Week 8: Vulgar vs. Dr Dog - (Split Eight wins)

[Vulgar]

LGPA Season 1: Week 8

@Dr Dog


Check ins: Tuesday (Midnight Eastern time)
Poems Due: Friday (Midnight Eastern time)
Votes due: Sunday (Midnight Eastern time)


Topic:

Choose your topic from the topic thread.

Good luck.

[Split Eight]

check

[Vulgar]

In

[Split Eight]

5:13 A.M.
awakened to the very cusp of habit-
flickered vision: window (sunless).
liquid crystal touch screen (scheduled madness).
and the simplest things in life: your love (is average).

back still sore from whatever was in store for yesterday.
you race your thoughts up against nothing.
you know. stall for time.

5:23 A.M.
the iPhone weather (or not, as my dad used to joke)
said, expect some showers. or don't.
nature, the guest with no qualms
about just showing up unannounced

5:30 A.M.
your warm embrace has left a red depression on her shoulder.
you must've slept undisturbed until this umpteenth hour-
--you kept your breath--

cause now she stirs as you disengage.
your arm a seatbelt more than chains,
but still the sense of stolen hoodies holds its footing
(immaturity, I guess)
--unfastened. unrestrained. dispassionate, unsustained--

untapped, yet, like storming rain.
bringing out every scent from terra firma.
other scents that drenched your pillow.
the sense that it isn't 'her.'
sentiments bred of staying still.
--barren, earthen, uninterred. undeserved--
...
yes, that's your name she whispers.
just the same as ever. darkness makes it hard
to put names to faces.
--I won't be recalled--
the grainy distance that night affords us lends to cover
--you need some air--

5:33 A.M.
the gentle click of the porch slider might've well been a thunderclap.
--has it rained yet?--
you spark a filterless,
cough the wind out in dusty lungfuls.

5:38 A.M.
I think I might have loved someone.

It wasn't much, and I couldn't place it, now.
I mean, "how much" might as well be
the number of steps back you went after peering into that ravine.
Portland... Erie?
Like I said, I couldn't place it, cause it's not that kind of love.
I can place the moments, like. Of the, "I can take these home"-ish type.
Not stashed under pillows like comic books (then sighs of lust)
It's not a visiting type of want. Not a live with me type of haunt.
All the symmetry that can hide in touch,
couldn't mimic this type of want.
you seeing me and me seeing you
that's these open eyes.

....

5:41 A.M.
I remember she had this chalkboard wall.
Notes. Doodles. Paper games. Favorite quotes.
She'd hand out chalk like chocolates,
only a few of us were regular writes.
People are drawn to that. Different minds.
This one time, I had this perfect quip
(I always wrote four words at a time,
with some tacky meaning, I was young)
She loved it. I don't remember exactly,
though

I remember the trace of her collarbone
as she bubbled it into a clouded thought.
Chalkdust quickening in the skylight's holding glow,
miniature cosmos swimming towards the sky,
adrift in the bottled memory kept like
college trophies for the fridge top.

The smell of rain. Sandalwood and chamomile
The lay of her hips, beside some textbook, and test took,
long forgotten even then

Shallow curls pooled on sheets.
Wrapped up in each other
search for warmth in winter jackets
In your Jeep with the belts unlatched

Aftermath of arguments
a look of resent stretched past
the first line you read
and the regret
as I followed that gaze

Coming home to boxes
and a cleaner slate than
you'd ever start to learn from


5:58 A.M.
A couple splashes on the railing
wiped the dust right off.
There was something, once,
that reminded me of this very moment.
I can't seem to recall. The yard
swam with drafts of birch beer,
--Cherry ChapStick, bound books--

and the aimless flare of matches-
my alarm pierced the silence and I sprinted inside,

--remember right. remember, write--

Originally Posted by Edgar Allen Poe

In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember

[Vulgar]

"Pomegranate Jews"

Patterns of life ride the great dromedary trail
limply offering liberation to head space, wind song,
and the "current sauce" of the "current epoch"
Its present lease on the deep soul
A neat insurance policy for the Yahweh-literate
the Damien console-ables...

"My people will walk up this nice, fostered corridor
some day, when they can grok the starry-eyed moon
through their sun visors and Kabbalah shoulder yokes"

If you haven't heard a stereo system
add heat to the Negev desert
Join us for procession, or for nightly festivals
The deserts quiet
little comfort in the airlessness, a bronze hankerchief
flattened sand like distilled marmalades
in the bare light of the Shamash with memories of Ancient Kush

Up the gnarled Potomac toward darker pastures
We go
Iranian stew made of pomegranate juice and lamb
bubbling in a portable pot

"We'll make no stops until we're at least until the half-point"
Rabbi Ibragimov promises water for the camels
and supplication for the legendary needles of the flesh
No use in waiting
Waiting for a messiah to arrive with buttered bread
and molasses, and to lead straight up past the canyons
and the Canaanites into sapphire clouds and holiday arches

The rabbi notes the ambiguity in the dunes:
"These markers stick out like sore thumbs or breadcrumbs
but it won't malign to settle to oblivion march (so early in the race to God, anyways)
because the human spirit isn't a terrain-dependent creature"

Name your holy city
Name your physics of embittered elements
Let's
just
walk
and see where it leads us

[UnbornBuddha]

Split: You really went in this week... Anyways, I was finding a difficulty deciphering who was this "she". Was she a metaphor or was she really a person, the reason I ask is because she was a fulcrum where many of the scenes unraveled from. I'm going to assume she is a person. I also had the same thought as the other commentator, who stated your turn of phrase and interesting wording is very similar to Deadman, albeit he has more philosophical implications, while yours is based more on a personal and emotional context. The place and time seems to be placed not just in a linear time line, but more of a sequential loop where the character reminisces from the beginning, but from a standpoint of the future, but a future that lies only minutes ahead, a collage of memories with splashes of overarching themes of love and learning, as well as physical contact that seems to slip away ever so elusively. I will admit I liked some stanzas better than others, some were more simple than others, but not in a way that added the peacefulness found in simplicity, the juxtaposition sometimes was jarring, i.g. "darkness makes it hard". Some stanzas were very beautiful, the liquid touchscreen, miniature cosmos, the repetition of certain words that have some sense of the same vibration, earthen, barren, etc was a cool little mood effect.

Vulgar: You have a very curious nature and your style is completely your own. I read a lot and I can safely say that your style is its own mark. Sometimes you take us into this strange journeys with the most obscure references, at least to me. But, you nevertheless paint a picture and make a statement. Sometimes your writing leaves more of an impression than a message, here I received the former. So from this I interpreted it as a Jewish Rabbi leading a band of unorthodox believers into an early retirement, but perhaps into the dunes that represent a departure of what they deem paradise as. It might be as simple as a traveling band of religious affiliates who are essential spiritual nomadic vagabonds, who have no homes, kind of like the Desert Fathers. The last stanza depicts the subjectiveness of belief and its systematic basis we build around their justification, entire sciences, arts, and civilizations to try to make them into realistic depictions. Ha ha, hmm, I have more half-baked theories, but I'll leave it at that. My favorite line was: "Canaanites into sapphire clouds and holiday arches". I'm also trying to comprehend the meaning of pomegranates here, but oh well.

This is a hard vote, very different styles that in a way are hard to compare to each other.

But, I might edge it to Split here, not because he wrote more, because I didn't like everything he wrote, as I stated, while I liked a bit more Vulgar's because everything was a bit more coherent in terms of how everything meshed. Yet, Split came with something more tangible that I was in the mood for this afternoon. So, really it comes down to that, what I'm feeling is aligned with my day today, even though I did read Vulgar's more times simply because its shorter and more to the point, I still am resonating more with Split's approach this time, it had more of a filling or shifting effect on this enigmatic gorge, we call our mood.

Vote: Split

[sral]

Dr. Dog: I love reading your efforts. Evening it's not in a style I'm used to, you have a real flare to your writing I admire. A turn of phrase, I guess? Similar to dead man in that you almost bombard the reader with these titbits of imagery or unique wording, making even the smallest details interesting. The iPhone weather report thing is a great example of many used, it gives it a modern life feel and makes it relevant to our age range which I don't see many writers do. I like that. The times I could have done without, but the tie in to the quote was done well also. Really solid prose here. I was impressed.

[sral]

Vulgar: Solid showing here also, I absolutely loved this line, it really cooked up a flavoursome mental image I could almost smell bubbling up:

Iranian stew made of pomegranate juice and lamb
bubbling in a portable pot

That was too dope!

You brought this full circle with the end, too, and nailed the topic I also looked at - tried to twist - then ultimately decided against so I give you props for that. Real great match up this week...

I've got Dr. Dog with the edge here.

[Inno]

Vilgar

I feel like you really went in this week. You do habe your own style
That is unmistakable tbh. Sometimes i feel like you get lost in your
Own world and write like this. Unadulterated poetry. This was awesome
Man i re read it a couple of times which is always good. Though tbh i feel
Like you put to many obscure references i feel only u would know lol. Kind of
Made it a it hard to decipher.

Split.

The progression was key here and i feel you nailed it. Not once did i feel like
It got stale or boring. The story was dope and like i said your progress through
The plot was dam near perfect. I absolutely loved the haunt, want lines. I thought
Those lines added so much to the characters appeal. Dope stuff man great effort

Overall

I think i got split taking this with a piece that although long it was alot more reader
Friendly while vulgar wrote outstanding i feel like split apealed to his audience a bit better
Dope fucking battle.

Split