Well that reaction was surprisingly positive. I’m always hopeful when I put poems up here that the things I’ve worked at will come through. It’s a good feeling when they do. Part of me suspects that we may all be on a high after absorbing Mark’s Ulysses and some of that wellbeing has spilled over onto my thread.
Roger. So glad you liked it. Is it metrical? I don’t know. It certainly isn’t strictly metrical. I did feel I wanted to loosen the bindings a little. It doesn’t follow any set structure but my words tend naturally to come out Iambic, and it has plenty of rhymes and half-rhymes. I deliberately mixed them up a little so that they were less predictable. I think some rhymes can be too glaring (eg hisses/misses.) And one way of making them subtler is to put more space between them. I come back to Stallings' manifesto “Rhymes may be so far apart, you cannot hear them, but they can hear each other". I also like her point that “Rhyme can also free a poem from fixed line length. A rhyme lets us hear the end of the line, so lines may be of any metrical length, or even syllabic, and still be heard." So, unusually for me I didn’t deliberately count beats when writing this but relied on reading it aloud to see if it sounded right and could stay. But I know that others won’t always share my sense of rightness. I don’t have a strong opinion under which heading it would more comfortably sit.
Max. It isn’t quite metrical but it does use some words more for their contribution to rhythm than to meaning. So yes “ My hearing aid won’t help. It hisses” could benefit from being cut to “My hearing aid hisses.” Then again, the “won’t help” adds an agency to the inanimate object. Not only does the hearing aid not help, it stubbornly refuses to help. This seems to be a common theme between us grumpy old men, that the technology and crutches we now rely on are secretly ganging up on us.
By “Unsighted” I was meaning the verb where one’s view is being obstructed by some unwanted object (eg the hat of someone in front of you at a concert). I am broadening its definition a little here but not so wide as to mean “blind”. I mean it more in keeping with a curmudgeonly sense that if I can’t see clearly then it is probably someone or something else’s fault (eg my string of rubbish cheap spectacles, that I sit on and bend and which go out of their way to hide themselves from me)
The final stanza does have a different tone. As Carl says, It is a sort of sigh.
Thanks Ralph, I see, like Max that “unsighted” doesn’t work well for you either. So I may need to rethink it. Thanks too for picking up on the "wondering" at he end. I’ll think about the question mark too. I have only recently started to think seriously about old age – its always been something that happens to other people -- realising how often I now defer to my children’s opinions and accept their help and that of strangers.
Carl. Thanks again for your close reading. Always helpful. “Worried after” isn’t a UK idiom. I think it is my own confection. It sounds a little odd, but I hope it makes sense, and manages to capture both meanings -- to be concerned about, and to gnaw at. Nothing is guaranteed to suck the atmosphere out of a happy company than being asked to explain a joke. The joke resents it, and the questioner will regret it.
I had noticed, after the fact,that “nearer now” in the penultimate line could refer to the chatter on the previous line as well as the coming shadow. I decided that I liked that ambiguity.
Anisometric, Mono no aware. ?! Those are new to me. Had a quick google but still not quite sure. But your explanation of a sigh and a kind of acceptance is nice.
Mark. I was worried thar this may be seen as another in a series of sad old git poems, and am glad you picked up on the comic element. Once upon a time I was quite competent in the world. I am (was ?) a scientist, played with computers, wrote code, but never quite got used to smartphones. My (grown) kids still laugh at my mounting frustration using them (“aww look, he’s using his fingers!”). Does the phrase “he’s all thumbs” mean “dextrous” now?
Nemo, John, many thanks too for your support.
Joe
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