[Cally Conan-Davies]

REVISION ONE

When don't turns into do



When the door doesn't stop the rain

When the footprint gives up following

When the keeper flouts the flame

When tears drown the witch's bottle

When the circus breaks new ground

When Etna blows smoke rings

Who's looking down on you



Who's looking down on you

When whimsy bolts the clown

When the cut steel and the tip stain

Impress the fervent crowd

When there are hidden houses

Building in dark corners

Where the eye of the local warden

Is bound to notice you


But you can see straight through

The understanding rain

The undiminished sunlight

Falling on every face

So the moon hands it over to you

But she's taken by surprise

For the knight has swapped his hood

For don't and turned to do



**********
Initial caps added
Original first line was the same as title

[Siham Karami]

Calligraphy,

What a poem for the current zeitgeist! Very powerful with the collective images. (Now I’m feeling embarrassed that I said I hope you’ll post when you already did, but I hadn’t seen it yet.) I like the way it completes the circle at the end. It’s so entirely different than most poems, in a number of ways, nothing excessive, it hits the reader with this spare directness. Also I feel its arrangement is somehow chiastic. The middle stanza is like a fulcrum, “who’s looking down on you” – this stanza nailed what I feel about this moment in time. There’s a sense of surveillance and things dark and hidden going on we can’t yet see, but it’s happening. The first and the last sections are like yin and yang – the first section introduces the feel of what’s happening as a kind of crescendo. I love “Etna blows smoke rings” - starting each line with “when” tells us this is a critical moment in time. It’s in the mode of warning, a prophecy, has a sort of biblical feel. Then the final section brings light: “but you can see straight through” - all this is good.

My only question is about the final lines beginning with “so the moon hands it over to you” - it’s not clear to me what “it” is - everything was building up to this point. I don’t mean explanations, it’s that the logic of the last 4 lines escapes me, except the part about the knight. It feels like at that critical juncture, I missed something. For all I know it could be a single word or could be a change. I like the sense of action, but it’s only a sense. I feel it needs more connection to the rest, the end feels like it’s close but the connection I feel needs to be stronger to give the knight more meaning - but I may change my mind. The sunlight does connect to the moon, so I’m thinking I probably should give it time. I will come back. So glad to see you here! Much to love about this poem, sometimes endings just need finagling.

Arrow———-> xox (when I write xo, my phone says “do”!)

[Jim Moonan]

How could I even feign to find fault with this? (you see — It's making me write poetry already)

I disregarded the box you put this in (The Deep End) and rode it giddy-up from beginning to end, holding on for dear life with each new stanza's cadence, gushing at the poems inside the poem that rushed by. I hadn't realized how much I missed your poetry until you came back with this offering. And it's surprisingly, pleasingly on solid ground (not a drop of water in sight).

No caps, no punctuation; just a generous amount of space between the lines which I always associate with your poems. It flirts with being a litany (with no response) but departs to be free-floating, unencumbered by anything that would slow it down or break it up.

After the loaded latency of the first stanza, the poem takes off into esoteric territory but I have already been hooked and I want to come along and am rewarded with more beautiful language that translates to a moment when don't becomes do. That's all I know and all I need to know.

Some interesting variations in meter keeps me bobbing along, again feeling like I'm going giddy-up. It is wonderfully paced and full of a kaleidoscope-like imagery.

The end goes over the rainbow.

My token deep-end crit is this: the title. Mostly because it is the first line. Would "Don't Do" be too cute? I think a perfect title awaits...

It's rare-air poetry..

.

[Rick Mullin]

Calleroo...


I love what I'm getting from this--the glory of "no holds barred". The power of the uncontrolled once we open up and realize we don't have it under control. Favorite lines are as follows:

when the footprint gives up following

when tears drown the witch's bottle

when the circus breaks new ground

and of course:

when whimsy bolts the clown


The moon line I read as the moon, which we think of in terms of its controlling force regarding tides and being something stuck in place by cosmic physics, leaves it to you, relinquishes control and leaves the overpowering tides to you.

I'm only mentioning meter because this is a metrical board thread--I am having a hard time finding something consistent.

Lastly, I like the unpunctuated lines, even the one that would normally get a question mark. But I'm not crazy about the layout and I don't like the title repeated in the first line. I like it better stated in the title and echoed in the final line without that immediate repetition. And I'm not seeing a compelling reason for spacing out the lines in the stanzas. For comparison's sake, look at this, which compensates for what might be lost in the change by capping the lines:

When don't turns into do


When the door doesn't stop the rain
When the footprint gives up following
When the keeper flouts the flame
When tears drown the witch's bottle
When the circus breaks new ground
When Etna blows smoke rings
Who's looking down on you


Who's looking down on you
When whimsy bolts the clown
When the cut steel and the tip stain
Impress the fervent crowd
When there are hidden houses
Building in dark corners
Wwhere the eye of the local warden
Is bound to notice you


But you can see straight through
etc

RM

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Great call, Rickster!

More shortly!!

Revision posted


Cally

[Simon Hunt]

Wthe? This must be a typo, right?

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Arrow!!!! Thank you soooo much for your reading, Arrow! Yes, the zeitgeist. I was definitely tapped into a strange world convulsion, I think. I didn't expect these lines at all. All I had was a line that came up from sleep with me when I was waking one morning: 'when don't turns into do'. I wrote it down, which is not something I usually do. At the time I thought -- how liberating! Just as Rick put it "The power of the uncontrolled once we open up and realize we don't have it under control." I mean, we're so held back by 'don't's in our lives. It's as if we learn them so much deeper than we learn the 'do's. The trouble is, when you let everything out, everything DOES come out. Everything. So I am hoping that something complex comes through, something unsettling.

I think you're onto something with the ending. I can't see a way at this moment, but I know I need to keep dreaming it. I don't want to step in with my reasoning boots on. I want to wait to see what the poem wants . . . thank you for your guiding eye!!!

Dearest Jim! Hahaha!! No, not a drop of water in sight! HA. I'm so glad you had that giddy-up feeling! It needed to rush in an onslaught of images, really. I agree with you in that I don't think the poem wants to GO anywhere beyond that "moment when don't becomes do" as you put it so beautifully. I am also very glad you can follow the metre like a ride. Variation is the heart of metre to me. It comes alive through irregularities. It's just who I am. I love bouncing along rather than a smooth ride.

You locked onto the very thing I couldn't solve. The title. YES. Until moments before I posted the poem, the title was 'Untitled'. And at the last moment, I thought perhaps that's a copout, so I went with the practice of using the first line as the title. So thank you! You were absolutely right. The title needed work.

Rickster -- you fixed it! Rickster the Fixter! How did I miss that? The first line as the title, then dive straight in! I love your reading of the poem. The glory of no restraint. But as soon as I started riding it, something crept in -- unrestraint applied across the board -- really scary things happen. The relationship between control and uncontrolled, restraint and unrestraint -- it's sooooo complicated and profound and layered. It's exhilirating with sinister undertones. Things can turn into their opposites so quickly.

Metre: I hear 3 strong beats per line, with some lines pushing to 4. It's a ride, I know. Lots of irregularties. But the 3 beat pulse is strong, I think.

I've gone with all your suggestions as you see. The capitalising was a great call. But I'm still too timid to close the space. I love my space!!! Ha! I'll see if I can go there eventually!! I promise!

Also, now I have 7 lines in S1 and 8 in the others, and I want to keep it 8 8 8, so I've got some work to do. I need to shift lines around, and try to come up with another line. So this could be how something might occur to me to adjust the ending, Arrow!

Thanks so much for your great readings, and great help! SO much appreciated!


Cally

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Simon, THANKS! I hadn't noticed that! Fixed.

[John Riley]

I love it, Cally. I will continue to read it.

Thanks