I can't console the crying bird

[imaginary friend]

Hi Cate (and Vio and Jack)

I liked your poem very much Cate, though the image it evoked for me was very different from Jack's (but Jack is much more mysterious than I...)

I had a sense of a celebration from the poem. I loved the image of many people climbing wide stairs willy nilly and spilling into each other's space, friends reconnecting and turning to smile and perhaps embrace someone who has touched one's hand. The sound of church bells does seem to 'spin' and cascade when it's a joyous occasion.

[imaginary friend]

That was my immediate impression. On re-reading, perhaps 'the friends' are not many, but only two – who climb the stairs together to the room at the top where they are alone except for the sound of the neighbourhood church bells...

(just watched your 'slugs coupling' video posted on Mat's thread, it was overwhelming that these unloved creatures could perform such a complicated and beautiful ballet. So when I came back here and read your poem again, it seemed much more intimate and quiet than it had previously.)

[Cate]

Hi I.F., Ms. V. and Jack I enjoyed seeing the different ways this could be read.

Imaginary I'm so glad you enjoyed the slug video too!!! Oddly slugs aren't everybody's thing.

When I see bells that sing across the ceiling and spin it makes me think that the word spin means maybe it wasn't really bells but rather something that became a bell when a bell was needed.

something that became a bell when needed - yes, I like how you've phrased this.

I love this girl with the rope in the Dali paintings Jack. I like how girl is the bell and the bell is the girl in the first two paintings. She is both standing above and skipping below, I tried to spot her again in the third one but I couldn't, which somehow made the image seem even more disturbing - where is she? why is she not standing above? It's like a piece of her is missing and it adds to the feeling of something gone wrong.
The shadow she makes is interesting - to me it looks like a candle.

Violet thank you, I'm glad you liked it, I'm even gladder you played around with it, I always like when people do that. I liked the adding of the s to dimension(s).

[Manna]

I don't know if I ever said so, but I enjoyed the slugs too. At first I thought I was going to get bored, but then I couldn't stop watching. Do you know if that movie is in real time?

[Violet]

Hi Cate... I thought I'd give this another go...

Here's a 'For Jack' poem/vignette that's not quite strong enough to stand on it's own, so I'll leave it for you in V's thread because she strikes me as a good person to lean up against when your not feeling quite so strong.

They climb the stairs.
Church bells sing across
the ceiling and spin.
The friends collide and move
into each others spaces,
create a new dimension, theirs
where they will tumble
into the touch of a hand.

... hi Cate... hi Jack... Cate, thanks for that, I was beginning to feel quite invisible around here these days...

I love "where they will tumble into the touch of a hand"... and I really like the idea of this little poem too... maybe it's "the sound" of church bells that sing across the ceiling and spin... I'd also try "the friends collide, creating new dimensions"... maybe you don't even need "they climb the stairs"... maybe just "it's there the friends collide" ("there" referring to the ceiling where the church bells sing)... so...

The sound of church bells
sing across the ceiling and spin.
It's there the friends collide,
creating new dimensions; theirs
where they will tumble
into the touch of a hand.

... Looking at it now, I cut out too much of the original poem the first time around with this, but the timing I thought needed something... so... maybe this does it...

They climb the stairs.
Church bells sing across
the ceiling and spin.
It's here the friends collide, entering
each others spaces,
creating new dimensions; theirs
where they will tumble
into the touch of a hand.


... oh, and slugs... should I be adding this footage to the more romantic thread I'm presently doing?... (who knew?)...

v i o l e t

[lazariuk]

I tried to spot her again in the third one but I couldn't, which somehow made the image seem even more disturbing - where is she?

Everything in the picture leads to her. She is at the far end of the corridor skipping singular with the light shining on her. She looks to be wearing white or light. When I saw the painting she seemed to me to be so obvious but when you wrote that you couldn't find her it caused me to have second thoughts. I wondered how I could be so sure as I noticed that it was very hard to see the image with clarity. The problem was solved for me when i found another painting by Dali that had the same subject matter. She is much clearer in that painting.
Can you see in the image below?

Palladio's Thalia Corridor.jpg (121.86 KiB) Viewed 1924 times

She is much easier to see in other Dali paintings like the following

1937_10_Average Pagan Landscape, 1937.jpg (102.86 KiB) Viewed 1923 times

and

1939_05_Shirley Temple, 1939.jpg (125.24 KiB) Viewed 1924 times

Jack

[Cate]

Hi Jack, I did spot the woman/girl in the third one but I was looking for her echo. The previous pics. had shown her twice so I expected to see her again in the third as some type of bell. To me it seemed that the girl and the bell were one of the same, so no bell in the third seemed disturbing, it was like the girl was missing a hand or something.
Of course if I bothered to read the titles of the first two, I wouldn't have looked so hard in the third.

Slugs - I don't know if it's in real time but I do know that they spend hours of snuggling up to each other before they begin their serious love making (and no I don't normally call animal mating love making, but damn it's so beautiful)
I tried to see if other slugs do the same thing - apparently common garden once do - so you can watch in your garden.
Just to go on, cause I think I'm into slugs right now (maybe this belongs in the politics section) there were some very cute banana slugs that like rough sex.

b.slugs.jpg (3.99 KiB) Viewed 1837 times

Their foreplay also lasts for hours and apparently they like to playfully bite each other before they mate. When they are finished... eat each others penises. That's one way to make sure your mate doesn't stray. hey Violet, if you could find a movie of these guys it would go great with the movie real that's currently being played in the love nest. <wink>

[imaginary friend]

When they are finished... eat each others penises.

Do they grow back???? Otherwise they only mate once in a lifetime??? (Sorry Cate, you're now the resident slug expert on the Forum )

[Cate]

Do they grow back????
nope

Otherwise they only mate once in a lifetime???
Yes only once, then they go their separate ways and return to a life of eating leaves.

Cate - resident slug person

[Violet]

They climb the stairs.
Church bells sing across
the ceiling and spin.
The friends collide and move
into each others spaces,
create a new dimension, theirs
where they will tumble
into the touch of a hand.

... okay, all of you are probably right... the poem doesn't need much in the way of changes, but somehow I got hung up on the rhythm aspect... I've gone back to Cate's original poem, but let me try a few minor tweaks...

They climb the stairs.
Church bells sing across
the ceiling and spin.
The friends collide[,] and move
into each other's spaces,
creating a new dimension, theirs
where they will tumble into
the touch of a hand.

... I wonder at "and move into each other's spaces" since collide would suggest they've already moved into each other's spaces... but replacing that with "having moved" into each other's spaces, might lose something overall... anyway, just thinking out loud...

... oh, this post-coital slug situation is... I don't know... maybe life would be simpler without sex... it's something to consider, I guess...

[lazariuk]

... I wonder at "and move into each other's spaces" since collide would suggest they've already moved into each other's spaces... but replacing that with "having moved" into each other's spaces, might lose something overall...

how about 'in' instead of 'into'?
kinda like those slugs.

Jack

[lazariuk]

how about 'in' instead of 'into'?
kinda like those slugs.

Jack

oh why not?

The friends collide
and like slugs, move
in each others spaces,

[Violet]

ha! yes, I like the "like slugs"... perchance you could write us an entire slug poem for this thread...

[imaginary friend]

Now that Cate has revealed their bizarrely creative sex life, I'll never think of slugs the way I used to.

Still need to get 'em away from the garden come Spring; but this year, with new respect, I'll tote them to a park down by the water and set them free to pursue their kinky nocturnal delights...

[lizzytysh]

Is there some actual footage of the slugs somewhere? I've been hunting around on Violet's erotic thread, but not finding anything there, either.


~ Lizzy