Coffee Break: 2/28/08

breakfast is:
eggs and toast,
Bukowski
and coffee.

---------------------------

living the life i dreamed,
i never imagined i would
have so much around my hips
and so little in my wallet.

---------------------------

why does it
always
go back to
sex?

---------------------------

the only fighting words
we have left, lay between
a pair of breasts and
a gun in the glovebox.

---------------------------

the temples are crashing down
around us, but we are too deaf
to listen when it is fashionable
to be blind.

---------------------------

somewhere, some god is
laughing in a wholly
cosmic sense and
I don't know whether
to laugh with him
or weep.

Derma Kaput -
Nice collection of snippets. the second one cracked me up.

Anstey -
The second one struck me. I think several are worth some real work. This has a lot of promise. The penultimate one particularly. I feel like it's close, but missing something. If i Figure out what i'll tell you. Perhaps a slightly closer tie to the temple? I don't know.

Anstey -

" temples crash down
around us
we are too deaf
to listen when it is fashionable
to be blind.
"

Jas,

I am thinking that what you might be looking for there is a bit of tightening and just a very slight change in the line breaks. I suspect that strengthens the double meaning and makes the whole more active.

Emeya -

Hello,

First, I want to say that I really like this, and, like Anstey, see so much promise. These are the bones of a poem, it just needs some sinew. But as you have it now, would you consider taking out most of the punctuation and using line breaks as stops instead?

For example: In your first piece, I find the colon unnecessary at the end of the first line. The stop is already there with the line break. This also applies for the comma after "toast." So instead it'd read something like:

breakfast is

eggs and toast

bukowski

and coffee.

--I still like the period at the end. I think you can apply this to each piece, eliminating punctuation, except for question marks and periods. And, having just read through the write again, I don't think you would need to change any of the line breaks.

I am trying to think of a better way to separate/combine each one rather than the line you have now, but I don't think it is ready for any sort of numerals yet. Perhaps if you flesh the piece out a bit, you can apply this.

I'd like to see what comes of this after a little more work. Please let me know if you do! I'd like to see the progress.

-Emeya

Jasmine Mann -

Thanks for the comments! But I first want to say that this was just an exercise to get teh brain juice flowing. I might use some on other poems, I might not. I just liked them enough and wanted somewhere to keep them in the meantime.

Once I get my personal space set up it'll be less confusing!

"Milk is for babies. When you grow up, you have to drink beer." - Arnold

Rws -
Something about the use of minimalism in this form makes it an appealing read, similar to modernist haiku (if such a form exists). You may or may not link these more closely, but I hope you at least consider the continued use of this style. Just my thoughts. Bill