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Refusal

“Maybe you’ll come out when she’s ready
For the calving?” It was a request. And so
In the morning’s stilly darkness I walked
Into a rain drizzle by a gravel path, dung-strewn,

Dung-stinking, to the cow house; eight heifers
Tied with rope and chain to knot-smoothened
Posts in the dim light of a single yellowed
Light-bulb. There one she stood with her

Broad back and a birth-bulge stomach. We
Waited an anticipating hour, leaning
At the door, patient as a January night-star.
But no stir of the calf inside the belly was there,

Just stood she with her head rattling the chains
At the post, her black marble eye curious
At our now pacing restlessness; and the dog, hind-leg
Rested, vigiled by the dung-stained door in the

Feathery drizzle of rain. Then you decided
To force the birth, and plunged you to the elbow
Into her back, up the narrow passage
Of her and two slimey-creamed hoofs

You dragged out, and we waited for her
To heave a birth push, but stood she there
In calm insolence, her black square head
Askance, her marble black eye insouciantly

Squinting at us. We looped the hair-ragged rope
Both ends to a hoof, cleaned now, jerked
Tight behind the hocks, and pulled and held.
A sudden wind whooshed from the back of her,

The water burst of her membrane-thread hung
Down to the soiled hay. We pulled, the heifer
Held, rock-planted to the floor and we heaved
And held again ‘til a mouth snout snuck out

And a black frightened eye gaped out screaming:
NO! And we pulled low and held to the strain
Until the full wet head slid out so fast her
Belly sucked in with the strain screeching: NO!

Hips and back plopped onto the bed of hay, soiled
Now in womb-slime. With deft speed of hand
You cradled his head onto your knee and forcept
Your thumb and forefinger into his slit mouth,

Clearing the gung-filled gap of his nostrils
And stood him up on to steady legs to taste
The teat of beastings; but slipped he and slithered he
On four hoofs and he crying: NO! and NO! again,

Until the mother heifer licked into the long
Wet back of him and ruffled the black coat
With her long grey sand-paper tongue did he
Stand unsteady still, his mouth now

Groping for the teat and the gulp-suck of yellow
Milk. Crouching by them I gazed out to the darkness,
Discovered another drizzle drifting across the beam of
Light over the cow house door, and wondered how

Our dog, hind-leg rested, conjectured the scene:
A wet-matted calf sucking in the slow dawn.

Great poem Jimmy. It has a lovely Dylan Thomas-esque flow and phrasing about it.
I can see it all !
Matj

Thank you Mat...
Alays appreciate the comments.
Jimmy

I read this a while ago, and it has managed to stay with me. You've written this so visually, and so honestly. And I read it so openly that day that it kind of went into my visual memory. It's rare that it happens for me from only written words, and rarer still that it comes in a single reading. It may please you to know that the first example I thought of today where someone else did this to me was Robert Frost.

If you're interested in my little tangent, it was a poem which I can't remember well enough to reconstruct, but the image was of two people walking toward each other, and I think they were walking along a fence in a field. They stop and talk for a second, then you move on toward where I've been, and I move on toward where you've been. I think it was Frost.

jimmy, I smell and see and hear and feel the birthing in my room where I sit. Surely, this has strands of Seamus Heaney? It isn't Heaney, yet it brought back memories of his The Barn.

This touches the same moment: COW IN CALF

It seems she has swallowed a barrel.
From forelegs to haunches
her belly is slung like a hammock.

Slapping her out of the byre is like slapping
a great bag of seed. My hand
tingled as if strapped, but I had to
hit her again and again and
heard the blows plump like a depth-charge
far in her gut.

The udder grows. Windbags
of bagpipes are crammed there
to drone in her lowing.
Her cud and her milk, her heats and her calves
keep coming and going.

I double checked the word 'heats' and that is how it is printed.

Jimmy~I have always enjoyed your poems (you're very talented) in the past, but this one is trying way too hard with too many modifiers/adjectives. And your first stanza is not clearly written for the reader; instead it seems to be a personal aside that really doesn't enhance the poem as it is written.~~Laurie

Refusal

“Maybe you’ll come out when she’s ready
For the calving?” It was a request. And so
In the morning’s stilly darkness I walked
Into a rain drizzle by a gravel path, dung-strewn,

Dung-stinking, to the cow house; eight heifers
Tied with rope and chain to knot-smoothened
Posts in the dim light of a single yellowed
Light-bulb. There one she stood with her

Above: you don't need "light" and 'Light'-bulb. It is redundant. And "...dim light of a single(,)yellowed..." is really 'piling it on.' Also, since you are adhering to a good sentence structure, maybe consider Not capping the beginning of each line, it can be confusing.
Broad back and a birth-bulge stomach. We
Waited an anticipating hour, leaning
At the door, patient as a January night-star.
But no stir of the calf inside the belly was there,

"anticipating" is overkill.
"patient...as a star" is abstract. Modifying it to be a "January night-star" does not undo that fact.

Just stood she with her head rattling the chains
At the post, her black marble eye curious
At our now pacing restlessness; and the dog, hind-leg
Rested, vigiled by the dung-stained door in the

Sorry, but "black marble eye" is a cliche. "pacing" is a restless act-it gets overdone with "restlessness." choose one or the other. "vigiled" is too telling (as opposed to showing). Some of this reads alot like an essay.
Feathery drizzle of rain. Then you decided
To force the birth, and plunged you to the elbow
Into her back, up the narrow passage
Of her and two slimey-creamed hoofs

I keep wanting to see this piece in present-tense. It would eliminate the prosey-"then you" type phrases.

You dragged out, and we waited for her
To heave a birth push, but stood she there
In calm insolence, her black square head
Askance, her marble black eye insouciantly

The repeating of "you" doesn't work. "calm insolence" more overkill (as is "black-square-head-askance-her-marble-eye-insouciatly-squinting...")
Squinting at us. We looped the hair-ragged rope
Both ends to a hoof, cleaned now, jerked
Tight behind the hocks, and pulled and held.
A sudden wind whooshed from the back of her,

Finally, the above stops trying too hard and flows as a coherent, non-overly-modified vision.

The water burst of her membrane-thread hung
Down to the soiled hay. We pulled, the heifer
Held, rock-planted to the floor and we heaved
And held again ‘til a mouth snout snuck out

Again, action without overkilled writing.

And a black frightened eye gaped out screaming:
NO! And we pulled low and held to the strain
Until the full wet head slid out so fast her
Belly sucked in with the strain screeching: NO!

The "screaming" and "screeching" are hanging out there with no speaker.

Hips and back plopped onto the bed of hay, soiled
Now in womb-slime. With deft speed of hand
You cradled his head onto your knee and forcept
Your thumb and forefinger into his slit mouth,

"Now" is an incorrect statement. It was a past and present state of being. "You" and "your" are both in one sentence and shouldn't be. The writing needs to be tightened up.Clearing the gung-filled gap of his nostrils
And stood him up on to steady legs to taste
The teat of beastings; but slipped he and slithered he
On four hoofs and he crying: NO! and NO! again,

"steady" becomes 'unsteady' so why have that in there at all?

Until the mother heifer licked into the long
Wet back of him and ruffled the black coat
With her long grey sand-paper tongue did he
Stand unsteady still, his mouth now

too many modifiers: "Long" wet. "Long" (again) sand-paper..." "unsteady" (after 'steady' in stanza above'). And another "NOW."

Groping for the teat and the gulp-suck of yellow
Milk. Crouching by them I gazed out to the darkness,
Discovered another drizzle drifting across the beam of
Light over the cow house door, and wondered how

The ending seems to want to be profound, but it just isn't. Very anti-climatic and untied.
Your writing is usually so much better than this.

Our dog, hind-leg rested, conjectured the scene:
A wet-matted calf sucking in the slow dawn.

Thank you all for your comments.
Is the Frost poem you refer to "Mending Wall"?
Thanks for letting me know about that Heaney poem. I wasn't aware of it. I love that description of the cows belly like a hammock.

I appreciate the trouble you went to Laurie to analyse my poem! But... I think you are locked into a way of reading a poem as if it were a prose piece, or at least that a poem should be able to be paraphrased if it has to have any meaning. While I see your point I think you may have missed my point.
This poem is a little different to my other poems, as you rightly say, but the effect I was trying to make is that what is happening here in this cowshed cannot be expressed in prose. I was attempting to recreate the mystery, tension, excitement and rhythms of the creative process.
The poem is "about" the creative process as much as about the birth of a calf. It is "about" the difficulty and risk of giving birth to a new idea, to a new feeling, a new perspective, or more importantly to a new self. It is so much more comfortable to stay in the womb and refuse to be born, or to give birth to a new idea, a change of approach, a new Self. To my mind this calf is a real hero. He refuses to leave the comfort of his mother's womb, but in the end takes that risk, with a little help and support, and gets borned...!! Despite himself....

Jimmy

Jimmy~

Your explanation does not negate the fact that there is some pretty bad writing residing in your poem.

A poem has to respect language and your piece is over-done, no matter what your reasoning.
So what if there is a 'metaphor' or two in there? How does that excuse the over use of modifiers? Answer is: It doesn't.

You were the only person I would have left a 'critique' for on the board and now that is solved. Sorry to have bothered you and the poem.

ciao,
L

We disagree...
but maybe my next effort will please you...
Always hope...
Jimmy

Laurie,
Just because a person disagrees with your critique doesn't mean your criticism isn't welcome. You can't always expect people to say, "Oh, gee, you're right. I didn't notice that. Thanks." Though that sometimes happens. Even if you think it's bad, all you can do is say so. The poem still belongs to the author. Your own evident talent with poetry doesn't make your vision right and his vision wrong. You don't have to take your ball and go home. I can tell that you put a bit of time and thought into what you say. And even if it's negative, it still required an investment, and that attention, I'm sure, is appreciated.

Jimmy,
Here's that RF poem with images that managed to stay for me.

Frost wrote: MEETING AND PASSING

As I went down the hill along the wall
There was a gate I leaned at for the view
And had just turned from when I first saw you
As you came up the hill. We met. But all
We did that day was mingle great and small
Footprints in the summer dust as if we drew
The figure of our being less than two
But more than one as yet. Your parasol
Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.
And all the time we talked you seemed to see
Something down there to smile at in the dust.
(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)
Afterward I went past what you had passed
Before we met and you what I had passed.

"Something down there to smile at in the dust."
Love that line Manna.

I think Frost is great at picking out those seemingly banal, and uninteresting and boring moments and saying to us: Look here, strangers, if we miss these connections we lose ourselves.

Laurie: I really do appreciate your comments and I recognise the effort you put into your critique.
I think Lizzie is right in her most recent posting, in pointing out that basically a poem is something that is personal yet does not have life unless it is read by someone. The fact that the reader may wish that the piece be better written or should have been written in a particular manner is all part of the response to the reading of the text. It's all grist in the mill. I think we react or respond to the other person(s) in our lives the way we respond to poetry... with feeling, emotion, prejudice, appreciation, understanding, misunderstanding etc etc... That's life...
I don't think Lizzie should be too worried about the so called savageness of our responses to the poetry in this forum. It may be a little over the top at times, but, hey, that's life... I don't always write good poetry, neither are my responses, or understandings of the poetry in this forum up to much either!!!!!
The main thing is that there is a forum at all, and that people out there read... That's the blessing...

Jimmy

A new author on my reading list having read a part and printing now.
I love cows totally.

Wow Jimmy, your piece is so long. It must have taken a huge effort to get it that way. The concentration required to produce that must have been prodigious.
Were you working on it over a few months or did you just wake up and find it there?
And Alan, you're obviously teaching creative writing or something akin to it, such a detailed and committed analysis of Jimmy's piece. That requires commitment and an eye for detail that really is something very special.
Thank you both so much.

I say Penfold, who let dangermouse in here? All he had to say was " impressed!!" Ruddy celebrity cartoon star-persons! I must concur with his offering though. He is correct in both respects and one or two others as well.

Hi Byron,
Thank you for writing.
You must have been thrilled when Leonard recorded "We'll go no more a roving" by your namesake?
I'm actually a woman - just finished first year at university and love LC's work.
Lizzy and DBCohen and Young Dr Freud have been really cool in pointing me in the right direction.
I'm glad you thought I made a relevant point.
Thank you