Re: I, the Shadow

twelveoone

ground zero
Joined
Mar 13, 2004
Posts
5,882
Re: I, the Shadow

and regarding another email

In the weeks if being absent I received two emails that disturbed me.
The worst (someone trying to break into my account) and The BEST (a polite inquiry regarding material, here the material itself is the disturbing part) of literotica.


One was from Laurel
Someone at this email address has requested their password for Literotica.com.

probably not, but from a similar sounding account, since nothing seems amiss in either my email or literotica account I'll assume everything is OK.

After some amusement at the thought of someone taking over the me that I am - a bad deal - as will be referenced by below.

The other is more serious and deserves a response. In part (and out sequence) in public, because there is some value in this, but without the name because I do not have permission. My response is in colour:

I hope I have not offended you by trying to understand what you meant.

No

I enjoy trying to find meaning in things...

Here I am relieved by the word "enjoy" as the poem is rather painful (and cryptic because I don't want you in too far) and impressed by the 'trying to find meaning in things'. This is a well constructed, well thought out inquiry.

perhaps you'd enjoy being able to read what someone who read your poem thought while reading it.

Any writer that gets this is blessed, and at times I am one lucky bastard.

I welcome whatever counter-thought you are willing to share.

Here I am not entirely happy, because now I have to revisit what is a malignant, painful poem.

Some of what the person otherwise points out, I think should be rather obvious, but here is where my socks get knocked off...


In the final part, the shadow defines itself as being of unknowable substance. A creep, a rustle, a dance, a flutter, a startle (a moth, seeking light). All things which are not actually solid.

A pattern recognized - this person deserves a response, a serious one. This person will do well in writing and this is also one of the main reasons people should leave comments. What this person sees they can then utilize (or avoid). It is what I am about.

I just wanted to point that out, as for the responses I can either do it in this thread or via email, your call, but this does deserve public acknowledgement and praise. And you should stand up and you do get a round of applause at least from me.

Yours truly
1201
 
no-one could pull off your persona, 12... they'd be spotted a mile away. :rose:

as for the other, what fabulous insights. the person really listened to the meaning beyond the words, its mood. and how nice to see someone giving you the time with that sort of feedback! they'll learn from their exploration, without a doubt, as you will learn from their thought-processes.
 
Thank you, 1201, for the kind words. Your absence coincided with me sending that feedback, and for a while I thought I had pissed you off so much with it that you had left Literotica. :D Over the last couple of months, I've given as much thought to how to comment as I've given to how to write (not to mention, my favorite, what is a poem?). They are similar, I can feel the same muscle getting exercise, but should I comment on the meaning? Should I only comment on the technique? I have annoyed people before with my feedback (prose, not poetry, but still). I'm glad, then, that it did not cause you discomfort.

I believe the choice of where to respond should be yours, given that this is a painful poem, and that you don't want to delve too far into its meaning.
 
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Thank you, 1201, for the kind words. Your absence coincided with me sending that feedback, and for a while I thought I had pissed you off so much with it that you had left Literotica. :D Over the last couple of months, I've given as much thought to how to comment as I've given to how to write (not to mention, my favorite, what is a poem?). They are similar, I can feel the same muscle getting exercise, but should I comment on the meaning? Should I only comment on the technique? I have annoyed people before with my feedback (prose, not poetry, but still). I'm glad, then, that it did not cause you discomfort.

I believe the choice of where to respond should be yours, given that this is a painful poem, and that you don't want to delve too far into its meaning.

hahahahahaa :rose:

but seriously, this kind of feedback is worth its weight in gold for any author wishing to learn via another's perspective.
 
Thank you, 1201, for the kind words. Your absence coincided with me sending that feedback, and for a while I thought I had pissed you off so much with it that you had left Literotica. :D Over the last couple of months, I've given as much thought to how to comment as I've given to how to write (not to mention, my favorite, what is a poem?). They are similar, I can feel the same muscle getting exercise, but should I comment on the meaning? Should I only comment on the technique? I have annoyed people before with my feedback (prose, not poetry, but still). I'm glad, then, that it did not cause you discomfort.

I believe the choice of where to respond should be yours, given that this is a painful poem, and that you don't want to delve too far into its meaning.
If you annoy anyone with comments like you emailed to me, the problem is with them. Poetry to a certain extant is a fraud. Poets like to avoid thinking about that. The fact is, they create something that allows the reader to assemble the "poem" themselves. This is not that far from what Senna Jawa has said for years. They have a right to get annoyed at "what does it mean" you told me what it meant. That is what it means for now with the information you have.

Here is the fraud part:
It is part of a triptych, Blue skies directly refers to one other componet. The other component is The Firmament Laughs. Blue Skies is here, but fails - it is the Devils Tritone, minus the overtones. Here is an amended version:

In the darker clefts of paradise
all along resentment's sluice
The bright one
quesioned
the
order of things when it went
from Ace to duece.

-Then the Power went Out




Blue Skies, cumulus clouds, (tonic - 1)
it seems this is how heaven must be. (major third - 2)
'Cept if it twern't me lookin' at 'em. In seams, (dimished fifth - 3)
aoure brackish shadow thunder. In seams, wee seethe.
Severed sallow,in sunder I spelt forth falling,
falling falling free,
and cleave in glee
cleave
cleave
undt cleave
mit glee


*cleave - join or split

In both the other poems there is a strong element of three, which if you knew that should cause you to suspect something unusual. What totally threw me and validated my writing, was the question about the possible fourth. Clearly, there were three (validation - thank you).

Another element of fraud - inflection changes everything.

Thou wert the sun in blue skies.
My, how life lies.


Who said it? Romeo or the Shadow? Did the man become nothing and the shadow escape to a different doom?

BTW I was questioned on "wert", it s correct I even looked it up to verify, if you have "art"... and then the sound itself...

You were the sun in blue skies just doesn't cut the mustard.

Three homonyms:
I, the Shadow
Eye the Shadow
Aye, the Shadow

This one was personal, I mostly write via a persona, it is a rather fearful, painful and caustic comment on myself as I did like who I was nor what I was becoming. I learned to live with it but I later chased it down and killed it in Bride. So white, so white and so wonderful - see the sarcasm creeping back in?


Three (maybe four) rips, two of which are meant to be allusions.
Shakespeare - Obvious
Poe - the Fall of the House of Usher, hopefully obvious - Evil things in robes of sorrow.
Eliot - Falls the shadow as partial inspiration (I think) and there is a sarcastic reference to one of the four quartets ( I forget which) the hand on the door and roses. The Shadow is a rather sarcastic bastard

I mention this, this again is not plagiarism. I am still pissed off at having to chase down a Longfellow supposed rip. ( it wasn't - it was totally original and when you consider the fact that something like 98% isn't...)

BTW, I didn't scan this, but would not be surprised if 6 or 7 lines are in the dread penti.

What surprised me, is you chose this one. You did well with it and it is difficult and I am pleased when anyone takes the time with things and has questions.

I Thank You, Tsotha, I hope this throws the proper light on it. And as said, any writer that gets type of attention, I would consider lucky.

Is this satisfactory?

It is the reader that completes the poem.
 
also, twelve, i got completely lost in your reply when it came to this part, most specifically the tonic-1 and major third/diminshed fifth parts. any chance of explaining that in more simplistic terms for us laymen?:

Blue Skies, cumulus clouds, (tonic - 1)
it seems this is how heaven must be. (major third - 2)
'Cept if it twern't me lookin' at 'em. In seams, (dimished fifth - 3)
aoure brackish shadow thunder. In seams, wee seethe.
Severed sallow,in sunder I spelt forth falling,
falling falling free,
and cleave in glee
cleave
cleave
undt cleave
mit glee


*cleave - join or split

In both the other poems there is a strong element of three, which if you knew that should cause you to suspect something unusual. What totally threw me and validated my writing, was the question about the possible fourth. Clearly, there were three (validation - thank you).
 
also, twelve, i got completely lost in your reply when it came to this part, most specifically the tonic-1 and major third/diminshed fifth parts. any chance of explaining that in more simplistic terms for us laymen?:
from wikipedia

The tritone is a restless interval, classed as a dissonance in Western music from the early Middle Ages through to the end of the common practice period. This interval was frequently avoided in medieval ecclesiastical singing because of its dissonant quality. The first explicit prohibition of it seems to occur with the development of Guido of Arezzo's hexachordal system, which made Bâ™­ a diatonic note, namely as the fourth degree of the hexachord on F. From then until the end of the Renaissance the tritone was regarded as an unstable interval and rejected as a consonance by most theorists.[19]

A cord that is discordant. Rumour has it that if played on a pipe organ, and some go as low as 16 hx (more felt than heard) structural damage would occur, because of the clashing overtones King Crimson popularized it, I've heard it is used in Death Metal music, and I guess this confirms it.

http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1767,00.html

This interval was banned from church music because of its sound but is heavily used in death metal music. It is very hard to sing unless the vocalist employs a false chord technique, also known as a scream or a growl which is often used in death metal music. Death metal music is not something that is directly related to the devil. In our world, these exists two basic moods and sounds, one of beauty and one of which is ugly. The augmented 4th is the perfect choice of interval to express the later mood.

Schubert Cardozo, Bombay, India

(his opinion)

The augmented 4th and the diminished 5th would be almost the same thing.

Thank you for the comment.

After looking at it after a two year (?)span, and trying to be objective, I wonder if I would have slammed it (if it wasn't mine), I feel if I did it would have bothered me, I feel I would viewed it as one of those WTF poems, I love being surprised by.
I did see somethings that need rethinking, but not now, not in this winter.
 
thanks, 12... *tries to fully digest the meanings*

p.s, i hope you didn't think i slammed your poem.
 
1201, thank you for your response. I'm a neophyte in poetry, and much that you're saying is difficult for me to understand, but let's see...

I used to think (a long time ago) that poetry and prose were on opposite ends of a spectrum, such that prose was concerned with delivering information in the clearest way possible, and poetry in delivering it in the most obscure. However, it's not that. Clarity is just another thing to have (or not have), just one more thing amongst many that a poem must make a compromise for — the way it sounds, the way it looks, the choice of words and how those make the reader feel, rhyming or not rhyming, form or no form...

I think I understand what you mean by "fraud" and "assembling the poem". The reader, without insider information, may reverse engineer the original meaning, but only up to a certain point. Maybe he goes deep enough to identify the existence of certain elements (people, places, things) and relationships (how the elements relate). However, the elements remain faceless, and the relationships are understood in terms of how the reader is made to feel about them, not necessarily defined.

...at least, that's how I identified the possible fourth. By isolating these elements and relationships. I couldn't tell who they were, only that they were there. And I can try to understand the relationships between them, but ultimately I can only really say what your choice of words makes me feel.

Blue Skies, cumulus clouds, (tonic - 1)
it seems this is how heaven must be. (major third - 2)
'Cept if it twern't me lookin' at 'em. In seams, (dimished fifth - 3)
aoure brackish shadow thunder. In seams, wee seethe.
Severed sallow,in sunder I spelt forth falling,
falling falling free,
and cleave in glee
cleave
cleave
undt cleave
mit glee

The version here only has three lines... If I understand correctly, there are two elements (Blue Skies, cumulus clouds) and this is the tonic, the main note. Then there is a supporting note, the relationship that "this is how heaven must be". It's interesting that the third line ('Cept if it twern't me lookin' at 'em) is written in an untidy style, following the ugliness of the diminished fifth. In a sense, the third line is an intruder (as is the narrator, perhaps?).

What follows is interesting... "In seams aoure" (in separation, love? passion?) "brackish shadow thunder" (and bad things). "In seams, wee seethe" (in separation, we bubble? we thrive?). Then followed by a reference to something (a tree?) severed, and in the sundering he falls free, and cleaves cleaves cleaves (join, split, join, split, repeatedly) in glee.

See now how I can't really tell what it means? But I could certainly assemble my own story from these elements, and from what the relationships you've exposed (exposed through a choice of words, which brings forth feelings) tell me.

Thou wert the sun in blue skies.
My, how life lies.

Who said it? Romeo or the Shadow? Did the man become nothing and the shadow escape to a different doom?

Hmmm...

...I think Romeo said it. He casts the shadow, not the other way around. The shadow was a result of being put under the Sun, and the Sun was a lie.

Three homonyms:
I, the Shadow
Eye the Shadow
Aye, the Shadow

This one was personal, I mostly write via a persona, it is a rather fearful, painful and caustic comment on myself as I did like who I was nor what I was becoming. I learned to live with it but I later chased it down and killed it in Bride. So white, so white and so wonderful - see the sarcasm creeping back in?

These homonyms aren't in any of those poems, though, are they? But perhaps I understand — I, the Shadow. Eye, the Shadow (see the shadow, notice it). Aye, the Shadow (acknowledge it, accept it).

I read Bride, more to digest... It is another full poem, full of things to decipher. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have made the connection if you hadn't told me. (I'm still scratching my chin, after reading it a few times.)

Three (maybe four) rips, two of which are meant to be allusions.
Shakespeare - Obvious
Poe - the Fall of the House of Usher, hopefully obvious - Evil things in robes of sorrow.
Eliot - Falls the shadow as partial inspiration (I think) and there is a sarcastic reference to one of the four quartets ( I forget which) the hand on the door and roses. The Shadow is a rather sarcastic bastard

I mention this, this again is not plagiarism. I am still pissed off at having to chase down a Longfellow supposed rip. ( it wasn't - it was totally original and when you consider the fact that something like 98% isn't...)

Sorry, with the exception of the first one, those are not obvious references to me... The only thing by Poe that I've read is The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. :eek: I was busy reading the classics of a different language. :rolleyes:

It's interesting to know about these references, though... layers and layers. I remember the part about the hand on the door, that was one of the parts that I couldn't understand. So perhaps it's because of the reference I don't have. :)

BTW, I didn't scan this, but would not be surprised if 6 or 7 lines are in the dread penti.

Dread penti? The dreaded five? Are you talking about five dreaded poets / writers one is bound to plagiarize, sooner or later? :)

What surprised me, is you chose this one. You did well with it and it is difficult and I am pleased when anyone takes the time with things and has questions.

I Thank You, Tsotha, I hope this throws the proper light on it. And as said, any writer that gets type of attention, I would consider lucky.

Is this satisfactory?

It is the reader that completes the poem.

And thank you, for taking the time to discuss your poem. It was a pleasure reading.
 
1201, thank you for your response. I'm a neophyte in poetry, and much that you're saying is difficult for me to understand, but let's see...

I used to think (a long time ago) that poetry and prose were on opposite ends of a spectrum, such that prose was concerned with delivering information in the clearest way possible, and poetry in delivering it in the most obscure. However, it's not that. Clarity is just another thing to have (or not have), just one more thing amongst many that a poem must make a compromise for — the way it sounds, the way it looks, the choice of words and how those make the reader feel, rhyming or not rhyming, form or no form...

I think I understand what you mean by "fraud" and "assembling the poem". The reader, without insider information, may reverse engineer the original meaning, but only up to a certain point. Maybe he goes deep enough to identify the existence of certain elements (people, places, things) and relationships (how the elements relate). However, the elements remain faceless, and the relationships are understood in terms of how the reader is made to feel about them, not necessarily defined.

...at least, that's how I identified the possible fourth. By isolating these elements and relationships. I couldn't tell who they were, only that they were there. And I can try to understand the relationships between them, but ultimately I can only really say what your choice of words makes me feel.





And thank you, for taking the time to discuss your poem. It was a pleasure reading.
If I did that, I did something. And I compounded the problem by showing you two or more things at once. It is a risky move. Shadow as a metaphor is rather a cliche. My preferred reading *this is after two years* is man compares Juliet (one) to the sun, himself (two) to a shadow, shadow (three) doesn't know where he stands, takes over and takes off, not without some regrets, though - go then unfleshed friend said the shell. There is a shift from 10 symbol lines (Pentameter or closer than you usually get from me) to a series of phrases and then
My, how life lies
Which is just about all a shadow does all day.
Two things at once?
Poetry is a lot like religion in some prophet or holy man said blah, blah, blah, but you don't know what is literal, allegorical, a metaphor or what context, so you have a war to determine rightness.

Or it is like a legal document where you didn't follow the whereasses and you find out you are screwed.
I really good example of this is greenmountaineers poem about some trailer park girl, where if you follow the grammar shows you something else quite different from you think you saw.

Here nobody dies, nobody got screwed. I took the time, the reader took the time.

Of course, maybe the shadow leaving may be a metaphor...or this is my reading after two years.

I am honoured that both of you took the time, not to mention most of the others that left comments, I make an exception for the las vegas bot.

Re: poetry and prose
At one of the extreme is a set of instructions, you don't want to feel anything, you want to be told what to do. Obscure may be a overstated word, but if the reader doesn't put some effort into it and got something out, I would question as to whether it was poetry.

Now both of you felt something, it was close to what I felt, I did not tell you what to feel, (so it must be close to poetry?)
I felt the shadow was a sarcastic bastard, but hey, that's me.
 
Resolving Dissonances

from wikipedia

The tritone is a restless interval, classed as a dissonance in Western music from the early Middle Ages through to the end of the common practice period. This interval was frequently avoided in medieval ecclesiastical singing because of its dissonant quality. The first explicit prohibition of it seems to occur with the development of Guido of Arezzo's hexachordal system, which made Bâ™­ a diatonic note, namely as the fourth degree of the hexachord on F. From then until the end of the Renaissance the tritone was regarded as an unstable interval and rejected as a consonance by most theorists.[19]

A cord that is discordant. Rumour has it that if played on a pipe organ, and some go as low as 16 hx (more felt than heard) structural damage would occur, because of the clashing overtones King Crimson popularized it, I've heard it is used in Death Metal music, and I guess this confirms it.

http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1767,00.html

This interval was banned from church music because of its sound but is heavily used in death metal music. It is very hard to sing unless the vocalist employs a false chord technique, also known as a scream or a growl which is often used in death metal music. Death metal music is not something that is directly related to the devil. In our world, these exists two basic moods and sounds, one of beauty and one of which is ugly. The augmented 4th is the perfect choice of interval to express the later mood.

Schubert Cardozo, Bombay, India

(his opinion)

The augmented 4th and the diminished 5th would be almost the same thing.

Thank you for the comment.

After looking at it after a two year (?)span, and trying to be objective, I wonder if I would have slammed it (if it wasn't mine), I feel if I did it would have bothered me, I feel I would viewed it as one of those WTF poems, I love being surprised by.
I did see somethings that need rethinking, but not now, not in this winter.

While I don’t want to contest anything else you say, dear 1201, surely the tritone is not all that hard to sing and no such techniques as you describe (false chord, growling etc) are needed.
Try singing the word MA-RI-A from L. Bernstein's West Side Story. The first two syllables MA-RI are sang to a tritone and children can manage it easily, let alone trained singers.
In a contemporary scale of the equally tempered system, the augmented 4th and the diminished 5th have exactly the same distance and size, ie (C1-F#1, F#1-C2) but as dissonant melodic or harmonic intervals require different resolutions into consonances.
The aug 4th resolves upwards to perfect 5th while the dim 5th resolves downwards to perfect 4th.
So in the above example the syllable" MA" is sang on the tonic note, the syllable "RI" is sang at an aug 4th higher creating the required melodic tension, and finally the syllable "A" is sang a semitone still higher resolving the tension into a perfect 5th.
Any way, this "Diabolus in musica" of an interval has lost all its dissonant properties in the context of 20th century music and onwards, and it is considered as a neutral (neither consonant nor dissonant) interval nowadays.
By the way, what is "False chord" technique?
Do you mean false relations?
 
The aug 4th resolves upwards to perfect 5th while the dim 5th resolves downwards to perfect 4th.

Any way, this "Diabolus in musica" of an interval has lost all its dissonant properties in the context of 20th century music and onwards, and it is considered as a neutral (neither consonant nor dissonant) interval nowadays.
By the way, what is "False chord" technique?
Do you mean false relations?
what do you mean resolves? suppose it does not, irresolution?
now I do not disagree with the "context of 20th century music" nor do I disagree with the "neutrality" on the part of some listeners, however consonance and dissonance will be perceived by others depends on the subjective experience of "taste" and that is what music and /or poetry attempts to do. Or literature, or art, or...etc.
On another matter is there a perceptual difference between the minor and the major third? Or is it neutral? (If neutral, what is the purpose of music?)
 
What I mean is that in the context of main stream tonal music of the common practice period (c. 1600-1900) and also in the context of (popular) tonal music of any period the aesthetic requirement for all stressed and unstressed dissonances was/is to resolve into appropriate consonances. If they do not do so they are considered as unresolved, and in an educational context you fail your music exam, but the history of music (both popular and main stream) is full of such "unresolved" dissonances.
I agree with you that the concept of dissonance is subjective, "anthropomorphic" I would say.
It only makes sense in the context of the music at hand (mainly tonal music), but there it makes perfect sense because it is pre-conceived and pre-measured, therefore more objective/scientific than in other arts, and what's more, human ear agrees with it.
Consonance is restfulness, dissonance is motion, generally speaking, and they are both necessary, otherwise the music would be sounding flat and banal (always in a tonal context).
20th century atonal or serial music has done away with all these requirements and has emancipated dissonance to the extend that we cannot listen anymore, even tonal music, like a 19th century person would listen to it. We have a great collective tolerance towards dissonance, because we have a different historical experience and our "tortured" collective psyche has changed dramatically in its appreciation of musical sound.
Coming back to your last question and tonal music, major and minor 3rds are considered as imperfect consonances and there is a perceptual objective difference between them as they differ by one semitone. There is not any neutrality in tonal music; Its theory establishes and categorizes all intervals thus:

PERFECT CONSONANCES:
Unisons, perfect octaves, perfect fifths and perfect fourths.

IMPERFECT CONSONANCES:
Major and minor thirds and major and minor sixths.

MILD DISSONANCES:
Major seconds and minor sevenths.

HARD DISSONANCES:
Minor seconds and major sevenths.

All augmented and diminished intervals are considered as dissonant, whether mild or hard depending on the chord structure and its harmonic context.

All the above dissonances have appropriate, more or less pre-defined resolutions.


The trained ear can discern easily between all the above intervals.
 
yes, where is the devils tritone vis-Ă -vis CONSONANCE
but this is largely a waste of words regarding "Blue Skies" as I view it as a failed poem, that only makes some sense as part of a triptych
 
I think the devils tritone in your "Blue Skies" remains unresolved. You choose it to remain so:
" 'Cept if it twern't me lookin' at 'em."
Given what I said above about no need for resolutions in disonance (in a more literal/musical sense), your unresolved tritone is to me an aesthetic value created by you, so perhaps, I like it better than you as an outside observer.

Anyway, my warmest congratulations and thanks for "I, the shadow". :rose:
 
'Twas a flicker and by damn I swear,
I felt his presence standing there,
just outside illumination.

Turning to see if he would speak,
break the silence he's wont to keep,
saw only a shadow, nothing more.


A close examination, squint.
I should know this one, innit?
Pan?
 
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1201, thank you for your response. I'm a neophyte in poetry, and much that you're saying is difficult for me to understand, but let's see...

I used to think (a long time ago) that poetry and prose were on opposite ends of a spectrum, such that prose was concerned with delivering information in the clearest way possible, and poetry in delivering it in the most obscure. However, it's not that. Clarity is just another thing to have (or not have), just one more thing amongst many that a poem must make a compromise for — the way it sounds, the way it looks, the choice of words and how those make the reader feel, rhyming or not rhyming, form or no form...

I think I understand what you mean by "fraud" and "assembling the poem". The reader, without insider information, may reverse engineer the original meaning, but only up to a certain point. Maybe he goes deep enough to identify the existence of certain elements (people, places, things) and relationships (how the elements relate). However, the elements remain faceless, and the relationships are understood in terms of how the reader is made to feel about them, not necessarily defined.

...at least, that's how I identified the possible fourth. By isolating these elements and relationships. I couldn't tell who they were, only that they were there. And I can try to understand the relationships between them, but ultimately I can only really say what your choice of words makes me feel.
if you wish, or anyone else does, I could disassemble this , you might learn some of the base trickery I indulge it, Emp might also.
and I would like to address another comment made on this.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
-Shakespeare


For starters, I imply something is going to die. Priming with off page referent.
 
if you wish, or anyone else does, I could disassemble this , you might learn some of the base trickery I indulge it, Emp might also.
and I would like to address another comment made on this.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
-Shakespeare


For starters, I imply something is going to die. Priming with off page referent.

Knowing that illiterate idiots like me were going to read it, you still chose to add off page references. Why? To add additional layers, for those that could see them? What about the toothless? How do you evaluate their odds of sinking non-existent teeth into this apple of yours?

If you're willing to show us the tricks, then of course I'd like to see it. :)
 
Knowing that illiterate idiots like me were going to read it, you still chose to add off page references. Why? To add additional layers, for those that could see them? What about the toothless? How do you evaluate their odds of sinking non-existent teeth into this apple of yours?

If you're willing to show us the tricks, then of course I'd like to see it. :)
one, I take issue with the word "idiot"
two, most real idiots will not venture, I shot for a selective audience, in your case I hit the jackpot.

A poem should be a tight-walk between the familiar and the unfamiliar and I realize, I compound the difficulty for the reader, by often showing you two things at once.
This poem revolves around three cliches:
The troupe of being someone's shadow
The moth to the light
And fade to black
I have to subvert all of them, and I do it with slight of hand even up front, I tell you in the title: I, the shadow and nobody sees it, they see it more as a metaphor. It is, but, how does it operate?

Here is the comment:

by LeopoldNicholas12/09/13

muddy


Rather short and non specific.
A comment of use or something that looks like a tit for tat?

Writer>poem<reader relationship
A three way fault? A two way fault? My input flawed vs his reading, Perhaps, it is the poem itself.

If you have explain the poem you lose the audience - well, I already lost this one.

But I'm big on failure analysis, lets see if I can identify the break down for the reader, justify the non specifics of the comment "muddy".
Here is the poem in coloured sections:
 
...and Juliet
...and Juliet


Thou art the sun. I, the shadow.
From brightness unto night your aspect
magnifies my shape, my size.
My, how the twilights long.

Drawn. By moon and streetlights I
writhe, fade, blend and reappear, as a beginning
multiplies to too many ends.

By the fall the outline, unbecoming,
had become sharper as if
it were growing knives,
whether to cut itself off
of or the cut itself back in
to my vague space to metastisize.

What mirror mirrors me, drawn by sorrow
tomorrow horrifies, laughs with dull knell
of leaden bell; what light, what light - is there?

An evil robe - floats - on the rising floor,
loomed with moonlit motes from a shade half-drawn,
- waits till this hated time abates in ice.

What light, what light multiplies cancered thoughts
that laugh at how it was, what I've now become;
laugh at the thought of the hand on the door

with roses. Obliterate that sad overlay
of time and memory, ablate the loss.
Go then, unfleshed robe of dark, unblesst kin,

down the lightless hall past the half drawn shade
to the window pane streaked with moonlit frost.
Go to the light that multiplies and laugh.

For what light is there...



What light magnifies
the shadows, of substance
such as I,

of the creep of the cat,
of the ruslted cloth,
in dance as things cancered grown,
of the flutter of the bat,
of the startled moth,
and of things never to be known,
that glimpst, uncaught
in cornered eyes of people
that pray for noon,
as do I.

Thou wert the sun in blue skies.
My, how life lies.
 
Holy crap. Most of the poem is brown. Juliet (two lines in yellow) is clearly the other.
One line in blue
Thou art the sun. I, the shadow.
looks to be the protagonist.

But it also presents a problem for me the writer, being someone's shadow is a cliched troupe. How do I take it into the unfamiliar?
I don't draw a clear distinction as to whether it is the protagonist continuing a metaphor, or dealing with an antagonist, because they are the same, as soon as the protagonist says "I, the shadow." he becomes two. If it is too clear- it is a cartoon. I feel it has to be sustained as turmoil.
The muddy brown section.

The black section:.
What light magnifies the shadows, of substance such as I, the transition is complete and the shadow goes on to name things that have no substance, shadows.

OK, the muddy comment has a great degree of validity, I have somewhat of an excuse or justification. for now we will leave it at that.
But somehow, some people got through it, more trickery. But I want you to look at the shape of the poem, the oddities. I am setting up something else.
later
 
This thread inspired me to write:

Meditations on three score years and ten

I am but the shadow of my former self:
What I was, I am no more.

That I could in youth, fitness and health
Is gone, lost for evermore.

Yet this aged, ragged shadow can still recall,
Remember, re-live, and dream -

Tales of when this shadow was an actor tall;
Days of yore did endless seem.

Now this shadow sits and watches others act
Yet their deeds cannot pass -

Those that shadow has improved on fact.
Was I that good? No alas.
 
This thread inspired me to write:

Meditations on three score years and ten

I am but the shadow of my former self:
What I was, I am no more.

That I could in youth, fitness and health
Is gone, lost for evermore.

Yet this aged, ragged shadow can still recall,
Remember, re-live, and dream -

Tales of when this shadow was an actor tall;
Days of yore did endless seem.

Now this shadow sits and watches others act
Yet their deeds cannot pass -

Those that shadow has improved on fact.
Was I that good? No alas.
You start with a cliche, and the metaphor continues, and this is what I try to avoid. But excellent versification I hasten to add.
 
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