PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

With no respect to Stephen: With no respect to Stephen implied or expressed, I think the assertion would be better phrased as, "Guns our tools.  In the wrong hands, they assist in killing others."  Well, couldn't someone kill a person with a hammer, or a pipe wrench?  Yes---but guns are created and manufactured to fire a lethal projectile into living flesh and cause either damage or death.  Hammers and pipe wrenches are  not manufactured to that intent.  Or, like orange juice and, say, poison:  a person could choke to death on orange juice, but the jucie was not manufactured for that purpose; poison is manufactured with the sole purpose and intent to bring life, in some form, to a sudden end.   In my opinion (and I can speak for no other person), assault weapons should be entirely banned; possession of them should be criminalized; and ordinary guns should be owned only by those who can pass the most rigorous and demanding background check.  Yes, gunlovers will cry loudly about second amendment rights (does anyone else ever speak so much about other amendments), but the Founders were not able to foresee the "arms" would become, and what the "right to bear" them would allow.  In just the same way that the Founders could not foresee or admit the reasons to end human chattel slavery, so their perspective, given the era in which they lived, was narrow.  Hindsight is always more clear than foresight.  The Founders could not foresee, and probably could not have predicted, factorized mass production, so the proliferation of guns and firearms would not have seemed to them the kind of problem it is now.

Thank you.  And no, I didn't: Thank you.  And no, I didn't mind bearing the brunt (although I did not think of it as a brunt at all).  I am going to see the new Little Evan now.

And that trodding away shall: And that trodding away shall progress from dreary to solemn to sublime!

Powerful mood shift: I didn't anticipate the suggestion of a distanceless, soulful connection, albeit in a bittersweet moment, to shift into such a lonely drag through a fog. From gentle to heavy, and very well written.   Detachment may reduce sadness, but also all but eliminates joy. I hope you will reattach yourself, despite the difficulties life surely does offer.

This poem is so bleak it gave: This poem is so bleak it gave me a chill while reading it, and I had only to look out my window (although in January, not November) to see a real-time analogue to what you have described.  Just as much poetic skill is required to describe this aspect of reality as it does to describe a sunny, warm day; and you have deployed your words powerfully and succinctly.    As for whether it appeals to several, or many, others . . . mass appeal does not validate or invalidate a poem.  I don't know if you are familiar with the Poet, Wallace Stevens, who, during his lifetime, was a lawyer andi insurance company executive, more well know for his expertise on surety bonds than on poetry.  His poems were considered difficult and lacking in much appeal, yet he was deeply and consistently appreciated by a "chosen few."  During the eighties and nineties, I had the thrill to watch Stevens' star ascend while, correspondingly, Eliot's star had begun to descend.  And now, forty-four years after receiving that advice to read him, I am still reading him.      By the way, your poem reminds me of Stevens' great, but very short and very chilling poem, "The Snow Man."  I do not make comparisons to his work lightly; and I mean it as a compliment.  Both you and Stevens capture, in ordinary words, the very chill of a bleak landscape.  Your words not only have their sounds, they also convey what it feels like to be cold, just as Stevens' snowman poem did in 1921, and continues doing so to this very day.  I think you should be very pleased with your accomplishment in this poem.  And I am very impressed with it, although I may prefer to read it again when a bit of warmer weather has arrived in our region.

Thank you Wordman, I: Thank you Wordman, I appreciate that, iit doesn't seem to have appealed to many others though. sue.

This painting you worded: This painting you worded would be hung in an art gallery for its beauty. Wonderful context, thanks for posting.