[continued from previous message]   
      
   It's tattooed on his chest.   
      
   >>>> This is another earmark of a Will Donkey poem -- addressing various   
   >>>> pronouns (you, he, she, it, they) without identifying them to the   
   >>>> reader.   
   >>>   
   >>> It was all a dream, and he had forgotten their names, although they had   
   >>> told him twice.  "Hole in one"   
   >>   
   >> In this particular poem, it turns out that he has simply lost his   
   >> marbles.   
   > Such a lack of awareness in a 22-year-old llth grader.   
      
   I beg to differ.  He was actually showing some perceptiveness.  He was   
   aware that he'd lost his marbles at a relatively early age.   
      
      
   >>>>>>>>>  if I see things denied   
   >>>>   
   >>>>   
   >>>> It's impossible to tell if this line relates to that preceding or   
   >>>> following it.  It doesn't make sense either way.   
   >>> Not surprising.   
   >>   
   >> That's one of the problems with Fragmentist poetry -- the individual   
   >> thought fragments aren't required to correspond to any of the other   
   >> thought fragments.   
   >   
   > Therefore, any thought fragment can be pulled out of the can of thought   
   > fragments and be used at random without affecting the logic or flow of   
   > the poem?   
      
   Detractors of the Fragmentist school have argued along those lines.   
   However, the Fragments' goal is to capture their thought fragments *as   
   they arise* in their conscious mind.  Therefore, a successful   
   Fragmentist thought fragment should follow from, and lead to, the   
   thought fragments that precede and follow it, respectively.   
      
      
   >>   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Is he seeing things he once defined denied?  What did he define?  For a   
   >>>> person to "define" something would mean that he was the perfect symbol   
   >>>> of that particularly quality or characteristic (Joe was the definition   
   >>>> of courage).   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Or is his waking contemplation of the possibility of returning to...   
   >>>> some unidentified thing (a relationship?) being denied by the   
   >>>> unidentified someone's actions?   
   >>> All of those things.   
   >>   
   >> No... I'm convinced that he's lying on the floor (excuse me, at the   
   >> floor) having gotten drunk and stoned out of his mind, upon learning   
   >> that he'd been left back yet again.   
   > Where was he getting the money to buy the drugs?  (or was Barfly   
   > supplying them?)   
      
   From working at the mill and the lumber yard, and from Kathy's   
   waitressing jobs.   
      
      
   >> It all makes perfect sense.   
   >>   
   >> Well, maybe not perfect sense.. and maybe not all of it... but at least   
   >> it's got some semblance of a plot.   
   > Not an interesting or publishable plot, though.   
      
   Which is why in the 49 years since he wrote it, it's only been published   
   in his high school newspaper.   
      
      
   >>>> You need to learn how to convey information to your readers.  Language   
   >>>> is about communication.  It is the means by which we pass on   
   >>>> *information* to others.  When your poetry hints at vague relationships   
   >>>> with unidentified pronouns, it is failing to express anything.   
   >>>   
   >>> That's a theme in Mr. Dockery's attempts at writing.   
   > That's unexpressionism?   
      
      
   That's an excellent term for it!   
      
   >   
   >>   
   >> It's also indicative of his laziness.  Why bother to think up a word for   
   >> something when you can just use a handy-dandy pronoun?   
   > Or use the same words over and over and over, like "tizzy," "troll," and   
   > "obsessed?"   
      
   Yes, but that's in his conversations and posts -- not in his poetry.   
      
      
   >>   
   >> "I told you it was good   
   >> But you said it was bad   
   >> What was it that we had?   
   >> I've never understood."   
   >>   
   >> I've just written a Donkey style stanza in 3 seconds flat!   
   > But it rhymes!  Dockery poems don't rhyme, or if they do, it is in   
   > random lines.   
      
   :(   
      
   >>>> Vaguery can be used to a poem's advantage -- but the *entire poem*   
   >>>> should never be incoherent.   
   >>>   
   >>> At least he is consistent.   
   >>   
   >> True.  Let's give him credit for that.   
   > But no credit cards.  He couldn't even get a pre-paid one.   
   >>   
   >>>>>>>>>  I once defined   
   >>>>>>>>>  a life just passed me by there   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Where's "there"?  If the life "just" passed you by, it would have done   
   >>>> so just a few seconds ago, so "there" should be "here."   
   >>>   
   >>> That was Sydne's wrong left turn with Stinky G.   
   >>   
   >> So Sydne turned here when she should have been there, and now only a   
   >> broken Stinky G is left.   
   > And where is Stinky G, since he's neither here nor there?   
      
   The Donkey said (somewhere, but not here, and probably not there) that   
   he was in Florida.   
      
   >>>> But earlier in the poem, you'd said that someone else's life had just   
   >>>> passed by.   
   >>>   
   >>> Sydne's ghost.   
   >>   
   >> No, it couldn't have been Sydne's ghost.  Will wrote the poem in 1976   
   >> when he was a high school senior.  Perhaps the ghost was that of his   
   >> future upon learning that he'd been left back another time?   
   > Time travel is fluid.   
   >>   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Which life was it?  The speaker's life?  Or the unidentified "you" he is   
   >>>> addressing?   
   >>>   
   >>> The ghost of Dan Barfly.   
   >>   
   >> Dan was still alive then, too.  I believe he'd been thrown out of school   
   >> for sleeping with underage students, but he was still hanging around the   
   >> local bars.   
   > Because that's where the underage girls and boys were.   
      
   Yes.  He and Will also took a drug-fueled road trip to Florida at that   
   time (as incoherently recalled in one of Donkey's poems).   
      
   >>>>>>>>>  slipped through my fingers   
   >>>>   
   >>>> This is just another way of saying "passed me by."  If a line doesn't   
   >>>> add anything to the poem, you should cut it.   
   >>>   
   >>> Perhaps the whole poem should be cut?  Not just perhaps.   
   >>   
   >> Perhaps the collected works of Will Donkey should be cut.  With the   
   >> exception of "When the Mill Shut Down" (or whatever it was called).   
   > So one poem is passable in 50 years of writing?   
      
   No.  Will's written at least two poems that were passable, and one that   
   is actually good (When the Mill Shut Down).  You're familiar with the   
   saying about a broken clock.   
      
      
      
   >>>>>>>>>  everything here now is real   
   >>>>   
   >>>> WFT?   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Was everything not real a moment ago?   
   >>>>   
   >>>> More importantly, *what* has become real?   
   >>>   
   >>> "The Real Housewives of Atlanta?"   
   >>   
   >> The real housewives of Will Donkey's Atlanta don't really have houses.   
   >> They squat in abandoned "mansions" and do their doody in the back yard.   
   > More hole references.   
      
   Well, "in a hole" is part of the refrain from "The Donkey Song."   
      
      
   >>>>>>>>>  so wait.   
   >>>>>>>>>  That portion of the finish   
   >>>>>>>>>  never comes.   
   >>>>   
   >>>>   
   >>>> I'm guessing that you were stoned out of your senses when you wrote   
   >>>> this, and that it all made perfect sense to you at the time?   
   >>>   
   >>> He did the best drugs he could score on the playgrounds.   
   >>   
   >> He was seeing a lot of "pretty lights" back in those days.   
   > That's good because he couldn't pay the utility bills.   
      
   Lol. I hadn't that of that!   
      
   >>>> Are you telling the unidentified "you" (whose life had passed --   
   >>>> implying that they had died) to wait?   
   >>>   
   >>> "Wait for Me" - Hall and Oates   
   >>   
   >> I'm not familiar with that one (but please don't post a link).   
   > Good song.  You must have missed the 80s altogether.   
      
   Mostly.  I listened to The Stray Cats, Crystal Gayle, Billy Joel and   
   Total Eclipse of the Heart.   
      
      
   >>>>   
   >>>> Are you telling yourself to wait -- as your train of thought jumps   
   >>>> tracks?   
   >>>   
   >>> "Then I'm willing to wait for it.   
   >>> I'm willing to wait for it." - "Hamilton"   
   >>   
   >> I had to google that one.   
   > Another dueling reference.   
      
   Really?  It's apparently I line from the Broadway show "Hamilton."   
   (Although spoken by Aaron Burr.)   
      
   >>>> Or are you telling the reader, who you haven't been addressing, to wait?   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)