Where to now, Adelaide?

[JohnK]

piledriver waltz has sent his fourth line.

"This completes the first quatrain," he wrote. "I apologise for rushing it."

Let me assure you, PDW, that few members of this Board would regard forty syllables over three weeks as a benchmark for prolificacy, even if you were scratching out your sonnet on a prison floor with a nail held in your teeth.

Don't worry about going too fast, PDW. That's the least of your problems.

Defeat demeans no man. Only craven
Undeveloped minds turn to loud complaint
When the team goes down. Hurt needs a haven;
Neil Craig is no longer its patron saint.

​

That completes the a/b/a/b requirement. The difficult rhymes almost work but the metre is slightly skewish, in my opinion. And there's a dusty formality to it, a starchiness.

Maybe PDW can lighten up with the c/d/c/d section in the second quatrain. He still has ten lines to go – two more quatrains and then a rhyming couplet. There's plenty of scope left for him to make this sonnet sing..

i also noticed that PDW made two slight changes to Line Three.
And for the better, in my opinion. He's made a subtle shift of Point Of View. This team may not be his team. This hurt may not be his hurt. He might be prescribing his emotions now, rather than describing them.

 

[Slippery Pete]

This is outstanding. And you always leave me wanting more, John K.

Showmanship.

 

[Slippery Pete]

Our eyes met
Across the crowded hat store
I, a customer
And she, a coquettish haberdasher

Oh, I pursued and she withdrew
Then she pursued and I withdrew
And so we danced
And I burned for her



Much like the burning during urination I would experience soon afterwards.

 

[afc1991]

gonorrhea!

 

[L_Maximus]

"I'm interested in your mother," you said to her at one point. "Do you think she's jealous of your freedom and your beauty or do you think she's proud of you?"

...Posting $5000 bail when you were arrested for telling a cop that his di ck was smaller than his firing pin or what ever it was that you said.

Wow, this guy sounds like a fine specimen. JK, did you get your bail back?

 

[ltdamn]

Early contender for thread of the year.

Depends on how PDW's sonnet ends up I guess.

 

[footy4ever]

Our eyes met
Across the crowded hat store
I, a customer
And she, a coquettish haberdasher

Oh, I pursued and she withdrew
Then she pursued and I withdrew
And so we danced
And I burned for her



Much like the burning during urination I would experience soon afterwards.

OK!! Now we're getting somewhere.

 

[JohnK]

OK!! Now we're getting somewhere.

Oops. A delay. PDW has been removed from his computer.
”I’ve done some wrong,” he wrote.“but I’m no shooter.”
Damn! I thought we could wrap up this thread
in reasonable time. Not so. This will be, I dread,

a protracted affair. It’s fortunate, in this sense,
that our season has been so poor. None can complain
that talk of other things is wasted, mere recompense
for better days. Don’t grieve. The wins will come again.

In the meantime, someone who doesn’t want to be named has sent me a new poem. That person would like me to post it on this thread. It lacks rhyme and structure and is incomplete but still contains a fair bit of meaning… or at least, I think so.

Cold water in the game,
ice bath overnight

You don’t bring the critical moments
of your life into the bath. It brings you.
Before you know it, others already own
your dreams; others have already kicked
your goals; others have already worn
your caps. They push you out as a baby

but no baby can fulfil their mad dreams.
The club is the thing, but that’s as mad
and as twisted as any family. We serve
the top, not the base. There’s no secret rule
here. There’s no sudden gain in a contract,
no way to cement your role. There are

no roles now; no magic code, no visible plan.
We are free to achieve our goals only
because they tell us that we are. But they
jump at shadows, not us. We chase the ball,
not them. Chase the ball, they say.
Seduce it. Turn it into your friend.

We chase their balls, not ours.
That’s the problem. The ball bounces
the other way. It hates us, not them.
At the quarter breaks, the line coaches
tell us the stats we already know.
They think it’s maths; we know

they are only doing their job,
not ours. Their words are cheap,
easy, self-promoting. They have
clip-boards, whistles, dunces hats.
When it’s wrong, they need dunces,
not us. Already we have sore legs,

anger, and heat. We don’t need them
to tell us why we are losing; we don’t need
them to keep telling us why we are losing.
We need them to step back one step
and give us space… and some belief
that we are capable of working it out

for ourselves. If the line coaches
have any purpose at all, they could tell us
the things we don’t already know. Where we
are leaking, where the opponents are weak.
Should we attack on the west or eastern flank?
What things have worked so far?

When and where and why we have boxed
ourselves in with horrible play' where the structure
is wrong. We don’t want dippy men clutching sheets,
making it up as they go along, quarter by quarter.
We want hard information, not soft sermons,
useless prayers, timid analysis.

And if they can’t do that,
stand back and let us
work it out for ourselves.

​

This poem lacks a formal structure with rhymes (althoigh it has some occasional internal rhymes and a workable metre) but, far out, it has more than plenty of content. I wish vader had left this thread on the main site.

 

[JohnK]

JesousHousen! I have no idea how pileldriverwaltz has managed this … his last email said he was about to be locked up in isolation for two weeks pending the results of an investigation into something that doesn't concern us and, in any case, he didn't do it.

But they all say that, don't they?

Suddenly, at this late hour, the first two lines of his second verse have turned up (and not from normal sources). I hope you are as excited as I am!
Maybe the new warden on the night shift is a BigFooty addict and wants this thread to move along at a faster pace. Who knows?

Here it is:

Defeat demeans no man. Only craven
Undeveloped minds turn to loud complaint
When their team falls down. Hurt needs its haven;
Neil Craig is no longer its patron saint.

Calmer fans, those with guile, can seek refuge
elsewhere for a while. Some poetry helps…

​

This is PDW's first use of an internal rhyme (guile/while). That's neat. It distracts from the expected rhyming in the c/d/c/d structure and alters the singsong metre fractionally. Singsong can happen over four lines as much as two and be just as much blight in a sonnet as it always is in rhyming couplets.
Others may note, also, that this is the first time that PDW has finished a line with a verb. He's giving serious attention to the metre, right now. He's trying to force us away from singsong.

PDW is also setting up two more challenging rhymes – one masculine, one feminine. Sheer pluck.

Fair enough… PDW, but be aware that you are raising expectations. I hope your payload delivers more than an enormous final thump. Graham Johncock reached the earth with a big thump on Friday. Some of us thought he may have fractured the base of his spine and finished his career. We still hope that is not the case.

And, last, to Lillian. Yes, I would love a date with you, theroetically, and yes, I do enjoy discussions about the revelance of poetic structures to contemporary life but, sadly, No. I don't think a night with Pam Ayres at Her Majesty's Theatre in December at $79 a head would be a "great way four [sic] us to get to know each other and to explore common themes". Thanks, though, for the offer. I don't think I'm exactly the person you are looking for. I'm in a committed relationship, for one thing. And, quite apart from anything I think about Pam Ayres' poetry, which is a lot, and none of it is thrilling, I have a huge problem with the word Ayres.

 

[Allefgib]

Keep on punching john... We' re with you.... All of you....

 

[OldCrowBloke]

Now that PDW has a card,
what can we expect from the bard?

 

[JohnK]

More came overnight:

Defeat demeans no man. Only craven
Undeveloped minds turn to loud complaint
When their team falls down. Hurt needs its haven;
Neil Craig is no longer its patron saint.

Calmer fans, those with guile, can seek refuge
Elsewhere for a while. Some poetry helps
Ease pain; it drops the website's centrifuge.
Don't sack the coach; don't hate the timid whelps…

​

]

These are torturous rhymes, suddenly.
Maybe PDW doesn't like Mondays.

 

[JohnK]

piledriver objects to the use of these words: "torturous rhymes" but he admits that his metaphor may be askew.

He wrote:

A centrifuge is a piece of equipment, generally driven by an electric motor (some older models were spun by hand), that puts an object in rotation around a fixed axis, applying a force perpendicular to the axis. The centrifuge works using the sedimentation principle, where the centripetal acceleration causes more dense substances to separate out along the radial direction (the bottom of the tube). By the same token, lighter objects will tend to move to the top of the tube.

He offers this modification to the third line in the second quatrain:

Defeat demeans no man. Only craven
Undeveloped minds turn to loud complaint
When their team falls down. Hurt needs its haven;
Neil Craig is no longer its patron saint.

Calmer fans, those with guile, can seek refuge
Elsewhere for a while. Some poetry helps
Ease pain; it stills a rugged centrifuge.
Don't sack the coach; don't hate the timid whelps…
​

And then he wrote, just before lights-out:

All rhymes torture the language. That's the point!

The point of what, PDW?
Are you sure you are not just delaying the delivery of the more difficult third quatrain, which some poets call the premiership stanza?

 

[cmndstab]

Rhyming refuge with centrifuge is amazing.

 

[Allefgib]

you're such a huge stooge, wearing rouge, standing in the deluge from a scrooge's broken centrifuge...


not that hard mate

 

[Allefgib]

The point of what, PDW?
Are you sure you are not just delaying the delivery of the more difficult third quatrain, which some poets call the premiership stanza?

Metaphorically of course....?

 

[JohnK]

you're such a huge stooge, wearing rouge, standing in the deluge from a scrooge's broken centrifuge...


not that hard mate

Allefgib, you've been sleeping during class.

Refuge is a feminine word (two syllables) and requires a feminine rhyme.
Masculine rhmyes (one syllable) are easy – anyone can do them. In your example, only deluge holds up.

When cmndstab wrote that "rhyming refuge with centrifuge [was] amazing", he was really only saying that piledriver waltz's use of a three-syllable word to rhyme with a two-syllable word was an unexpected moment.

Incidentally, cmdnstab, apart from glory
what else do you have, that rhymes with Rory?
This talented footballer's surname – Sloane –
is easier to match. Yes, I can hear the groan
already in the bleaches. That's the thing about poetics;
sometimes it's only dribble from the pathetics.​

 

[JohnK]

PDW is out of solitary and has had most of his rights returned, including his access to email:

Defeat demeans no man. Only craven
Undeveloped minds turn to loud complaint
When their team falls down. Hurt needs its haven;
Neil Craig is no longer its patron saint.

Calmer fans, those with guile, can seek refuge
Elsewhere for a while. Some poetry helps
Ease pain; it stills a rugged centrifuge.
Don’t sack the coach; don’t hate the timid whelps.

They need more time to learn each others’ play.
Pull back from the armchair view. Show some grace.
The comp rewards all but there comes a day
When even this team must fill empty space…
​

One rhyming couplet and A Title to come and then the rest of us can get on with our lives.

 

[JohnK]

not that hard mate

During class, Allefgib, you'll have to pay more attention to the subtext if you want a pass at the end of this semester.

And no. Spraypainting

CONCRETEstiflesSPACE

​

on the library wall, and then photographing it and then submitting that, and that alone, as an essay entitled The Influence of Concrete Poetry on the Performance Art Movement in the Southern Hemisphere During the Early Part of This Century From an Ecological Perspective does not meet current requirements in spite of your lengthy bibliography which, it seems to me, has been lifted from someone else's essay. I say that because there is no text in your essay apart from this bibliography. If there was some text, and if you had used footnotes to indicate where you had made use of your reading, I may not have been forced to come to this unfortunate conclusion.

May I suggest, politely, that you have a chat with one of our excellent Occupational Therapists? One or two of them, I believe, barrack for The Crows. It's not too late to revisit the choices you have made so far concerning your academic career.

 

[cmndstab]

Incidentally, cmdnstab, apart from glory
what else do you have, that rhymes with Rory?
This talented footballer's surname – Sloane –
is easier to match. Yes, I can hear the groan
already in the bleaches. That's the thing about poetics;
sometimes it's only dribble from the pathetics.​

Your postulation thrust into my thoughts, regarding Rory,
just what trepidation must his dad have felt about the name?
What implications could he then envisage a priori
of the lamentations of the scribes who'd summarise his fame?
In choosing such a moniker with scarce few rhyming choices
was he limiting the likelihood of works based on his kin?
In casting to his son this name, would he prevent the voices
from the glimmering reprisals of the battles he would win?
If any contemplations such as these were in his thinking
then the anguish that he suffered only served to fill his head.
Rory's now a footy star who's years away from brinking
and already there's two poems on him posted in this thread.

 

[JohnK]

It's not that hard, mate.

I must admit that i've become acutely and chronically bored with piledriver's dripfeed of his damn sonnet. Maybe Allefgib is right, after all. Maybe it's not that hard.

Sitting around, tonight, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for an email from PDW, I had a go at a sonnet myself.
This isn't an easy thing, but it's certainly not the hardest way to fill an hour. As sure as shite, it doesn't take four weeks, PDW, no matter how severe your personal circumstances may have been. I mean, you had all that time in the dock, and then the 37 hours while the jury was out with precious little else to think about. You could have knocked it off there and then if you had applied your mind to it.


Once again, the formal rules of the sonnet:

A Shakespearean, or English, sonnet consists of 14 lines, each line containing ten syllables and written in iambic pentameter, in which a pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable is repeated five times. The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g; the last two lines are a rhyming couplet.
​

On the Feds
The wheels have fallen off. I’m sorry, Julia.
It doesn’t seem to matter what you say.
This is no longer about the minutia
of policy nor is it about winning the day.

The truth is worse than that. The Right
gave you a tainted chalice. Those bullies
needed Left women to exhaust their fight
and leave the ranks. Teamed with woollies

has not helped you woo the people’s heart.
You are alone now, spotlit, too forlorn.
But I like you, strong woman. I’m not part
of that bad thread that always pours scorn

on ambitious players in the great debate.
Sack your advisors. Start again. Be great!


This poem obeys some of the rules of the sonnet but not all the time.
Does that matter? It's 2011. We can surely let some rules slip.

Meanwhile, piledriver waltz, will you please complete your sonnet, please.
Quickly, please, if that's all the same to you. There are other things this thread wants to discuss.

We've noticed that you've been active on other threads lately. We'd like you to fulfill your commitments here, if that's possible, before you become totally occupied with more interesting discussions elsewhere.
All we need now is the last two lines of the rhyming couplet and the title. That's not a big ask, given that you have come so far and assumed so much of our time.

This thread has given you an enormous amount of space to show us amateur poets how to do it. Close your sonnet, now, please.

 

[JohnK]

Your postulation thrust into my thoughts, regarding Rory,
just what trepidation must his dad have felt about the name?
What implications could he then envisage a priori
of the lamentations of the scribes who'd summarise his fame?
In choosing such a moniker with scarce few rhyming choices
was he limiting the likelihood of works based on his kin?
In casting to his son this name, would he prevent the voices
from the glimmering reprisals of the battles he would win?
If any contemplations such as these were in his thinking
then the anguish that he suffered only served to fill his head.
Rory's now a footy star who's years away from brinking
and already there's two poems on him posted in this thread.

I am gobsmacked, amazed by your post.
Vader wanted this thread locked, denied
any air. You've come in; I'm no longer lost
in my silly rhymes, no longer a standup bride.
You've come up with the unexpected rhyme
of the year. A priori for Rory– that's stunning.
And you posted this with insufficient time
to plan your move, to be this cunning.

 

[cmndstab]

I fear, my friend, I must confess the truth of this thread's tale
and my role in placing it within the vacant Backyard forum.
I was the first mod on the scene to notice you regale
us with fanciful recallings of young waltz's poor decorum.

But mired in my duties at a conference abroad,
I scurried to the den wherein my fellow mods were housed.
"I don't know what the hell is going on there on that board,
but I'm leaving it to one of you to make sure it is doused."

Among the putrid rantings of a forum in despair
it isn't difficult to think that such a thread might have survived.
Hiding in a sea of angry posts and insults there
is quite a chance this thread would still be on the main forums alive.

So for the role I played in having this thread moved, I'm sorry,
and I hope in time you can regard my actions without rage,
but at least it didn't end up locked, and now you needn't worry
that the Neil Craig debates will push this thread right off the page.

 

[JohnK]

Wow, this guy sounds like a fine specimen. JK, did you get your bail back?

I did, as a matter of fact.

 

[JohnK]

I fear, my friend, I must confess the truth of this thread's tale
and my role in placing it within the vacant Backyard forum.
I was the first mod on the scene to notice you regale
us with fanciful recallings of young waltz's poor decorum.

But mired in my duties at a conference abroad,
I scurried to the den wherein my fellow mods were housed.
"I don't know what the hell is going on there on that board,
but I'm leaving it to one of you to make sure it is doused."

Among the putrid rantings of a forum in despair
it isn't difficult to think that such a thread might have survived.
Hiding in a sea of angry posts and insults there
is quite a chance this thread would still be on the main forums alive.

So for the role I played in having this thread moved, I'm sorry,
and I hope in time you can regard my actions without rage,
but at least it didn't end up locked, and now you needn't worry
that the Neil Craig debates will push this thread right off the page.

I posted long and hard on the main thread
for five or six years, as you would know.
In time, I tired because each post shred
its purpose, slipped into bile. It became slow

and steady hate. Clowns soon swooped
on anything that wasn't theirs. I paused
for a year or two. I avoided being looped
in petty cant, wrote elsewhere with cause.

Coming back to BigFooty, I was amazed
that this innocent thread was locked.
Something had changed. Was I crazed
or had Vader gone mad? To be blocked

because he thought my thread was bizarre
made me wonder whether Adelaide had died
or whether I was truly mad. I'm no star;
sometimes I just want to share my pride

of living here. Of following my team.
Of being alive. But I like the Backyard;
Only the keen visit here, the cream
of the angry would carve up each bard

at the other place. Here's it calm;
each post is almost a loving balm.