Ramona

Ramona Revised

To know would be too easy for us.

Crying is often spoken too soon;
below the skin of anguish
lies the flesh of infinite
release.

The streets of this town
cut you and bring you into
a dark world of bleeding.

I won’t be here when I’m gone, darling.

Softness persuades me
to move
like grapes on a vine;
if only I could drink
of that wine once again.

Escape simply isn’t
something that’s there
when your face and your hair
imprint on my mind your
motions.

Your language isn’t pretty
but the way you speak is sublime,
so why are you buried
under all that steaming mire?

You can drag me
from arbor to harbor
and still not know
who it is
you’re kissing.

i didn't really enjoy the addition of the Ramona lyrics. first off, it was partly not even your own work - half of it was song quotes. secondly, they intervals in which you added them were often far too frequent. lastly, "babe" can be used a million times in a song, but in poetry it just sounds stupid. there's a reason why poetry is read, not sung - and singing is, of course, sung. i'm not saying the lyrics aren't relavant or impressive - they just detain from the poem and what it could be.

Yes, I decided I hate the lyrics. (well, love the lyrics but not in the poem.) Insomnia does some crazy things to the mind. I edited them out.

Love that first one-liner. So true.

Crying isn't spoken. Ha. Listen to me. Me. That line threw me off, and I had to read it a lot before I could attempt to conjure anything. I don't like it. I like the meaning, I don't like how it's said. Same with the rest of it. I love the...feeling of "lies the flesh of infinite/release." that's splendid. But the "skin of anguish" and "flesh of infinite release"...I don't see how those images mean anything.

Third stanza, perfect.

Fourth stanza, I could swear you ripped that off from Dylan. You did, didn't you? If you didn't, you ripped it off from someone. I'm on to you. It fits, but you can't rip of an entire stanza. I'll bring you to court. I'll hold the court. And I know you. I will bother you until it is removed. You may, MAY think I would joke about such a thing, but you also know me. I would do it, too, FOREVER. And you know how obnoxious I can be.

Fifth stanza is nice. "Softness persuades me" is the best part. And I like the last two lines of it. Just the "to move/like grapes on a vine;" bit is meaningless.

Sixth stanza is great, too, but the rhythm sucks. Try moving where the lines end around. It sounds too much like the stuff I do that you bother me about and ask me if I just ended it randomly.

Seventh stanza, not perfect, absolutely perfect. Could be a damn-fine stand-alone, four-line poem. In a fair universe, it would be too.

Same with eighth. "You can drag me/from arbor to harbor"...from arbor to harbor...arbor to harbor...yumm.

I really really liked it, otherwise I wouldn't have wasted the time.

p.s. I am trying to make this better than things I write. Don't for a moment think that I at all like 99% of what I've read that I've shown you. Don't even think that I really liked it when I gushed to you about it and forced you to read it to you. I was proud of it, I didn't like it. There's a huge difference. I like this poem as it was.

Fourth stanza, I could swear you ripped that off from Dylan. You did, didn't you? If you didn't, you ripped it off from someone. I'm on to you. It fits, but you can't rip of an entire stanza. I'll bring you to court. I'll hold the court. And I know you. I will bother you until it is removed. You may, MAY think I would joke about such a thing, but you also know me. I would do it, too, FOREVER. And you know how obnoxious I can be.

Sorry, but it's all mine, baby.

Man, you sure do talk a lot.

Brian