the poem sleeps

I get to comment first! I have watched your rise to the top, where social issues arise. You seem to have a sense of what will move people. I really have to admit, that you have made a love poem for America. ~ Gee

Ann of Norway Oh you leave no stone unturned, no sight unseen, no perfume unbreathed and no sensation unfelt, as we kaleidoscope into the world through the eyes; visions personified and embellished, perfectly exciting and terribly uncomfortable at the same time, extraordinary. You have fun with words:- "in alcoholic perfumes of required decorum" Oh blimey:- "more or less the discussion of hemorrhoids..........haemorrhoids? inflaming - tossing out bits of comfortless paper shells, or shattering hammers" Or:- "or cry with foaming blood on this white sleeve of sleeping poems that die before your eyes like an unloved child" Bl.... marvellous. "the tongue without words to taste the impounding snow" "my song is a love i can not awaken..........................maybe cannot? my poem is trodden in a pristine desolation of smiles" You leave us, having taken us through the subways of poetry's tunnelled vision to end up in smiles of extreme humour and what fun we had on the way through! Didn't we folkens? Well concocted dear Barry, love form Ann

I understand you wrote this as a complete piece of intention and passion....and possible sleeplessness....but so many parts cry out to me. Unintentional hooks in the gullet. This entire stanza has barbs in me: "the sky is not seen without eyes how beautiful our eyes - those eyes to see less beautiful the unwalked street the tongue without words to taste the impounding snow" One could write a fitful sonnet from this line alone. "I am full of forgetting you" Aside from some possible rhythmic adjustments, that I don't have the answers to, this is yet another boundlessly intelligent write from you. Best, Nathaniel

hi there this is so so good i was able to take things from it and find my self in those lines as i understand them for me , cheers barry well done and thank you ,,,,,,,ziggy

This is a jungle poem with matted foliage. There are many extraordinary moments in the poem. For example, the phrasing around "eyes" and "roadside". The first line is excellent but I would leave out the hyphen and extra space in that line. Is "Cotton" intended to be capitalised? The second stanza is good but packed rather full. Full has a certain utility toward overwhelming, which is perhaps your linkage of the described experience with the reader. It does, however, have to overcome the tendency of readers to seek to be on the same level as the author by understanding more readily. The third stanza is excellent. Is there a reason for separating stanzas three and four. The fifth stanza is very good, as well. The last stanza is a real zinger. It suggests the masked desolation behind the show of decorum and smiles. Its leave the poem in a soggy and cut off place, which I expect is your intent. Note that the second "I" in the stanza is not capitalised and the first is capitalised. You are blessed with a deep and agile imagination. It holds you in good stead. I would encourage you to be more exacting in foraging for the absolutely correct word. Thank you for your fearless foray. Olya

So sorry to be late to this one Barry ... just a sigh hope your well ... keep the poems coming, I have been reading on my phone lol love and hugs Jayne-Chloe x x x

I was here for Olya's comments and am in agreement. One less "e" in Deafening, second line. Capitalize "I", last stanza, second line. Is "trodden" the word you want in the second last line?; or would "treading", "tread on" "trodding", "trod upon" be more appropriate? Trodden is an adjactive which means to flatten and is also a verb and past participle (a verb used like an adjactive) of tread. If it were "trodding", the "in" is unnecessary. I think that the direction you are pushing this poem is superb. Brian

Barry, I awaken you with a kiss. Well done. Social conscious poems are not easy; but imo, they are the most necessary of poems. May your words be heard by many. May all poets bear witness to their social consciousness.. may their words not be stillborn. Love, Anna "If parents really would love their children there would no longer be any war." J. Krishnamurti