What's funny is that King of the Road came to mind immediately when reading your prompt. I love how you seem to weave music into so many of your poems, and as always, it is a beautiful tapestry.
I don't know what draws me to this poem but, I read it 6 times and am about to read it one more time. The story is put together like a mini story. You aroused many questions and put together many answers in your mini story.
Well, a prompt is supposed to get you to write, right? This isn't exactly the prompt, but vaguely related.
DAILY DOSE
On the table, not permitted to move, a huge science fiction shiny steel machine radiates my breast. I pretend aliens have taken over my body, secretly wiggle my fingers. Will they notice, reprimand me?
The highly focused beam targets emptiness where cancer once lived. Thirty four days for five minutes, my daily dose, killing rays that damage cells, destroy genetic material that controls how cells grow and divide, has begun.
I loved this poem!! The part that threw you into science fiction,While the big silver machine destroyed genetic material that controls how cells grow and divide.....This all is sooooo unique!!
Powerful. A suggestion. Probably no one ever needs to use adverbs ever, but when you're making something that's got all its own power, you really don't need them. It's ok to be secretly wiggling your fingers, because that's information we wouldn't have otherwise, but a beam that targets emptiness is strong by itself. It's enough that it's focused; it doesn't have to be highly focused. That just pulls energy away from the main event.
"highly focused" was stolen directly from cancer sites, but as always poetry doesn't have to be exact. I tried a change but didn't like it. I guess I'll think about it while I'm laying there again today. LOL.
You're probably right to keep it. Sometimes workshoppy suggestions can be a bit too workshoppy. Not always -- people turn up their noses at workshops much too easily. But sometimes.
I wanted to "observe" more before I made a change. I did make a change, but still not sure. I may bring both versions to Artemis next month and see what they say. Here's it is with the rewritten line.
On the table, not permitted to move, a huge science fiction shiny steel machine radiates my breast. I pretend aliens have taken over my body, secretly wiggle my fingers. Will they notice, reprimand me?
The green cross-hairs focus, target emptiness where cancer once lived. Thirty four days for five minutes, my daily dose, killing rays that damage cells, destroy genetic material that controls how cells grow and divide, has begun.
This could be the second poem in a small book of poems done for breast cancer. It's just so powerful...I understand Tads, "Wow" and Bonnies tears. I am a cold person so I see it from a different perspective. I saw it as a generalization of your feelings. And the last line needed the repetition of the word over in order to make it pop out. Like make-up around the eyes causes them to "pop out" I don't know what I would do with this series of poems about defeating cancer and your thoughts and how you got through some of the radiation sessions.
Linda, that was what I planned, a poem a day, but I still have the day 3 poem on the "edit board", i.e. Notepad. LOL. And tomorrow is day 5. I guess I don't have to do them every day. I will keep at it. At least I am writing again. I was not for soooo long. I am so glad you pushed me to keep the blog here going when it was about to die out.
the music speaks lewdly, loudly, "dancers" twerk their smooth, round bottoms, for an hourly rate... green money is tucked into thongs by the minute rate. They work hard, they work fast, on the pole doing acrobatics...doing private shows for, extra cash...more bills thrown on the floor to collect more, the faster she works, the more she will make and the tips, are all tax free.
Love this! One suggestion is one that was made to me when I was at Penn State and had a seminar with Alicia Ostriker, an excellent poet. She said not to use quotation marks to imply a word means something different, that a poem should say what it means. If you don't mean "dancers" how would you describe them?
My only other "problem" with it is that you use the word "more" three times in two lines. I think you could solve that by simply eliminating "to collect more." We understand that from everything else you say. Personally I'd eliminate the "more" before "bills" also.
But the subject matter is perfect for the prompt. And it really does paint a vivid picture of the women.
I like it very much. But you do hit one of my pet peeves - using quotation marks to show that you didn't really mean the word. They're either dancers or the aren't dancers I say leave the word and leave out the quotes. You show more about what kind of dancers they are as you go on Ah...now reading Victoria's note. She says the same thing, so we must be right. Or use another word. Twerkers grind their smooth, round bottoms. I think I'm OK with more...more...more -- it suggests that Andrea True disco song that topless dancers always used.
I used the word "dancers" in order to keep the site morally kind. I wanted to write strippers but just because they strip down to a thong doesn't make them into dirty girls. They call each other dancers. This would have taken two weeks of moral introspection and a decision had to be made. You see I do say, I going down to the strip club with the girls when I go out. You must see my dilemma by now. I won't use "" any more unless i am really battling a word.
At this rate, I might never get done, 'cause it seems a long way, to make up this one. Climbed slowly up a hill, at a pace that's almost nil. It's your rate, it's your date, hurry up and wait. Gain momentum going down, hard to tell where you're bound. So live your rate as you will, live life to it's fill!
A martial arts saying, "Progress has little to do with speed, but much to do with direction. Honor every step, no mater how small." I like the poetry in the last three lines but I like the thoughts in the first three better. And in the last line it should be "its" not "it's". Nice job!
Starting again...after fixing a typo. I decided I'm going to try to write a triptych, which means I still have to come up with one for "Daily Rates." But I do have an older poem which works for "Hourly Rates." Here it is:
HOURLY RATES
Some men do it all the time lonely men, rich men, ugly men, salesmen, congressmen and I wonder if they appreciate what they're getting: in exchange for nothing more than money a woman will give you everything she is. This is not what you have been told, but it is true.
A plump girl with hair like honey served me, in a posh East Thirties flat, her body like a cup of tea with a shot of rum in it across her kitchen table in Queens. Later, she told me how her husband had almost found out, the week before, about the turtle she was buying for his birthday (this is how that went: the pet shop guy let a careless word slip while they were buying fish food,
and so did she with me, almost, relaxing into the story, cozying with me, new friends, her finger traveling lazily across my scrotum, I walked in with my husband, and the man from the pet shop said, 'Mrs. ' Then catching herself, our friendship checked for that instant, her finger making a little point 'Mrs. So and so...' and on with the story, momentum scarcely lost). In brief, she talked her way through whatever turtle words the pet shop guy had blurted, saved the surprise. Her husband knew what she did. So did her mother. She found time to work at least a few hours every day, and sometimes she came with clients.
I like the plump girl with hair like honey. I like quick descriptions because we have so small a space in which to work that in order to see the big picture we need that. I also enjoyed the last line. It through a lot of perspective into your work.
I love the way the poem turns at the end as the others said also. Personally, "I" think there are too many "I"s in the poem, including in 5 of 7 lines in the first stanza, but that really is just an opinion. If you agree it could be easily rewritten like maybe using "Perhaps" instead of "I suppose", etc.
I would also love to get some feedback on my poems too.
Just a suggestion. Fool around with line breaks. I think probably the line breaks you have are the right ones, but you can always go back to them. Changing where you break a iine -- because it's free verse and you can break it anywhere -- gives you a different relationship to your words, and sometimes that can give new insights.
Thanks, I appreciate the kind comments. Tad, I hear you, i experimented with different breaks and went back to the original because I liked it the bet--I think for me the rhythm of the breaks conveys some essence of the feeling process of the poem.
This poem is actually more upbeat than I had expected. Did you intentionally do the pantoum backwards? Usually it's the 2nd and 4th line of the one stanza become lines 1 and 3 of the next stanza. Either way I like it a lot.
OK, here's something. I'll take the first plunge.
ReplyDeleteWEEKLY RATES
Weekly rates, light
housekeeping: your
pipes have burst, the
levees have broken, or
maybe it's just your
heart, your marriage, but
no place else to go,
no time to make plans,
soup from cans,
you've never tasted
ramen before, but now
it's a staple,
you can't quite listen to
Bessie's Backwater Blues,
or George Jones, but
Roger Miller's just about right.
What's funny is that King of the Road came to mind immediately when reading your prompt. I love how you seem to weave music into so many of your poems, and as always, it is a beautiful tapestry.
DeleteI don't know what draws me to this poem but, I read it 6 times and am about to read it one more time. The story is put together like a mini story. You aroused many questions and put together many answers in your mini story.
DeleteLinda I know what you mean. it's so powerful and deep you can't let it go. beautifully written.
DeleteTad, this poem was very well put together. I enjoyed reading it. I felt a lot of power in the lines.
DeleteWell, a prompt is supposed to get you to write, right? This isn't exactly the prompt, but vaguely related.
ReplyDeleteDAILY DOSE
On the table, not permitted
to move, a huge science fiction
shiny steel machine radiates
my breast. I pretend aliens
have taken over my body,
secretly wiggle my fingers.
Will they notice, reprimand me?
The highly focused beam targets
emptiness where cancer once lived.
Thirty four days for five minutes,
my daily dose, killing rays that
damage cells, destroy genetic
material that controls how
cells grow and divide, has begun.
I loved this poem!! The part that threw you into science fiction,While the big silver machine destroyed genetic material that controls how cells grow and divide.....This all is sooooo unique!!
Deletepowerfully written! awesome!
Deletevery intriguing poem. Very powerful
DeletePowerful.
ReplyDeleteA suggestion. Probably no one ever needs to use adverbs ever, but when you're making something that's got all its own power, you really don't need them. It's ok to be secretly wiggling your fingers, because that's information we wouldn't have otherwise, but a beam that targets emptiness is strong by itself. It's enough that it's focused; it doesn't have to be highly focused. That just pulls energy away from the main event.
"highly focused" was stolen directly from cancer sites, but as always poetry doesn't have to be exact. I tried a change but didn't like it. I guess I'll think about it while I'm laying there again today. LOL.
DeleteYou're probably right to keep it. Sometimes workshoppy suggestions can be a bit too workshoppy. Not always -- people turn up their noses at workshops much too easily. But sometimes.
DeleteI wanted to "observe" more before I made a change. I did make a change, but still not sure. I may bring both versions to Artemis next month and see what they say. Here's it is with the rewritten line.
DeleteOn the table, not permitted
to move, a huge science fiction
shiny steel machine radiates
my breast. I pretend aliens
have taken over my body,
secretly wiggle my fingers.
Will they notice, reprimand me?
The green cross-hairs focus, target
emptiness where cancer once lived.
Thirty four days for five minutes,
my daily dose, killing rays that
damage cells, destroy genetic
material that controls how
cells grow and divide, has begun.
I like the green cross-hairs.
DeleteI do too but I didn't like losing "beam." It's very "alien". It 8 syllables.
DeleteIt's a tough call. I like "beam" too, and now that I know it's medical-technical language, I like the whole phrase.
DeleteOkay. Having written about Day 1 of radiation, I thought I'd see how many I could do in a row, i.e. a daily rate of 1 poem per day. LOL.
ReplyDeleteIMAGINATION STATION
A 5/4 poem
Radiation machine
white noise over
quiet, I linger
in my thoughts,
list people with cancer.
Paula's husband,
a recurrence of
blood cancer.
Duane, slowly dying from
colon cancer,
refuses to have
surgery,
live with a urine bag.
Libby's mother
has colon-rectal.
Two year old
Hayden's Facebook saga,
from glazed eye to
empty socket sewn shut,
Hayden smiling.
Five minute treatment, time
for all that. Still
imagine my own
death over
and over and over.
Wow.
DeleteThis could be the second poem in a small book of poems done for breast cancer. It's just so powerful...I understand Tads, "Wow" and Bonnies tears. I am a cold person so I see it from a different perspective. I saw it as a generalization of your feelings. And the last line needed the repetition of the word over in order to make it
Deletepop out. Like make-up around the eyes causes them to "pop out" I don't know what I would do with this series of poems about defeating cancer and your thoughts and how you got through some of the radiation sessions.
Linda, that was what I planned, a poem a day, but I still have the day 3 poem on the "edit board", i.e. Notepad. LOL. And tomorrow is day 5. I guess I don't have to do them every day. I will keep at it. At least I am writing again. I was not for soooo long. I am so glad you pushed me to keep the blog here going when it was about to die out.
DeleteI definitely agree with Linda. This should be part of a book about beating cancer.
Deletethe music speaks lewdly, loudly,
ReplyDelete"dancers" twerk their smooth, round bottoms,
for an hourly rate...
green money is tucked into thongs
by the minute rate.
They work hard, they work fast,
on the pole doing acrobatics...doing private shows for,
extra cash...more bills thrown on the floor to collect more,
the faster she works, the more she will make and the tips,
are all tax free.
Love this! One suggestion is one that was made to me when I was at Penn State and had a seminar with Alicia Ostriker, an excellent poet. She said not to use quotation marks to imply a word means something different, that a poem should say what it means. If you don't mean "dancers" how would you describe them?
DeleteMy only other "problem" with it is that you use the word "more" three times in two lines. I think you could solve that by simply eliminating "to collect more." We understand that from everything else you say. Personally I'd eliminate the "more" before "bills" also.
But the subject matter is perfect for the prompt. And it really does paint a vivid picture of the women.
I like it very much. But you do hit one of my pet peeves - using quotation marks to show that you didn't really mean the word. They're either dancers or the aren't dancers I say leave the word and leave out the quotes. You show more about what kind of dancers they are as you go on
DeleteAh...now reading Victoria's note. She says the same thing, so we must be right.
Or use another word. Twerkers grind their smooth, round bottoms.
I think I'm OK with more...more...more -- it suggests that Andrea True disco song that topless dancers always used.
you brought the scene to life and I could see the dancer and the men putting dollar bills in her thong! well done!
DeleteI used the word "dancers" in order to keep the site morally kind. I wanted to write strippers but just because they strip down to a thong doesn't make them into dirty girls. They call each other dancers. This would have taken two weeks of moral introspection and a decision had to be made. You see I do say, I going down to the strip club with the girls when I go out. You must see my dilemma by now. I won't use "" any more unless i am really battling a word.
DeleteI agree. Dancers is the right word.
DeleteAt this rate, I might never get done,
ReplyDelete'cause it seems a long way, to make up this one.
Climbed slowly up a hill, at a pace that's almost nil.
It's your rate, it's your date, hurry up and wait.
Gain momentum going down, hard to tell where you're bound.
So live your rate as you will, live life to it's fill!
A martial arts saying, "Progress has little to do with speed, but much to do with direction. Honor every step, no mater how small." I like the poetry in the last three lines but I like the thoughts in the first three better. And in the last line it should be "its" not "it's". Nice job!
DeleteI love the way the poem starts.
Deletevery well written! love it!
Deletenice poem!! Awesome job!
DeleteStarting again...after fixing a typo. I decided I'm going to try to write a triptych, which means I still have to come up with one for "Daily Rates." But I do have an older poem which works for "Hourly Rates." Here it is:
ReplyDeleteHOURLY RATES
Some men do it all the time
lonely men, rich men, ugly men, salesmen, congressmen
and I wonder if they appreciate what they're getting:
in exchange for nothing more than money
a woman will give you everything she is.
This is not what you
have been told, but it is true.
A plump girl with hair like honey
served me, in a posh East Thirties flat,
her body like a cup
of tea with a shot of rum in it
across her kitchen table in Queens. Later,
she told me how her husband had
almost found out, the week before,
about the turtle she was buying for his birthday
(this is how that went: the pet shop guy
let a careless word slip
while they were buying fish food,
and so did she with me,
almost, relaxing into the story,
cozying with me, new friends, her finger
traveling lazily across my scrotum,
I walked in with my husband, and the man
from the pet shop said, 'Mrs. '
Then catching herself, our friendship checked
for that instant, her finger making
a little point 'Mrs. So and so...' and on
with the story, momentum scarcely lost). In brief,
she talked her way through
whatever turtle words the pet shop guy had blurted,
saved the surprise. Her husband knew what she did.
So did her mother. She found time to work
at least a few hours every day,
and sometimes she came with clients.
I like the plump girl with hair like honey. I like quick descriptions because we have so small a space in which to work that in order to see the big picture we need that. I also enjoyed the last line. It through a lot of perspective into your work.
DeleteWe really enjoy reading your stuff out loud. It's so smooth. Sometimes it reminds me of music.
Delete
ReplyDeleteAt Any Rate
If I were to be paid
at a weekly rate
for what I do,
would I still do it?
I suppose it would depend
on the rate
if I were to be paid.
If I were to be paid
at a daily rate
for what I write
Would I still write it?
It would depend on the rate
And whether or not
I enjoyed what I did.
If I were to be paid
by the hour
to spend each one with you,
as I do, my beloved,
I would not care
what the rate
because being with you
is what I do.
I love the way the poem turns at the end as the others said also. Personally, "I" think there are too many "I"s in the poem, including in 5 of 7 lines in the first stanza, but that really is just an opinion. If you agree it could be easily rewritten like maybe using "Perhaps" instead of "I suppose", etc.
DeleteI would also love to get some feedback on my poems too.
I am in great admiration of all the efforts and here's mine for you to tell me how you like it...
ReplyDeleteThis is so sweet -- unexpectedly turns into a love poem.
DeleteJust a suggestion. Fool around with line breaks. I think probably the line breaks you have are the right ones, but you can always go back to them. Changing where you break a iine -- because it's free verse and you can break it anywhere -- gives you a different relationship to your words, and sometimes that can give new insights.
Deletei agree Tad, I love the twist at the end :-)
DeleteThanks, I appreciate the kind comments. Tad, I hear you, i experimented with different breaks and went back to the original because I liked it the bet--I think for me the rhythm of the breaks conveys some essence of the feeling process of the poem.
DeleteWhat it Cost
ReplyDeleteDaily rates = $200
weekly rates= $1400
monthly rates = $6000
that' what it cost
to make me whole again.
Daily rates = $200
it was worth the price.
monthly rates - $6000
three months of therapy
to make me whole again
I can walk with a walker now
it was worth the cost
the struggle and pain of
three months of therapy
a daily fight to make progress
I can walk with a walker now
from weak as a baby
the struggle and pain of
hard work and determination and
a daily fight to make progress.
From weka as a baby
that's what it cots
hard work and determination and
daily rates = $200
This poem is actually more upbeat than I had expected. Did you intentionally do the pantoum backwards? Usually it's the 2nd and 4th line of the one stanza become lines 1 and 3 of the next stanza. Either way I like it a lot.
DeleteThis was a really neat poem. I also liked it a lot!
DeleteBonnie, it passed the read out loud with roaring colors. it was smooth and had a nice beat.
DeleteHere's a case where the form really fits the subject matter. The pantoum reinforces the struggle.
ReplyDeleteI liked this one especially and I agree with Tad, it really works with the form.
ReplyDeleteCompleting the tryptich:
ReplyDeleteDAILY RATES
Regardless
of your troubles
I can help any
human being on earth
20 years
experience
searching in Georgia
Texas Alabama
New Orleans
learning secrets
from old folks who know
how to make things happen
my method
brings quick results
testimonials
from successful bankers
movie stars
and folks like you
who just wanted love
or cash to pay the rent
my rates are
competitive
the smallest part of
what you can most afford
to part with