All Is Rock And Pebbled Sod
This poem is a tale of despair and hope.9 total reviews
Comment from Brigitte Elko
Easy, I am so glad that you got out of bed to write this piece. It is an excellent contest but you know that already. My writing pales next to your descriptive and manipulated words. Well done my friend. Keep it coming and I'll keep reading.
Fan friend,
Brigitte
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Easy, I am so glad that you got out of bed to write this piece. It is an excellent contest but you know that already. My writing pales next to your descriptive and manipulated words. Well done my friend. Keep it coming and I'll keep reading.
Fan friend,
Brigitte
Comment Written 04-Nov-2017
Comment from Joy Graham
This poem is a lovely experience :)You have touched my soul and reached my curiosity. I have not read the poem you mention in your author notes, "The Wasteland" by T.S. Elliot. I'm not familiar with his work, but will get busy googling him right away.
The standout moment for me in your poem is:
- "Where are the jewels once sparkling in the sun
that weaved through her black and braided hair?"
This is an outstanding descriptive line that brought a lovely visual to my mind.
Congratulations in your nomination for Poem of the Month!
reply by the author on 03-Nov-2017
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This poem is a lovely experience :)You have touched my soul and reached my curiosity. I have not read the poem you mention in your author notes, "The Wasteland" by T.S. Elliot. I'm not familiar with his work, but will get busy googling him right away.
The standout moment for me in your poem is:
- "Where are the jewels once sparkling in the sun
that weaved through her black and braided hair?"
This is an outstanding descriptive line that brought a lovely visual to my mind.
Congratulations in your nomination for Poem of the Month!
Comment Written 03-Nov-2017
reply by the author on 03-Nov-2017
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Hi Joy and thanks for the review and your kind congratulation on my nomination for poem of the month. I am honored by both. tom
Comment from kiwisteveh
This is the way the world ends.... not with a bang, but a whimper. A bold task to write something inspired by 'The Wasteland' I am very glad your piece is less cryptic and more accessible than Eliot's!
You have done a great job of creating atmosphere with phrases such as the title, 'All is rock and pebbled sod, and
'... whose eyes
Have long ago become as faded pearls
Within the locusts' den
Where fog and dust now swirls. '
Even though your rhyme scheme is irregular, it combines well with the iambic meter to give this great flow and I like the companionable tone -
Come, let us walk this broken street, you and I,
which perhaps echoes another Eliot poem, 'The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock.'
Thought-provoking stuff.
Steve
reply by the author on 12-Oct-2017
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This is the way the world ends.... not with a bang, but a whimper. A bold task to write something inspired by 'The Wasteland' I am very glad your piece is less cryptic and more accessible than Eliot's!
You have done a great job of creating atmosphere with phrases such as the title, 'All is rock and pebbled sod, and
'... whose eyes
Have long ago become as faded pearls
Within the locusts' den
Where fog and dust now swirls. '
Even though your rhyme scheme is irregular, it combines well with the iambic meter to give this great flow and I like the companionable tone -
Come, let us walk this broken street, you and I,
which perhaps echoes another Eliot poem, 'The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock.'
Thought-provoking stuff.
Steve
Comment Written 09-Oct-2017
reply by the author on 12-Oct-2017
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Thank you Steve. Most honored. easy
Comment from royowen
If this life was man's birthright, I would surely wither away and prefer to die now, life would merely be like a leaf on winter's wind! What is the hope of man? Well done with this one, so many prophetic and well honed phrases, innuendo and articulate expression is its mantle. Some great strategic rhyming, presented in strong language. Well done, blessings, loved it's ambiguity. Roy
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If this life was man's birthright, I would surely wither away and prefer to die now, life would merely be like a leaf on winter's wind! What is the hope of man? Well done with this one, so many prophetic and well honed phrases, innuendo and articulate expression is its mantle. Some great strategic rhyming, presented in strong language. Well done, blessings, loved it's ambiguity. Roy
Comment Written 09-Oct-2017
Comment from Alcreator Litt Dear
This speaks state of mind of the poet when he lives in despair and the whole world appears dull and colourless and everything appears standstill but he has hope for recovery; I liked.
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This speaks state of mind of the poet when he lives in despair and the whole world appears dull and colourless and everything appears standstill but he has hope for recovery; I liked.
Comment Written 09-Oct-2017
Comment from DonandVicki
I could see the inspiration of T.S. Elliot in your well-crafted poem before I read your authors notes. A lot of hope and despair in your prose/ poem. Don and Vicki.
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I could see the inspiration of T.S. Elliot in your well-crafted poem before I read your authors notes. A lot of hope and despair in your prose/ poem. Don and Vicki.
Comment Written 09-Oct-2017
Comment from dmt1967
This poem sounds very traditional and is written of old. I like the fact their is no picture as I feel this would take some of the drama out of the words. Great poem and thank you for sharing.
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This poem sounds very traditional and is written of old. I like the fact their is no picture as I feel this would take some of the drama out of the words. Great poem and thank you for sharing.
Comment Written 09-Oct-2017
Comment from Day Z Chayn
Tom,
And the weird part about all this is that the day T.S. Elliot died was in fact the exact same day that I was born into this world prematurely. I remembered his "Wasteland" right off. POETRY Magazine was the very first to publish it. All back issues of POETRY Magazine are archived digitally from the very first until the most current which you can read today.
I mention this because POETRY Magazine is the longest continuously published hardcopy periodical continuously published in the U.S. today. But seriously, I digress.
Also thinking about a poem "On The Death Of William Butler Yeats" or somesuch, but I can't think for the life of me who it was that wrote it.
Hey, old man! Let's not forget Dylan Thomas with the ode to his dying father "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night."
All this meandering reminds me of how Robert Frost had stopped by the woods on a snowy evening and took the "road less travelled by."
In your formalization of thought, you have always taken "the road less travelled by," which Frost implored us to do but which so many of us in our work-a-day, waste-away world choose to wholeheartedly ignore.
For you, (as Robert Frost also indicates) "that has made all the difference."
~Shane~
reply by the author on 08-Oct-2017
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Tom,
And the weird part about all this is that the day T.S. Elliot died was in fact the exact same day that I was born into this world prematurely. I remembered his "Wasteland" right off. POETRY Magazine was the very first to publish it. All back issues of POETRY Magazine are archived digitally from the very first until the most current which you can read today.
I mention this because POETRY Magazine is the longest continuously published hardcopy periodical continuously published in the U.S. today. But seriously, I digress.
Also thinking about a poem "On The Death Of William Butler Yeats" or somesuch, but I can't think for the life of me who it was that wrote it.
Hey, old man! Let's not forget Dylan Thomas with the ode to his dying father "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night."
All this meandering reminds me of how Robert Frost had stopped by the woods on a snowy evening and took the "road less travelled by."
In your formalization of thought, you have always taken "the road less travelled by," which Frost implored us to do but which so many of us in our work-a-day, waste-away world choose to wholeheartedly ignore.
For you, (as Robert Frost also indicates) "that has made all the difference."
~Shane~
Comment Written 08-Oct-2017
reply by the author on 08-Oct-2017
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Hey Mr. Tambourine Man play a song for me...
I appreciate your tutelage and poetic references
which 'in that jingle-jangle morning I'll come
following you.' Thank you again Shane my mani
chingosummnida. Korean for good friend. Now I'm
off to bed to finish "A Burnt Out Soul" written by
the alliterative Graham Greene. A great insightful
writer and a prescient genius. Goodnight my friend
Shane. tom
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Thanks a million Shane. I really appreciate
your reviews. tom
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I'm honored by the compliment
my friend. Thank you. tom
Comment from rama devi
Powerful themes and deeply contemplation of them with part imagery, fluid flow, great rhymes and fantastic phonetics.
Impermanence and mortality make a fine duet of thematic threads in tandem.
NOTES
Love this voicing--so eloquent:
Will death not seize the birthright we both wear
When day gives way to night with one last sigh.
Nicely repeated like a chorus.
Great lines:
Signs play a monlithic rhapsody
For those who soon will die with dignity.
*spag--comma and pluralization of verb and subject matching:
Well(,) observations made, though flawed as art,
Is(Are) all we have as we depart.
Great imagery and voicing and rhyming here:
Our eyes observe for those whose eyes
Have long ago become as faded pearls
Within the locusts' den
Where fog and dust now swirls.
Excellent assonance of O here:
All is rock and pebbled sod.
And the medley of S and W sounds resonate well read aloud:
No sound of wind-whipped sail
On sea-bound ship,
OUTSTANDING STANZA an imagery:
Where are the jewels once sparkling in the sun
That weaved throughout her black and braided hair?
The pyramids stand idle, every one,
Above the bones that wither there.
Good penetrating insight:
Was not their time as equal then
As ours is equal now?
Loved reading this aloud:
And who should steal the sacredness
Within the sacred cow?
The fools who follow prophets proud,
Or those without perception now
Who shout the loudest from the crowd?
LOVE THIS LINE:
Hear the purloined jester chuckle from the grave!
Richly pensive and musical too. Bravo
Warmly, rd
reply by the author on 08-Oct-2017
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Powerful themes and deeply contemplation of them with part imagery, fluid flow, great rhymes and fantastic phonetics.
Impermanence and mortality make a fine duet of thematic threads in tandem.
NOTES
Love this voicing--so eloquent:
Will death not seize the birthright we both wear
When day gives way to night with one last sigh.
Nicely repeated like a chorus.
Great lines:
Signs play a monlithic rhapsody
For those who soon will die with dignity.
*spag--comma and pluralization of verb and subject matching:
Well(,) observations made, though flawed as art,
Is(Are) all we have as we depart.
Great imagery and voicing and rhyming here:
Our eyes observe for those whose eyes
Have long ago become as faded pearls
Within the locusts' den
Where fog and dust now swirls.
Excellent assonance of O here:
All is rock and pebbled sod.
And the medley of S and W sounds resonate well read aloud:
No sound of wind-whipped sail
On sea-bound ship,
OUTSTANDING STANZA an imagery:
Where are the jewels once sparkling in the sun
That weaved throughout her black and braided hair?
The pyramids stand idle, every one,
Above the bones that wither there.
Good penetrating insight:
Was not their time as equal then
As ours is equal now?
Loved reading this aloud:
And who should steal the sacredness
Within the sacred cow?
The fools who follow prophets proud,
Or those without perception now
Who shout the loudest from the crowd?
LOVE THIS LINE:
Hear the purloined jester chuckle from the grave!
Richly pensive and musical too. Bravo
Warmly, rd
Comment Written 08-Oct-2017
reply by the author on 08-Oct-2017
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Hey Sister, Sister. Thank you of course for the outstand review
and spag-sweep. This is one I also really liked writing and even
liked it after I wrote it which is not always the case. It was inspired by
two of my favorite poems. The Wasteland" by T. S. Elliot and a ;poem
called "HOWL" ay Allan Ginsberg. HOWL turned the poetic literati upside
down and also caused the poetry police to file charges against Ginsberg for its authorship and the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the City Lights Book Store which Ferlinghetti owned in San Francisco, for distribution of pornographic material. Both G. and F. were found innocent of all charges and the poem became the anthem of the "Beat Generation" and had tremendous impact on poetry and freedom of expression as expressed and implied in our First Amendment. Below are a few lines from the start of this iconic tome.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angry-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to
the starry dynamo in the machinery of night -
Well you get the idea. Thanks again Sis. tom
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Ah yes, Ginsberg was a great beat poet, and Elliot is one of the best of the greats. Thanks for sharing, dear Brother Tom!
:-)))))
rd
