Just a fragment that's been bothering me, Final version, I think.

[bronzeage]

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for all we lost,
the precious and unique.
Wept for all we gained,
the bitter and unending.
When black night blind stole the sky,
wiped light from the world
and left us not in the dark,
but under it.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Wow, BA. That's . . . really good. I am not so sure this is a fragment.

How long does a poem have to be to be a complete poem?

 

[bronzeage]

Wow, BA. That's . . . really good. I am not so sure this is a fragment.

How long does a poem have to be to be a complete poem?

I intend it to be a narrative about Katrina, but it's so depressing. I work on a few lines and put it away for a while.

 

[BooMerengue]

I was there, right after, and I don't know how you'll be able to put the horror into words. This begins it very well, though.

However, imho, I would erase the word blind. Better flow w/o it, I think. Don't give up on this one. I want to read it when finished.

 

[bronzeage]

I was there, right after, and I don't know how you'll be able to put the horror into words. This begins it very well, though.

However, imho, I would erase the word blind. Better flow w/o it, I think. Don't give up on this one. I want to read it when finished.

I've taken it out three times and put it back in. Black night blind is a demon or a monster who possesses the night.

 

[sinuous]

I intend it to be a narrative about Katrina, but it's so depressing. I work on a few lines and put it away for a while.

Hi, I have been writing a horror novel for the last 8 months and there are many places I get depressed, it is so ugly and sick that I have to stop and put it aside for a while. It is fiction yet based on real life...

The poem will come together and come to you. From what I have read of you, perservere and it's going to be striking.

It is quite profound at the moment, I cannot wait to see how it twists or wraps around the underbelly of blackness

cheerios

 

[Maria2394]

Wow, BA. That's . . . really good. I am not so sure this is a fragment.

How long does a poem have to be to be a complete poem?

Hi Dora

Years ago we had that very discussion, and thusly, we had a challenge to come up with a one word poem, not counting the title. That is where one of my submissions came from.

I got mixed reviews, which is understandable, i did not expect a Pulitzer, lol, just to initiate that discussion again.

I'm glad to see it brought up, the thought, that is, of poem length and how many lines/words constitute a complete poem.

Have a great day!

~ maria

 

[master_chay]

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for all we lost,
the precious and unique.
Wept for all we gained,
the bitter and unending.
When black night blind stole the sky,
wiped light from the world
and left us not in the dark,
but under it.

There we rested,
there we dreamed ...

 

[bronzeage]

There we rested,
there we dreamed ...

Not quite. It had just begun.

New Draft

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for all we lost,
the precious and unique.
Wept for all we gained,
the bitter and unending.
When black night blind, minion of the storm,
stole the sky, wiped light from the world
and left us not in the dark, but under it.

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for the harsh detergent
that scrubbed all color from our world
and left everything brown and gray.
Stripped and scoured the thin paint of civilization
off the wooden skeleton of the city,
unbleached and unbleachable, never to shine again.

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for the policeman who fled,
wept for the policeman who stole,
wept for the policeman who killed,
wept for the policeman who stayed
and stood waist deep in the flood
and held us on his shoulders.

 

[master_chay]

Interesting.

Are you going to leave it there or tell more?

 

[bronzeage]

Interesting.

Are you going to leave it there or tell more?

It is a work in progress. It's very difficult to dwell on the subject for a long time. Over 2000 people died that night and in the days following.

 

[Sexleksaker]

Nice one, really liked it

 

[twelveoone]

Not quite. It had just begun.

New Draft

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for all we lost,
the precious and unique.
Wept for all we gained,
the bitter and unending.
When black night blind, minion of the storm,
stole the sky, wiped light from the world
and left us not in the dark, but under it.

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for the harsh detergent
that scrubbed all color from our world
and left everything brown and gray.
Stripped and scoured the thin paint of civilization
off the wooden skeleton of the city,
unbleached and unbleachable, never to shine again. thibng

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for the policeman who fled,
wept for the policeman who stole,
wept for the policeman who killed,
wept for the policeman who stayed
and stood waist deep in the flood
and held us on his shoulders.

s1 minion? sounds like such a small word asked to do too big of a task, don't like the whole black, dark, thing, looks like too much of a walk though, i.e. if black and dark are in use as anything other than mere description?
s2 interesting, fresh, nice way to describe washed out, "Thin paint of civilization",? tired, drop the thin.
if s1 is a contrast to s2, why?
s3, one out of four cops are good? why s3 at all? as is, makes for a surplus of "wept"s

off the wooden skeleton of the city, - this line seems problematic, however any suggestions on my part would then cause problems in the preceding line, with the exception of merely using wood instead of wooden - check def. of wooden, but that may be your intention. It's just not working in my mind.

 

[ishtat]

Agree with 1201's last two points but not his first. I assume that the echo of Psalm 137 was in your mind when you wrote this - both the despair, the faint hope and perhaps the 'music' of the poem.

Possibly a couple of re-reads of the psalm might help resolve some of the points raised?

 

[butters]

just my tuppence worth, bronze

New Draft

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for all we lost,
the precious and unique.
Wept for all we gained,
the bitter and unending.
When black night blind, minion of the storm,
stole the sky, wiped light from the world
and left us not in the dark, but under it.

i've a small problem with the punctuation: as i read it, the period after 'unending' feels as if it should be a comma, rendering the cap W of 'When' redundant as it appears to be part of the same phrasing, unless you alter something in the last 3 lines to change the grammatical sense, i.e

When black night blind stole the sky,
wiped light from the world,
we were left not in the dark
but under it.

i agree about the 'minion' comments, thinking it doesn't add anything but detracts from the power and the blight, and wonder if 'black blind night' or simply 'blind night' might work as well.

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for the harsh detergent
that scrubbed all color from our world
and left everything brown and gray.
Stripped and scoured the thin paint of civilization
off the wooden skeleton of the city,
unbleached and unbleachable, never to shine again.

a similar issue re punctuation arises for me in s2. i am in two minds about it, though it feels as if the comma after 'gray' should be a semi-colon, losing the cap S from 'Stripped', yet the cap there lends a strength to the initial word in that line. i guess you could get around it by losing most punctuation (as i do, leaving it open to the reader's interpretation) but then you write the way you write not the way i do.

i didn't mind 'thin paint' so much, it being far better than the even more clichéd 'thin veneer', but the more i considered 12's comment, the more it felt grounded. i get the use of paint and stripped together, having seen chem-peels on doors and stuff, so the visual feels spot-on, but wonder if, perhaps, it might read better this way:

'that scrubbed all color from our world
and left everything brown and gray;
stripped thin civilization
from the city's wooden skeleton,
unbleached and unbleachable,
never to shine again.'

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for the policeman who fled,
wept for the policeman who stole,
wept for the policeman who killed,
wept for the policeman who stayed
and stood waist deep in the flood
and held us on his shoulders.

personally, i loved this entire last strophe. different tears, a flood of tears, worth the repetition in my eyes and something about the reps makes me feel the sense of shock, anger, sorrow, respect and gratitude - an age of weeping.



maybe something of this helped clarify your own thinking, bronze. best of luck with this write. it must take a lot from you. x

 

[twelveoone]

i

personally, i loved this entire last strophe. different tears, a flood of tears, worth the repetition in my eyes and something about the reps makes me feel the sense of shock, anger, sorrow, respect and gratitude - an age of weeping.

kind of agree, but
he's leading too much for poetry, would make a great song, but not C&W, unless he replaces "policeman" with"girlfriend"

 

[butters]

kind of agree, but
he's leading too much for poetry, would make a great song, but not C&W, unless he replaces "policeman" with"girlfriend"

country and western ... *shakes head, smaughing*

 

[bronzeage]

I appreciate everyone's comments. I am still reworking much of this draft. I have a few pages of hand written lines, which I scribble whenever the thought strikes me.

Tomorrow is the 7th anniversary of the event. I imagine this will offer some fresh inspiration.

 

[greenmountaineer]

I appreciate everyone's comments. I am still reworking much of this draft. I have a few pages of hand written lines, which I scribble whenever the thought strikes me.

Tomorrow is the 7th anniversary of the event. I imagine this will offer some fresh inspiration.

I'm looking forward to the next iteration. I was mesmerized by the news clips then and some of your lines brought that back.

A critic wrote once that poets should steer clear of politics when they write because of their transitory nature, i.e., here today, gone tomorrow. I suppose he might have said the same about hurricanes unless he experienced this one as you did or witnessed it indirectly as most of us others did.

 

[bronzeage]

The Lamentation of Katrina

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for all we lost,
the precious and unique.
Wept for all we gained,
the bitter and unending.
When black night blind, minion of the storm,
stole the sky, wiped light from the world
and left us not in the dark, but under it.

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for the harsh detergent
that scrubbed all color from our world
and left everything brown and gray.
Stripped and scoured the thin paint of civilization
off the wooden skeleton of the city,
unbleached and unbleachable,
never to shine again.

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for our city by the river,
wept for our city by the lake
wept for our city by the sea.
Wept for our faith in walls of mud,
wept for our faith in machines,
wept for our lost faith
in what we should have done,
could have done, would have done
with our moment of failure,
frozen in time.

By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for the our Mother Water,
wept for days when she filled our plates
and held the cool cup to our mouths.
Wept for the nights when we slept between her breasts.
For what can the child do when the Mother says,
“I don’t know you,”
but lie down and weep.
We lay down and wept and knew
nothing would ever again be Easy.

 

[twelveoone]

Wept for our city by the river,
wept for our city by the lake
wept for our city by the sea.

Here you have a set of three "Wept for"s consider a break, or even deletion.

Wept for our faith in walls of mud,
wept for our faith in machines,
wept for our lost faith
1,2,3
and 4
in what we should have done,




By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for the our Mother Water,
wept for days when she filled our plates
1,2
and 3
and held the cool cup to our mouths.

Wept for the nights when we slept between her breasts.
1
and 2
For what can the child do when the Mother says,


“I don’t know you,”
but lie down and weep.
We lay down and wept and knew
nothing would ever again be Easy.


just a quirk i feel strongly about, the power of repetition falls off after three, deletion of the first three also will set off a declining pattern.

last two lines, consider taking out "and wept" you're heading to a resolution. and one more wept feels like overkill.
good luck

 

[bronzeage]

Wept for our city by the river,
wept for our city by the lake
wept for our city by the sea.

Here you have a set of three "Wept for"s consider a break, or even deletion.

Wept for our faith in walls of mud,
wept for our faith in machines,
wept for our lost faith
1,2,3
and 4
in what we should have done,




By the waters of Pontchartrain,
we lay down and wept for thee, Easy.
Wept for the our Mother Water,
wept for days when she filled our plates
1,2
and 3
and held the cool cup to our mouths.

Wept for the nights when we slept between her breasts.
1
and 2
For what can the child do when the Mother says,


“I don’t know you,”
but lie down and weep.
We lay down and wept and knew
nothing would ever again be Easy.


just a quirk i feel strongly about, the power of repetition falls off after three, deletion of the first three also will set off a declining pattern.

last two lines, consider taking out "and wept" you're heading to a resolution. and one more wept feels like overkill.
good luck

Sorry, there was a lot of weeping that night.