Do I have any talent as a poet? (total vanity post, be honest)

[WilliamPitt]

Flyfisher

My grandmother was a fly-fisher before arthritis
twisted her hands and knees and back
into shapes only fit for sitting and watching television.

Have you ever seen fly-fishing? It is older than Jesus
and done the same way today as it was yesterday
and 100 and 1,000 and 5,000 years ago.

Old cane pole with a ball of thick twine cast out
on smooth water, floating like a tasty bug,
like ringing the dinner bell for trout or bass.

The fly’s the thing: colored string and bits of cloth
tied around a barbed hook to look like an insect.
The best ones, the real ones, are made by hand.

My grandmother made her own flies before arthritis
stole the deft talent of her fingers. I found a leather
case full of her hand-made flies not long ago.

They had eyes, and wings, and legs, and looked
for all the world like bugs until you got careless
and hooked yourself accidentally in the thumb.

Tying the fly is the hardest trick to master.
The string must be wound and wound round
the shaft of the hook, secure against bass bites.

It takes time, and patience, and care, and love.
In that leather satchel I found were flies that
surely took her hours and days and weeks to craft.

My grandmother was a fly-fisher before arthritis
and a bronchial infection and cracked ribs from
a fall and dehydration and kidney trouble and stroke

and the death of her husband of 61 years
last December put her into the hospital bed
I saw her in last night, clad in white like a cloud.

She called me Michael, which is not my name,
but that was fine with me. I held her wrinkled,
spotted hand in mine and marveled at her fingers.

Those fingers had tied my heart to hers, surely and deftly
over years, with patience and love, so cleanly and
completely that I never saw the hook coming into me.

My grandmother was a fly-fisher until she just got
too old to stand in the lake and cast the line. I know
she misses the thrill of a strike, the silence of wind

on water. She lies now in a hospital bed in Brighton,
unsure of where she is or why, fidgety and ill, lonely
for the company of her husband, whom she hooked first.

The bright colored twine she used to wrap us all in
her love has begun to loosen, breath by breath,
layer by layer, wrap by wrap by wrap. She hooked

us all and we hooked her, a family of fly-fishers
entwined in history. But like all human fish she will
soon slip the hook and disappear into dark water.

My grandmother was a fly-fisher, a catcher of souls
in her own quiet, stubborn, loving, bemused Irish way.
I do not know of one fish that slipped through her nets.

[BlueJazz]

1. I think I am a Poet.....Don't you know it?

.

[HEyHEY]

2. As a fly fisher

I'd say it's good. I know jack about poetry though.

[SOteric]

3. It has some lovely imagery

and a sweet tendency to circling references, which can be difficult to do without being heavy handed. So, you've managed to do it tenderly and I imagine your love of the language and facility with writing has helped you there.

It's a bit heavy on the exposition for traditional poetry. Poetry is often more about what one doesn't say. Certainly, you could make that a stylistic choice, and with your language skills you could easily develop into something which works for you.

[WilliamPitt]

4. Thanks

I wrote this about three years ago. Still dig it, if you dig me. :)

[SOteric]

6. I feel ya. Here's a little something I wrote a few years ago,

Matins

We leave the bed where your fingers
are a long, thin surprise, where your tongue
tells me slow stories. I watch you,
in the daylight, bring your hand
to my face, to my mouth. I tuck
pieces of myself behind

in the tangle of our bodies.
We make our way onto buses,
we pass the old women who sit
rocking and tapping their feet,
we blow our noses, clear our throats.
It's just life picking us up,
moving us from one place to
the next. We fumble for our keys,
tie our shoes, greet people we
care nothing for greeting. But
today, when you reach into your


pocket, you'll find the curve of my
neck, you'll brush away my hair
from your cheek. I'll slip inside
your shirt, lie flat against your chest.


Your hands will catch themselves
reaching. And the scent of me, the
scent you long for, will draw you home.

[WilliamPitt]

7. God. Damn.

Wonderful. Thank you for sharing that.

[proud patriot]

5. I've got an inspiring poem that I wrote.. ..I love your poem Will

POETIC EXTINCTION

desperate grasping , barely holding

unexplained convulsions of logic

Lashing out feirce screams of blame

thinking of survival Wailing Flailing

lying dealing death to surrvive

Screams , Pain , hate, agony , fear oh yes FEAR

Eating one's own, you know that kind of Fear

The fear of nightmares

Camouflage it , hide behind it , metamorph it

puffing plumage raising hackles loudly barking
changing colors

altering strategies smokescreens of stench

hungry predators, following the trail , searching

weakened hiding running Scared

hoping hoping predators circling

focussed dedicated hungry

backed into a corner

Cowering Sniveling Crying

The extinction of the republican party

by proud patriot

----------------------------
mine are always kind of weird in a dark
spooky way . :shrug:

[WilliamPitt]

8. "hungry predators"

Says it all. Thank you for putting that here. Wow.

[proud patriot]

9. Yup !

:hi:

[Interrobang]

10. Will -- I love it!

Some people would say it's too verbose for poetry, but I'm a TS Eliot fan, not to mention some of the Pre-Raphaelites, so verbose is ok with me. Stylistically, I'd say it's wonderful. If you're wondering what grounds I have to say that, I'm an ex-English major (although you can take the English major out of the classroom, they don't stop!), and a published poet myself (although not for a while).

If you care, you can go see my poem, "Facetime" in AlienGirl's poetry thread (I like it a lot, and think it's one of the best poems I've written in a long time), or:

The Courtly Lovers

Did Tristan and Isolde pass their days
With salon tongues, or did
Romeo and Juliet converse like old friends
From more than balconies?
No! They knew the language
Of love, of old
They understood the blazon
Of hair, of eye, of face and form,
The subtle speech of gesture and touch.
Thus the pavane went on.

You and I, partners,
Know the old tongue
We reach with hands outstretched
To each other in a magnificent slow bransle
We who know the old, silent, salient speech.
We catalogue each other
In the ancient blazons
As mute supporting charges
We can hold each other
In silence.

In these times,
We never touch,
But like calls to like
In the simple old dialect of love.
Where Percival and Blanchefleur went
Were they wreathed with words
As many as the crosses on his shield?
They had the gaze, the touch, the clasping pose
The courtly purity of the old ways
And that was enough
For all of their their brief moments;
Star-crossed, even as we --
Came together in a brief unspoken time,
A mise-en-abime, diminishing a summer,
Drowned out forever by words, words, words.

If I listen, I can hear the silence still.

On edit: Critique 'cause I thought I sounded too self-centred. Bad me!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

11. It is very essayish, but there have been very ssuccessful

poets who were. Dickinson, Whitman, et cetera.

It is certainly not of a modern style, but the subject is very interesting, and clearly heartfelt.

It communicates, and ain't that what it is supposed to do?

[onebigbadwulf]

12. my stab at prose

Inspired by the * administration....



The silent desperation had encompassed all that we could ever know.

For in the end what did their altercations do but spread wickedness like a festering plague?

Adamant defiance spurned an obdurate hatred for alien sovereignty.

Mutualistic respect was indeed purged by pre-emptive deterrence titrated with trepidation.

A perverse deafness had obscured screams of agony while the cannibals carried on with their feast of blood and oil.

In retrospect it seemed obvious- obvious as the empty shell in polished oak now earthed.

The silence was so loud, it made our ears bleed....