The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

Thanks for all the comments. A minor piece methinks. Colm, there are no bees as such and I did not intend any deaths so if that is the impression something is not quite right in the poem.
Dave

Hi Tracy I am taken more by the sounds within the piece. The first stanza is dominated by f sounds and the second by all the s endings in the plurals. The plurals reinforce nicely the theme of origin and succession in the piece. Nevertheless, I felt the f sounds work better and the S sounds ome clos...

Oh I see now, you did not refer to me as a wool hatter but a sympathizer thereof. Just to get the facts right.
Dave
 

Hi Dylan Colm is right of course that the POV is valid. However, your reply confirms my initial doubts about the poem (the politics are a different matter) since it doubles down on the current way of dealing with comment. What my sartorial taste and my personal politics have to do with my comments o...

Thanks Matty, thoughtful comments.
I remember flicking through the wasp factory but also can't really remember it except it being some kind of horror story.
Dave
 

  Buzzing fills the jars with end of season urgency, busy bodies bleeding into the jam I donated.   Three other wasps crowd around a lamp, circle its sunflower glow until they halt like dazed teenagers when the music stops.   The seasons work their way through my friends, rough the surface of the bo...

Well it is competently written. Appears sufficiently ironic about others but lacks a certain irony about its own position, unless it is so well disguised I missed it and also appears to think humour can be gained from calling someone a plonker. The poem is a bit of a whine in fact: it reminded of my...

Hey Indar
A devastating experience. I am very sorry that you had to be confronted by such a sad tragedy. As Colm indicates the poem benefits from its simplicity and stark truth. A very powerful piece born of grief. My thoughts are with you.

Dave
 

If ever a poem fitted he quotation underneath it, this is it. The poem is beautifully paced and yet it pulls the reader along with a subliminal urgency. Good art whether films, poems or books provide stories that feel inevitable but manage to illuminate the events uniquely. This poem does that. Ther...

Sign language Flesh crumbles beneath flaked bark along the promenade. Gulls stumble  the scarred water line in search of crabs. Voices mumble prayers of the stranded on this drought shore. Numbered wheels spun to a halt here long before the final pennies dropped and the croupiers dealt loaded cards ...