Ross Hamilton Hill

Oct 29, 2012 ⭐ View statistics (Premium feature)

Over And Out

You may think the world’s not watching.
Slave asleep to game plan’s pen.
‘More sinned against than sinning’
as you mouth a mute amen.

So much for step toe’s tapping.
The way the trees all bow to peep.
You receive an echoed answer.
Beg mysteries to sleep.

Don’t ring around tomorrow
or answer someone’s phone.
You may be the bride scold saviour;
In control but all alone.

Cross yourself, don’t ask more questions.
Leave the priest to his TV.
You can ride the horse of sorrow
down to the vale, just don’t tell me.

About This Poem

Style/Type: Structured: Western

Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back

Editing Stage: Not actively editing

About the Author

Region, Country: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, AUS

Favorite Poets: Dylan Thomas, T.S Eliot, Stevie Smith, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marvell, Herbert, Gerald Manley Hopkins, Rilke, Holderlin, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Valery, Gregory Corso, Alan Ginsberg, Phillip Larkin, Elizabeth Bishop, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Yeats, Ferlinghetti, Tony Hoagland, Ezra Pound, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Browning, Petra Whiteley, Blake, Thomas Hardy, Syvia Plath, Pablo Naruda, Lorca, Cole Porter, A.E Cummings, Walt whitman, Tennyson, Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Les Murray, Gig Ryan, Edward Dorn, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Seamus Heaney.

Comments

Ian.T

13 years ago

Ross

Sorry but I found this a lazy piece..
You have the ability to write much better than this:-
"More sinned against than sinning" Is this not a cliche ??
Then at the end you put TV:-
There are lovely words that could go in there..
You started out ACBD then wandered off some place..
I was hoping to read a poem here and was disappointed, Hope you don't mind but that is how I read it, Yours Ian.T

Ross Hamilton Hill

13 years ago

hi ian

'more sinned against than sinning' is a quote from Shakespeare can't remember which play but I think it's Macbeth, tv is not at the end, perhaps you didn't read the whole poem. anyway sorry you were disappointed.

Ian.T

13 years ago

Ross

Well Our Bard saying things, and me not having read his works, but gave his complete works away once to a school (This I regret) it was printed on near A3 in a series during 1860's to be bound, comments by Sir Charles Knight, and the regret was the 47 line drawings in there of scenes from his work..
I think you are better than just using others phrases, and as such it should have been mentioned.
I used stuff from dictionaries the other week for training and was told that it was plagiarism.
So where do we stand, in using other poets work or phrases for our own poems or for learning???
I was so cross at being told off I just took all my reference pieces off I had gone to the trouble of putting an A-Z of poetic forms on Neopoet, so that others could learn from the best source..
TV was at the end of a line and it just seemed out of person for your work..
Where does that leave us now ???? Yours Ian.T

judyanne

13 years ago

nice write

but the rhythm of this seems out to me in places ross

so it seems that the stanzas have different patterns of feet

I think you could clear it up a tad- I like it as it is, but with the first few reads, before I began putting the stresses where the poem asks for them, not where they actually are, I stumbled mostly at lines
'The way the trees all bow to peep'
'you may be the bride scold saviour'
'down to the vale, just don’t tell me'

just in a couple of places the pyrrhic foot doesn’t transition that well
hope this is of help - remember it is only imo

love judy xxx

Ross Hamilton Hill

13 years ago

hi ian

Wow, you're so technical, I've heard of pyrrhic victories but not pyrrhic feet, will have to scurry off to the library and get a manual. Thanks for you analysis.

Ian.T

13 years ago

Ross

I looked up those words but it is way above my learning curve LOL:-

Pyrrhic Foot

Syllable-stress metres

Some theorists also admit the spondaic foot, and pyrrhic foot, into their scansions; however, spondees and pyrrhic’s occur only as substitutions for other feet, never as determinants of a metrical pattern:

I am too old to ask what it means but help yourself, even the Britannic dictionary needs help on that subject.
Who is teaching you Aussies ????
Take care out there, Yours Ian.T

Ross Hamilton Hill

13 years ago

Judyanne

you got me wondering so i recorded this, it seemed ok to my ear, i think as with a play script or song the rhythm comes from the meaning of the words, you can emphasize words that carry the most meaning, rather than look for a pattern that's dictated by where the words are on the page. I usually say my poems out loud and have been recording some for Youtubes, but I don't lilke my voice so didn't persist. with that but stuck to words and images. I noted in your bio that you play the piano, do you still? its such a boon to understand music, i recently had a week with a small 2 and a bit octave electric piano, its was such fun, you can play with earphones on so nobody hears you and there are so many effects, really wonderful.

judyanne

13 years ago

sometimes ross

we get so carried away with fitting the word to the write, that we fit the words to the rhythm of the poem as we want to hear them, rather than how they sound in real speech

say these aloud, verse (line) at a time, as if you were reading them for prose, the way i have set them out here in sentences, not poetry,

Cross yourself, don’t ask more questions.
Leave the priest to his TV.
You can ride the horse of sorrow down to the vale,
just don’t tell me.

Cross yourself, ask no more questions.
Leave the priest his hued TV.
Ride the horse of Christ’s own sorrow into vale,
just don’t tell me.

can you hear what I mean?

love judy
xxx

Ross Hamilton Hill

13 years ago

judyanne

the second hi Ian was meant for you, sorry still getting used to the format here.

Ross Hamilton Hill

13 years ago

Ian hi again

'at the end' is not near the end
the rhyme scheme is ABCB throughout.
the shakepeare line is in single quotes

Candlewitch

13 years ago

Hello Ross,

I don't know much about rhyme schemes, especially complex rhyme schemes. I'm a simple gal. But I keep trying. I do know what I like and this poem falls under that catagory. I like the ominous feel...like a warning being issued. I really liked these lines:

So much for step toe’s tapping.
The way the trees all bow to peep.
You receive an echoed answer.
Beg mysteries to sleep.

(especially the first line)
great lines, these:

You can ride the horse of sorrow
down to the vale, just don’t tell me.

always, Cat (& eddy)

judyanne

13 years ago

everybody

if you are interested, check out my workshop

fixed verse – it's not a curse

in one of my exercises i explain those terms
- they are really quite simple

love judy
xxx

Ross Hamilton Hill

13 years ago

checked it out

very interesting, I shall refer back to it when I'm stuck, so heart warming to see verse tackled like this here, so much free verse sacrifices sonics for an avalanche of images. No wonder everyone listens to poetry via songs like those of Leonard Cohen et al.

BettyBuff

13 years ago

'Ride the horse of sorrow, down to the vale'

Hello Ross,

One or two lovely lines (as above) and I think you captured the spirit of disturbed sleep. However, I agree with Judyanne's analysis on the rhythm- I'm not a lover of the Western structure, for the very fact you should be quite precise about the matrix of the stanza- otherwise, go for the freedom of Freeform.

You can use bits & pieces from other's work. but ascribe them..and 'The Bard' needs a nod doesn't he?

I don't agree that 'free verse sacrifices sonics'...trying to balance figurative language with onomatopoeia is every bit as skilled as sticking to the Western's rigid rhyming structure. The two forms (if well written) are equally as skilled. There still seems to be an antagonism between the the two camps here at Neopoet.

No change then after my sojourn for a couple of years! (sigh)

Ross Hamilton Hill

13 years ago

hi again betty

I should have said 'some free verse', not 'so much...', I'm a great fan of free verse and mostly write that way. I have known judyanne from before the neopoet crash and noticed how knowledgeable she had become in analysing verse so posted the above poem, i may not agree with her but i'm certainly learning more about strict meter. eg i didn't know about 'feet' and had been taught to count syllabuls which i always distrusted without knowing why. I still think listening to how a poem sounds out loud via a recording is the best way to hear if it works. i believe we all have our own conversational patterns, these vary not only with dialect and areas but also individually so that a poet can read a poem to make it sound right whereas another reader may get it all wrong. The same goes for songs, just changing the key a song is sung in changes the mood, emphasing and drawing out words, hesitation, injecting emotion, pauses etc can change a line amazingly. I have heard a leonard Cohen song sung by a french singer in english but with completely different emphasis, it still worked but was almost a different song.

Seren

12 years 12 months ago

Dear Ross

I just want to say I really enjoyed your poem I see you've had some great help with this one .... I throughly enjoyed the read as always

kudos

love JC xxx