[W T Clark]

This is funny! The latest version has the most intact swing between riffs, although I wonder how the Dante scene is precedented by the previous witch-conversation (— a great blast: that "virgin sacrifice by the dozen"!) I see how it is precedented by the later fucking-riff, but not by the previous ones. Although I now wonder at the poor wretch's desire to fuck the ghost in juxtaposition with his squeamishness over the v. sacrifices. Is the incline into explicit sexual desire too great and sudden? It is nice practice. I remember your Elvis sonnet with admiration and nostalgia ...

Hope this helps.

[Yves S L]

Cameron,

Dollars to donuts, you of all people would see the play. I miss the Elvis sonnet sincerly. Your questions about the swing between the riffs is interesting. I will have to think about that and get back to you while I contemplate the balance.

I like your ghazal. I will try to find something to say.

[Julie Steiner]

Hi, Yves.

I'm not wistful for more obviously autobiographical content, but for a more obvious sense in your thread responses that you take your own poems seriously. If you don't, why should anyone else?

It's none of my business whether any poem is informed by the poet's firsthand, lived experience. (I once told a poet that I liked her poem about a bike accident, and she mentioned that she had made the whole thing up, which didn't change in the slightest how I felt about that poem's ability to testify to the truth.)

But I do care very much if we are being asked to spend time critiquing a poem that is regarded by its author mainly as iambic pentameter practice — or some sort of casual experiment with this or that effect — rather than as a real, full-fledged poem.

I hope I'm mistaken in taking your frequent statements of humility about your work as evidence that it doesn't mean much to you.

I'm not a fan of confessional poetry, despite the fact that much of my own work having been interpreted as such. I mentioned confession here only because your narrator is confessing to a sexual obsession with (literal or figurative) ghosts, and later to having lied about the violent nature of that obsession.

After the poem's mention of the Internet, I did briefly wonder if the ghosts at the window might actually be a reference to online porn, which has obvious relevance to a lot of people. But I decided it couldn't be, because the narrator had also blamed his ghost problem on a very specific cause — namely, a witch he had cut off in traffic within the past week. Since porn obsessions tend to be of longer standing than that, I decided that a more literal interpretation was more likely, and that things in the poem should be taken at face value.

Frankly, I don't think the presence of the witch is doing the poem any favors in any version of the poem. The less of that red herring, the better for literalists like me.

I do like the title "Temptation," which seems to have disappeared after Version 1.10. I hope it's still there.

I either missed your Elvis sonnet, or I'm forgetful in the wee hours of the morning. Would you mind sending it to me via PM, Yves?

[Carl Copeland]

Hmm, I was going to ask for the Elvis sonnet too, but now I’m worried. When I clicked on “Quote,” I got:

The web page has been blocked by the Restricted Internet Content rule. Reason: the web resource belongs to the Adult content content category.

R-rated I can deal with, but an X-rated Elvis sonnet might be too much for me! ))

[Yves S L]

In all my dreams I see the face of Elvis,
when he was pretty as a girl. O Elvis,
why did you have to age? A song by Elvis
is always playing in my head, since Elvis
first came into my life—my blue-eyed Elvis.
I tried to sing just like my idol Elvis,
but soon was told I sound not much like Elvis.
I paid for surgeries to look like Elvis,
but soon was told I look too much like Elvis.

I take my wife to bed, dressed up as Elvis,
and pleasure her with hips that move like Elvis.
She soon cries out the lovely name of Elvis.
During all this she wears a mask of Elvis.
I weep when she takes off the mask of Elvis,
the act implicitly insulting Elvis.

[Yves S L]

Brief stop, will be back for proper replies.

Carl, I think it is because I used the p--n word maybe.

Julie, I don't think a fair assessment of one's own ability is humilty. I care enough about the poems to create them. Yeah!

[Carl Copeland]

Kinky, yes, but not X-rated. And not like any sonnet I’ve ever read. Cool, Yves, thanks!

[Yves S L]

Carl, I have really experimented with sonnets!

[W T Clark]

Originally Posted by Yves S L

In all my dreams I see the face of Elvis,
when he was pretty as a girl. O Elvis,
why did you have to age? A song by Elvis
is always playing in my head, since Elvis
first came into my life—my blue-eyed Elvis.
I tried to sing just like my idol Elvis,
but soon was told I sound not much like Elvis.
I paid for surgeries to look like Elvis,
but soon was told I look too much like Elvis.

I take my wife to bed, dressed up as Elvis,
and pleasure her with hips that move like Elvis.
She soon cries out the lovely name of Elvis.
During all this she wears a mask of Elvis.
I weep when she takes off the mask of Elvis,
the act implicitly insulting Elvis.

If only this had been a year ago. I would have asked for it for LM. If only...

[Yves S L]

Cameron,

And I would forever be known as the poet who wrote the Elvis sonnet.