I will stop writing about poetry soon, but not yet because ... I don't want to write about finance, frankly, my dear.
All right?
Anyway, I've been thinking again. I like thinking sometimes, especially about the future, the green light, etc, etc.
You know what I mean.
Anyway ...
You know I need at least thirty poems. I really need them before Christmas. I've got eight.
Er ...
I don't know.
Listen! A lot of them can be short poems ... as long as they're high-quality "supporting" poems, and not filler, you dig?
I mean, we have filler here from Philip Larkin -
As Bad as a Mile
Watching the shied core
Striking the basket, skidding across the floor,
Shows less and less of luck, and more and more
Of failure spreading back up the arm
Earlier and earlier, the unraised hand calm,
The apple unbitten in the palm.
It's not terrible poetry or anything, but ... is it needed? These days, like.
With the robots and all.
But here is a great little poem from Larkin that I have read countless times, and memorized, too -
Cut Grass
Cut grass lies frail:
Brief is the breath
Mown stalks exhale.
Long, long the death
It dies in the white hours
Of young-leafed June
With chestnut flowers,
With hedges snowlike strewn,
White lilac bowed,
Lost lanes of Queen Anne's lace,
And that high-builded cloud
Moving at summer's pace.
It's amazing how this poem captures the essence of summer in only twelve short lines!
Now, I have three short poems. Maybe I could get fifteen? Out of my eight poems, I would say that four of them are "great". Maybe I could get ten??? Who knows?! After Christmas, I could slowly build towards forty poems.
The thing is, I need to sell a lot of books, too. A lot of books! My life being what it is. / Thinking of living poets in recent times, only Larkin, Hughes, and Heaney sold a lot. I mean, when they were alive, like.
So ... it's the great big-ish poems that really matter. Actually, I can't stop reading my There's nothing poem. It's only thirty-four lines, not really big ... but bigger than twelve lines, obviously, but ... BUT(!) -
OOO - !!!
Do you know what I mean?
OOO - !!!
You must know what I mean, kook? Surely? No, I don't think you do.
Honestly, that poem is beyond being "great". It's genuinely "OOO - !!!" ... and that gives me hope.
Let's be honest, come on ... you only need one OOO! in a career as a top poet. I've got at least two. The other OOO! being the BIG 156-line poem, you dig?
And two of the poems that I put in the competition, the other two out of the four "great" ones, might actually be ... ooo ... it's hard to say.
Anyway ...
I hope you understand me. Not that I care all that much. This is my diary, son. Maybe even my "private" diary, daughter.
Christ!
How lucky are you, eh?
How privileged!
Laters.
'Bye! Ha, ha, ha!'
Oh, hello.
'Bye!'
Yeah, yeah.
