Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.
A young woman who loved me spoke Welsh to me
A young woman who loved me spoke Welsh to me;
perhaps she was lying in her own language, but her kisses felt like truth.
She held me as though I was the brightest pebble from the river,
hard in her hand, close to her breast; she did not let me go,
I fell by my own mass, by my own gravity, not back into the river
but onto the dry, yellow ground where all I owned was
the little half-pit I made in the dust, and that wasn't really mine.
No more Welsh, no river-ripple, just deep-dull, lost, closing,
heartbeatless, truthless, sleep.
Style / type:
Free verse
Review Request (Direction):
[This option has been removed]
Last few words:
I have posted this poem firstly to test the system. I wrote it this morning. It is based on a dream I had last night and on the emotions I felt during the dream and when I had woken up (and fallen asleep again!). As with all my poetry this year it was originally typeset in (Eric Gill's) Perpetua 14pt. Re-posted in plain text on the evening of 10th April, typed straight in - that seems to have done the trick.
NB If anyone find this hard to read, please let me know and I will email you an MS Word file in larger font.
Editing stage:
(c) Neopoet.com. No copyright is claimed by Neopoet to original member content.
Comments
Marie Marshall
Sun, 2011-04-10 03:40
Thanks, Eph.
Hi Eph. Thanks. The change of pace/mood towards the end was deliberate.
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
Marie Marshall
Sun, 2011-04-10 10:26
Thanks Eph,
Thanks Eph, but same difference.
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
Roscoe Lane
Sun, 2011-04-10 03:36
To be able,
To be able to express a dream so well in a poem is an art, and i believe you have captured this. I love that last line, heartbeatless, truthless sleep. Welcome to neopoet, hope to read a lot more of your work. Regards Roscoe..
Roscoe Llane,
Religion will rip your faith off, and return
for the mask of disbelief that's left.
Marie Marshall
Sun, 2011-04-10 03:40
Thanks, Roscoe.
Hi Roscoe, thanks. Any ideas how to get this to appear on screen with my deliberately long lines intact and unspaced?
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
Marie Marshall
Sun, 2011-04-10 04:44
Thanks, Xena.
Thanks for your comments. As it happens the current style in which I write is free verse but with long lines; I find this is a way of adding strength to free verse, it shows confidence, and allows me to use both punctuation and line breaks to control the rhythm and flow of the reading. I can see that the system simply won't accommodate that, so maybe I will have to find another way of presenting my poetry. Perhaps blogging it - that's a thought. Perhaps I will look at that possibility, then people will have a chance of seeing the poem as I intended it.
M
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
pleiades
Sun, 2011-04-10 04:05
marie, to add to warrior
marie, to add to warrior princess's helpful
comment, in case you're unaware ...go to
"tools", and select "submit content" to
chose blog or forum
don't have time to crit this write at the moment
will return
cheers
p
Marie Marshall
Sun, 2011-04-10 04:45
Thanks, P
I'll give that a go, thanks. I'll see if I can blog the same poem.
M
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
Race_9togo
Mon, 2011-04-11 22:48
Hello Marie
Welcome to Neopoet.
Please excuse the occassionally chaotic navigation and functions on our site. We are in the process of readying Neopoet for a public re-launch, and things are a little hectic.
As a member, your voice and opinions about our site is important, so please feel free to tell us what is wrong and what is right, what you like and dislike about our site ('our' includes you, heehee).
I find the format of your poem just fine, it reads very clearly. Usually, when there are formatting issues, it is best to copy and paste your poem from your editor into notebook, then reformat there as needed before posting on Neopoet.
I smiled at your "Please do not critique mechanics", etc. for in fact it needs no changes in those terms. This reads very much like prose poetry to me, and I like it very much; it is evocative, and holds a dream-like quality that I enjoy (a thing I felt before I read your Last Few Words).
I hope you find Neopoet to be a good new home. Feel free to ask any member for help in getting around; if they don't know the answer, they can point you to someone who will.
Respectfully, Race
"Laws and Rules don't kill freedom: narrow-minded intolerance does" - Race-9togo
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Race_9togo
Marie Marshall
Tue, 2011-04-12 01:47
Hi Jim
Hi Jim, and thanks for the comments.
Formatting - that's because I deleted the whole poem (in the state it was in) and re-typed it straight into Neopoet, using 'plain text'. It appears that is the only way I can get the system to accept my long lines.
I just clicked 'please don't critique mechanics' originally because it would have been pointless anyone saying they did or did not like the layout, because the layout was decided by the system, not my me!
'Prose poetry' - that's not really my intention. Lately I have simply been writing free verse with long lines. I do this to show confidence in the strength of my poetry, and to allow both internal punctuation and line length to indicate pace, pause, and breathing to the reader.
Copying from editor to notebook. I am not entirely sure what you mean by this. I compose my poetry in MS Word. Oh and by the way, I use italics a lot in my poems; I am currently holding back some poetry from here because I am not confident that I can force the system to accept both long lines AND italics in the same go.
Here's some feedback. What would make things good from my point of view would be if the system would allow one to enter blank lines before and after the body of text of a poem, thereby allowing it to sit in a bigger space. This seems to be no problem on 'another site' (no names) where you might have read my poetry before.
Lately I have also been creating Lithopoemai (see http://lithopoesis.webs.com to get an idea; my normal format, unlike on the web site, is black font on white paper); this form really require a system whereby one can form narrow columns of fully justified text. I doubt if that facility will ever be available here. What do you think?
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
Marie Marshall
Tue, 2011-04-12 08:16
Thanks, Ian.
Thanks Ian. I had thought of that, but then again I didn't compose a poem preceded by a line of vertical dots!
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
Race_9togo
Thu, 2011-04-14 21:14
Hi Marie,
Sorry it took so long to respond.
Notepad (not notebook, sorry) is the basic text editor provided with Windows.
By copying and pasting from Word into Notepad, all word-specific formatting is discarded, and after some reformatting in notepad, the result can then be copied and pasted into Neopoet, and will pretty much be stored as you copied it.
It looks like Andrew is working on formatting translation that will allow direct copying from Word, though!
Respectfully, Race
"Laws and Rules don't kill freedom: narrow-minded intolerance does" - Race-9togo
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Race_9togo
Marie Marshall
Fri, 2011-04-15 05:32
Notepad
On reflection, I was guessing to myself that's what you might have meant.
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
weirdelf
Sat, 2011-04-16 02:56
I really can't comment now,
I'll just gush and embarrass myself.
cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry
Marie Marshall
Sat, 2011-04-16 02:58
Och...
... just gush, it costs nothing.
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
weirdelf
Sat, 2011-04-16 03:05
ok, I'm just breathless reading it.
not a letter, vowel or phoneme out of place, I want to own it, keep it, print it and put it under my pillow.
I quiver.
cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry
weirdelf
Sat, 2011-04-16 03:06
I told you I would embarrass
I told you I would embarrass myself.
cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry
Marie Marshall
Sat, 2011-04-16 03:08
You did!
But it disnae matter wan brass fart! Thank you. :-)
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
CCfire
Sat, 2011-04-16 03:22
lol
Was that a gush I heard? Glad my recommendation has been successful
Chez
"The perfect woman perpetrates literature as she does a small sin: as an experiment, in passing, to see if anybody notices it - and to makes sure that somebody does." - Nietzsche
weirdelf
Sat, 2011-04-16 03:25
well there goes my street cred
down the gutter
cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry
Marie Marshall
Sat, 2011-04-16 03:26
Street cred
Well I for one lost that when I started wearing sandals. Don't worry about it.
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
weirdelf
Mon, 2011-04-18 08:08
Coming back to this sober,
I take nothing back.
Smart, sensual and delicious.
cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry
49reasons
Sat, 2011-04-16 03:53
Marie
this just "fits"
it has a feel of the closure in sleep
enjoyed the read
~Juls~
"While I'm writing, I'm far away;
and when I come back, I've gone."
— Pablo Neruda
Marie Marshall
Sat, 2011-04-16 03:57
Fits
Thanks. :-)
Just re-reading, I'm wondering whether I haven't got the transition from line 6 to line 7 wrong.
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
49reasons
Sat, 2011-04-16 04:01
reading it out loud to Chez,
reading it out loud to Chez, we both feel it is fine the way it is
~Juls~
"While I'm writing, I'm far away;
and when I come back, I've gone."
— Pablo Neruda
Marie Marshall
Sat, 2011-04-16 04:03
Okay...
... ta both. It's just that that transition is the only one that cuts so hard into the middle of a grammatical construction. What would you both say to my shifting the single word 'was' down a line? Would that be better?
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
49reasons
Sat, 2011-04-16 04:11
I know what you are saying
I know what you are saying but I like the flow as it is
~Juls~
"While I'm writing, I'm far away;
and when I come back, I've gone."
— Pablo Neruda
CCfire
Sat, 2011-04-16 04:12
leave the was...
I read it straight onto the next line so I don't think it causes any pause, I tried dropping it down and the pause comes in the wrong spot that way.
Chez
"The perfect woman perpetrates literature as she does a small sin: as an experiment, in passing, to see if anybody notices it - and to makes sure that somebody does." - Nietzsche
Marie Marshall
Sat, 2011-04-16 04:14
Okay...
... ta both again.
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.
Dalton
Sun, 2011-04-17 16:12
ThanQ for sharing Marie
A nice story-poem, excellent use of language. And imagry that involved the thinking mind as well as the feeling heart.
John
Marie Marshall
Mon, 2011-04-18 02:59
You're welcome.
That's what I was aiming for, John. :)
___________
Nah pop no style, a strickly roots.