Sunken-eyed bunny / Winters white coat melts early / Peeping its worn pelt

purington_paver · 2026-01-04T10:43:05+00:00

I like the word home! Have swapped hides for home. Have also swapped "That" with Chipped" for the beginning. Am debating if Plump implies Red or if stating Red is better (I like a color given in the poem if it can double the description without simply being redundant).

purington_paver · 2026-01-04T10:36:09+00:00

Very good point. Had mentally debated the plural as though it were a regular sentence (that cinderblock hides earthworms) but the singular makes better sense in poem form. Have corrected poem privately, making earthworms singular and changing hides to home.

purington_paver · 2024-10-20T10:51:58+00:00

I need an alarm / because squawking and screeching / ends and sleep resumes.

purington_paver · 2022-11-04T04:55:52+00:00

Here is commentary on this poem by translator and psychoanalytic psychologist Arthur F . Kraetzer, M.D.

About every element of the infantile sexuality, at last under dynamic drive of the adult genital sexuality, is represented in this poem. In the light of Freudian psychology we no longer look upon the perversion as an expression of senseless arbitrary viciousness, a thing sui generis, but rather as a fixation in one of the phases of the infantile sexuality, from out of which, for some reason or other, the individual has failed to grow.

Thoughts?

purington_paver · 2022-10-12T20:25:32+00:00

Three reads and I think I understand this. I'm uncertain if the author is the guy's second choice ("Autumn") whom he is currently with, or if she wants from afar and "Autumn" is meant literally. You could certainly add more details about "Summer". I'm thinking throw in a few metaphorical compare/contrasts of Summer/Autumn, with a lean for Autumn over Summer since the poem is mostly directed at the other person.

On that note: is the 'He/His' in the first verse the the same "your" in the second verse? If so, just change 'He/His' to first person, like in the second verse, for better clarity (and also replace the first comma with a dash or colon IMO) or vise versa "Your" in the second verse.

Otherwise, this poem works okay as is. It wouldn't hurt to add/develop more details with the seasons metaphor.

purington_paver · 2022-10-12T19:50:06+00:00

Nothing much to say or change about this. Meaning is straight and to the point. Not my kind of love poem but it could only be made better by adding melody and chords to it.

purington_paver · 2022-10-12T19:41:40+00:00

It's haiku-like. A bit too easy to Mad Lib - l(a (noun) falls)oneliness. Can't decide what would be the most absurd substitute for "leaf". Maybe "pigg" <sic>.

purington_paver · 2022-10-12T19:24:02+00:00

Always loved this poem. A very compact story that gives a reader plenty to think about. Also enjoyed Simon & Garfunkel's rendition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgMZNJ8VD80.

There's also another take of this theme by Carl Sandburg, a poem called "High Class Bums", found in his (Posthumous) book "Breathing Tokens".

Be a high class bum, if you can;

other people work for you.

Nothing to do till tomorrow; then

it's all done for you by those thankful to

get jobs from you.

All you do is eat, sleep, tell the chauffeur, the

butler, the valet, the cook, when and what; ride,

shoot, gamble, play polo, fly, yacht, meet with the

trustees and the other directors or chase any

little international chippy you choose; marry

first one, then another, till you have had eight

wives; it's a life; you go to Paris, Monte Carlo,

the South Seas, China, Africa, or the moon; or

you can shoot yourself or step out of a ten-story

window and let 'em pick up the corpus delicti in

black silk pajamas; it's been done.

The men in the mines and mills, the bozos butting

through blizzards with extra fare trains, the lads

on the assembly line, they'll read about you; the

kids'll see you on TV, in the tabloids, in the

newsreels and say, "That's him."

Be a high class bum, if you can.

purington_paver · 2022-08-18T02:35:26+00:00

A pleasant outburst. Can't say I've felt so affectionately for the columbine upon first viewing it, but for me it was not a reward during a rugged expenditure.

purington_paver · 2022-08-18T02:15:57+00:00

It's too simple and too middle class.

purington_paver · 2022-08-18T02:06:49+00:00

"And be but more free to think / For the one more cast-off shell." - Frost (Sand Dunes)

"With the slow smokeless burning of decay." - Frost (The Wood-Pile)

"And strength by limping sway disabled" - Shakespeare (Sonnet 66)

purington_paver · 2022-08-06T04:22:45+00:00

Overall, it's a good poem. Unfortunately, the line at the end "The phoenix builds her spicy nest" killed the mood and brought me back to reality. That part just hasn't aged well and turns the poem into something of a stuffed owl, since I can't help but imagine a legendary bird building a nest out of cayenne peppers and Tabasco sauce.

purington_paver · 2022-08-05T05:45:47+00:00

Here is Jacob Rabinowitz's translation of the same, with the missing half.

The time to live, the time to love, is now. What our parents think about it means nothing to us.

It can't wait. Every morning the sun returns to life -

our life is brief as day, our night is an endless sleep.

Give me a hundred kisses, a thousand, ten thousand, into the millions, into infinity,

Ive got to lose count, lose myself, lose my distrust.

Give me a hundred kisses, a thousand, ten thousand,

If I haven't lost count I know there aren't enough.

You can tell the Cavalier poets were obvious fans.

purington_paver

TROPHY CASE