborate disguise...

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

The final 'y' of finally is fine alone like that.

Past symphonies of Smith, Pattis - were these as mythy, pat?