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"Ritual Memory" / Will Dockery
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W.Dockery
Jun 14, 2023, 7:10:14 PM6/14/23
to
Ritual Memory
If these words of love
fell into bad timing
put them away
like a flower in a book.
This place has become a valley
all is lost here in the rain
but I am older and wiser
and understand the tricks of life
how sadness and soft light
are a natural form of life
as is cold rain
in the later part of November.
I feel so old yet not wise
foolhardy as the day I was born.
Put me away.
I make a better memory.
I will not rip it out of here.
It is an honest poem
so I will not edit it.
Why would I even want to do that?
~Will Dockery, 1997
from Selected Poems, 1976-2019, 2019
---
From the PPB poetry blog:
https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2021/11/ritual-memory-will-dockery.html
If these words of love
fell into bad timing
put them away
like a flower in a book.
This place has become a valley
all is lost here in the rain
but I am older and wiser
and understand the tricks of life
how sadness and soft light
are a natural form of life
as is cold rain
in the later part of November.
I feel so old yet not wise
foolhardy as the day I was born.
Put me away.
I make a better memory.
I will not rip it out of here.
It is an honest poem
so I will not edit it.
Why would I even want to do that?
~Will Dockery, 1997
from Selected Poems, 1976-2019, 2019
---
From the PPB poetry blog:
https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2021/11/ritual-memory-will-dockery.html
Michael Pendragon
Jun 15, 2023, 1:21:45 PM6/15/23
to
On Wednesday, June 14, 2023 at 7:10:14 PM UTC-4, W.Dockery wrote:
> Ritual Memory
Excellent title. "Ritual" evokes primitive cultures and magickal ceremonies; in conjunction with "Memory," I am anticipating embarking upon a mysterious, literary journey into the collective (unconscious) memories of our ancestors. As I've noted in the past, you have a talent for composing catchy titles.
Unfortunately, your poems never even begin to live up to the promise (and promises) of their titles. This one proves to be no exception.
> If these words of love
> fell into bad timing
Experienced readers (that is, experienced readers who are still naive enough to pick up a Will Dockery poem) would stop reading at this point.
Note that writing in the present tense when referring to your poem. Tense (past, present, future) is an important component of a well-constructed sentence -- and something which you seem blissfully unaware of.
When you "If these words of love" you are referring to the words of your poem -- which you are in the process of writing. Therefore, you are speaking in the present tense. The operative word is "these" as it specifies that the words in question are those of your poem.
Had you written "If my words of love," you could be speaking in past, present, or future tense, since "my" doesn't specify that the words are those of your poem.
Whether composing a poem, a song lyric, or a newspaper article, it is imperative that one's writing remain consistent regarding tense. For instance, you would write "When Jack was a boy he would play in his backyard." You would not write "When Jack was a boy he will play in his backard." "Was" and "would" are consistent, as both designate the past. "Was" and "will" are inconsistent, as the former indicates the past, while the latter indicates the future.
In your poem, "If these words of love" is written in the present tense ("these" denoting that the words are here, now, and can be pointed to on a sheet of paper or computer monitor); while "fell" is written in the past tense.
Your next line switches back to the present:
> put them away
> like a flower in a book.
"Put them away" is a directive, and is being given in the present tense.
Since your opening stanza contains two example of present tense, vs one example of past tense, I will assume that it is intended to be set in the present tense and emend it accordingly:
If these words of love
fall into bad timing
Things don't fall into bad timing. They can't. Bad timing isn't a thing that words can fall into like a hole. Timing is "the ability to select the precise moment for doing something for optimum effect" (per Merriam-Webster). Your words of love were either spoken at the optimal time or they were not. Nor do words linger in the air -- soaring and falling at the whim of Fate. Words exist in the moment that they are spoken. They are either spoken at the right time, or they are not.
Here is the proper way to express the same idea:
If these words of love
are poorly timed,
In the opening lines, you are referring "words" (plural). Since there are several words of love, the person being addressed should be instructed to "put them away like flowers in a book." A simile is a form of comparison, and for a comparison to work, the things being compared must remain similar to one another.
For instance, if you tell a woman that her eyes are like to crystal pools that you want to dive into, she might be flattered. Whereas if you tell her that her eyes are like three crystal pools, she would be aghast.
Here then, is the corrected stanza:
If these words of love
are poorly timed,
put them away
like flowers in a book.
This is now almost a decent stanza. The idea of pressing ill-timed words like flowers in a book until a more opportune time comes a long is an excellent one. Your expression of this idea is exceptionally dull.
I would begin by adopting a more formalized approach to the language (more befitting to a love poem, although probably too formal for your beer-guzzling, redneck milieu:
Should these words of love
prove poorly timed,
put them away
like flowers in a book.
It's looking better. The last two lines are still exceedingly dull. "Put" is generically bland. There are many other more interesting things that the reader could be instructed to do. For instance, he could "lock them away," "hide them away," "seal them away," etc. The same holds true for the all-too-generic "flowers." You might substitute a synonym for flowers (like "blossoms," "petals," etc.), or cite a specific type of flowers ("rosebuds," "daisies," "wildflowers," etc.).
For instance, you might change your stanza to:
Should these words of love
prove poorly timed,
hide them away
like blossoms in a book.
We've now got a much more metrical presentation with the second and fourth lines each featuring a pair of alliterative words.
Were the remaining stanzas to sustain the metaphor of words of love as pressed flowers, expanding on it, and drawing to logical conclusion, you would have written a worthwhile poem.
Unfortunately, your following stanzas are all over the place. It's as though you were incapable of sustaining a thought (much less a metaphor) from one stanza to another.
A poem should be cohesive -- creating and sustaining a mood, and expressing and expanding on a single concept.
A skillful poet would use the second, third, and fourth stanzas to argue his case (to his lover), then tie it all neatly together with a bow in the concluding one. See "To His Coy Mistress" by Marvell for an example of how a love poem is structured.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44688/to-his-coy-mistress
> This place has become a valley
And what is wrong with a valley?
Merriam-Webster defines a valley as "an elongate depression of the earth's surface usually between ranges of hills or mountains." People usually prefer to live in valleys than in the mountains or on hills. Are you familiar with the song "Another Pleasant Valley Sunday?" People give valleys names like "Pleasant Valley" because people think valleys are pleasant places to be.
One is tempted to suspect that you saw the word "depression" in the above-quoted definition, and decided that a valley was a depressing place. That, however, is not the case. "Depression" refers to "a place or part that is lower than the surrounding area."
If you wish to say that the speaker's world has become a bleak and barren landscape, then say it. Or use a synonym for it like "desert," or "wasteland."
Also, "This place" is vague and meaningless. What place is "this place"?
The use of vague, generic words and phrases is another earmark of bad writing. If you introduce the setting of your poem -- then name it. Tell us what it is. Example: "My world has become a barren valley...". "My world" tells us what "this place" is.
> all is lost here in the rain
Why does the rain cause the speaker to lose everything in the valley? Does the valley flood whenever it rains, destroying all of the speaker's crops?
I suspect that you mean to say that the broken-hearted speaker is now living in a bleak emotional landscape, wherein he feels like any chance of joy in his life has been lost, and he feels as if he is perpetually trapped within a gray, rainy day.
But that is *not* what you actually wrote.
"All here is lost in the rain" means that the rain is the cause of the loss. It could, taken less literally, mean that everything is obscured by the rain (IOW: that the speaker is unable to see beyond the rain), but this could be more clearly expressed ("all here is hidden by the rain").
> but I am older and wiser
> and understand the tricks of life
The speaker is older and wiser than he was at the time that he'd written the love poem (which he is only two-fifths of the way through writing at this point)?
Unfortunately, we have reached an irresolvable impasse in the progression of your poem. Either the speaker remains young and relatively naive, or he cannot be addressing his lover directly in the poem.
At this point, I would split the poem in two: the first being a plea to a lover wherein the speaker argues that she should hold onto his love for a more opportune time; and the second being the lament of "a sadder and a wiser man" for his lost love.
However, as a reviewer, I don't have that option, so I'm going to remove the "Ancient Mariner" altogether. I would also change the opening line of the poem to “Should my words of love,” as “my” takes the focus off of the words of the present poem (without losing that implication, since the poem is referred to again in the closing line), thereby allowing for the somewhat tangential digression wherein the speaker whines about his emotionally desolate state.
My world has become a barren place
where all is lost behind an endless rain,
and through my sorrow I can understand
the tricks of life --
“Through my sorrow” connotes that his brokenhearted state has given him understanding. He claims that he is not wise in the fourth stanza, so his being wise in the second would contradictory -- and would therefore constitute a narrative inconsistency.
It is inconsistencies such as this that render the bulk of your poems unintelligible. Is the speaker wise or not? Is the poem set in the past or the present? Why are many words to be pressed like a single flower?
An author cannot simply allow thoughts to spew out of his head like random brain farts. He needs to *make sure* that every line, every depicted action, every word *corresponds to* every other line, action, and word in the poem.
> how sadness and soft light
Soft light? Soft light is usually indicative of a romantic setting: “Soft lights, and eyes that promise sweet nights…”
I believe you mean “dim” light. Dim light and soft light are not the same thing. Once again, I can only tell you that the thesaurus is not your friend. If you don’t understand how to use it – don’t use it at all.
“Pale light,” “pallid light,” “sunless skies,” etc., make for much better substitutes than “soft.”
> are a natural form of life
No, they are not “a natural form of life.”
They are “natural parts of life.”
First, you have listed two things: “sadness” and “soft light.” Two things “are forms” -- one thing is “a form.” This is another example of the plural/singular inconsistency that appeared in the opening stanza. When someone makes this sort of mistake once, it can easily be written off as a careless error. When one repeats this mistake, it shows that he doesn’t understand what plural/singular consistency is.
One usually becomes fluent in his/her native tongue by the age of 5 or 6, and masters the finer points of it by the age of 12. From that age on, it becomes more a point of increasing one’s vocabulary than of learning the basic elements of composition and sentence structure.
Yes, it’s embarrassing for a senior citizen to admit that he lacks the compositional ability of a 5th grader; but the only way for one to learn how to write correctly, is to own up to his educational shortcomings and to enroll in one of the many online programs in basic, intermediate, and advanced English.
This is the best advice that anyone will ever give you, as your poetry is both unreadable and embarrassingly bad in its current state. I’m performing the tasks of a Developmental Editor on this; explaining why various elements are incorrect, and suggesting corrections and improvements. A Developmental Editor makes between $50 and $150 per hour. The cost to you of having a poem of this size corrected in this manner would be about $250.
When you add up the number of poems that you’ve written, and figure that your longer poems will each cost several times that much, paying for the services of a Developmental Editor will cost you more money than you’ve ever seen.
OTOH online English courses are free.
Neither are the “forms” of life (think “lifeform”). A lifeform is a living thing: a person, an animal, an insect, a tree, a microbe. A raindrop is an inanimate object.
In fact, since you’ve already used “life” two lines above it, one of those lives has got to be snuffed out.
> as is cold rain
> in the later part of November.
You’ve already used rain as a metaphor in the second stanza. Late November, in temperate parts of the world, is more likely to bring snow than cold rain.
“In the later part of November” is mostly filler -- stretching out “late November” for no perceptible reason other than to pad out the line.
So, let’s clean this stanza up to read as follows:
How sadness and dim light
form a natural part of life,
as chilling wind and snow
in late November.
> I feel so old yet not wise
This doesn’t flow very well. I would change it to “I feel so old, and yet not very wise,” or “I feel so old, yet not so very wise.” I prefer the latter, but it might be a little too formal for your tastes.
> foolhardy as the day I was born.
Babies are not foolhardy. Merriam-Webster defines “foolhardy” as “foolishly adventurous and bold : RASH.”
“Foolhardy” does not mean “foolish.” Once again, the Thesaurus is *not* your friend.
Nor is it really fair to call a baby “foolish.” Most babies make intelligent decisions based on their limited knowledge of the world.
One therefore refers to babies as “innocent,” “helpless,” or “naïve.”
“Foolish” is also the opposite of “wise,” and as the speaker has already confessed to lacking wisdom, its use here would be repetitive.
> Put me away.
> I make a better memory.
Ugh! These two lines are simply terrible.
Is the speaker asking to be squashed between the pages of a giant book? Does he wish to be stuffed, mounted and hung upon her wall? Is he suggesting that she preserve him cryogenically?
I’m reminded of the much better line, “Lock me away,” from the Lennon-McCartney song, “A World Without Love”… which, now that I’ve drawn the comparison, your poem seems to be a pallid imitation of.
And what does he think he makes a better memory than? The words of his poem? Or the whining he’s been doing in this and the preceding three stanzas?
> I will not rip it out of here.
Where is “here”? His poetry notebook? His heart? A roll of toilet paper?
> It is an honest poem
> so I will not edit it.
> Why would I even want to do that?
To make it more intelligible, of course.
> ~Will Dockery, 1997
> from Selected Poems, 1976-2019, 2019
>
> ---
> From the PPB poetry blog:
> https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2021/11/ritual-memory-will-dockery.html
Here’s my suggestion for a revised version of your poem. The title still doesn’t make any sense in relation to the poem, but the text is still a marked improvement over the original.
RITUAL MEMORY
Should my words of love
prove poorly timed,
hide them away
like blossoms in a book.
My world has since become a barren place
where all is lost behind an endless rain,
and through my sorrow I can understand
the tricks of life --
How sadness and dim light
form a natural part of life,
as late November's
chilling wind and snow.
I feel so old, yet not so very wise,
as helpless as a babe left in the wood.
Better to take my heart
and seal it with these words
within the pages of your memory.
> Ritual Memory
Excellent title. "Ritual" evokes primitive cultures and magickal ceremonies; in conjunction with "Memory," I am anticipating embarking upon a mysterious, literary journey into the collective (unconscious) memories of our ancestors. As I've noted in the past, you have a talent for composing catchy titles.
Unfortunately, your poems never even begin to live up to the promise (and promises) of their titles. This one proves to be no exception.
> If these words of love
> fell into bad timing
Note that writing in the present tense when referring to your poem. Tense (past, present, future) is an important component of a well-constructed sentence -- and something which you seem blissfully unaware of.
When you "If these words of love" you are referring to the words of your poem -- which you are in the process of writing. Therefore, you are speaking in the present tense. The operative word is "these" as it specifies that the words in question are those of your poem.
Had you written "If my words of love," you could be speaking in past, present, or future tense, since "my" doesn't specify that the words are those of your poem.
Whether composing a poem, a song lyric, or a newspaper article, it is imperative that one's writing remain consistent regarding tense. For instance, you would write "When Jack was a boy he would play in his backyard." You would not write "When Jack was a boy he will play in his backard." "Was" and "would" are consistent, as both designate the past. "Was" and "will" are inconsistent, as the former indicates the past, while the latter indicates the future.
In your poem, "If these words of love" is written in the present tense ("these" denoting that the words are here, now, and can be pointed to on a sheet of paper or computer monitor); while "fell" is written in the past tense.
Your next line switches back to the present:
> put them away
> like a flower in a book.
Since your opening stanza contains two example of present tense, vs one example of past tense, I will assume that it is intended to be set in the present tense and emend it accordingly:
If these words of love
put them away
like a flower in a book.
By changing "fell" to "fall," the stanza has become consistent in terms of tense; however it still has a problem...
like a flower in a book.
Things don't fall into bad timing. They can't. Bad timing isn't a thing that words can fall into like a hole. Timing is "the ability to select the precise moment for doing something for optimum effect" (per Merriam-Webster). Your words of love were either spoken at the optimal time or they were not. Nor do words linger in the air -- soaring and falling at the whim of Fate. Words exist in the moment that they are spoken. They are either spoken at the right time, or they are not.
Here is the proper way to express the same idea:
If these words of love
put them away
like a flower in a book.
Now the stanza is beginning to make sense. However, there is yet another problem with it that needs to be corrected. This last problem is also one of consistency -- the consistency of singular and plural word forms within a simile.
like a flower in a book.
In the opening lines, you are referring "words" (plural). Since there are several words of love, the person being addressed should be instructed to "put them away like flowers in a book." A simile is a form of comparison, and for a comparison to work, the things being compared must remain similar to one another.
For instance, if you tell a woman that her eyes are like to crystal pools that you want to dive into, she might be flattered. Whereas if you tell her that her eyes are like three crystal pools, she would be aghast.
Here then, is the corrected stanza:
If these words of love
put them away
like flowers in a book.
This is now almost a decent stanza. The idea of pressing ill-timed words like flowers in a book until a more opportune time comes a long is an excellent one. Your expression of this idea is exceptionally dull.
I would begin by adopting a more formalized approach to the language (more befitting to a love poem, although probably too formal for your beer-guzzling, redneck milieu:
Should these words of love
prove poorly timed,
put them away
like flowers in a book.
It's looking better. The last two lines are still exceedingly dull. "Put" is generically bland. There are many other more interesting things that the reader could be instructed to do. For instance, he could "lock them away," "hide them away," "seal them away," etc. The same holds true for the all-too-generic "flowers." You might substitute a synonym for flowers (like "blossoms," "petals," etc.), or cite a specific type of flowers ("rosebuds," "daisies," "wildflowers," etc.).
For instance, you might change your stanza to:
Should these words of love
prove poorly timed,
hide them away
like blossoms in a book.
We've now got a much more metrical presentation with the second and fourth lines each featuring a pair of alliterative words.
Were the remaining stanzas to sustain the metaphor of words of love as pressed flowers, expanding on it, and drawing to logical conclusion, you would have written a worthwhile poem.
Unfortunately, your following stanzas are all over the place. It's as though you were incapable of sustaining a thought (much less a metaphor) from one stanza to another.
A poem should be cohesive -- creating and sustaining a mood, and expressing and expanding on a single concept.
A skillful poet would use the second, third, and fourth stanzas to argue his case (to his lover), then tie it all neatly together with a bow in the concluding one. See "To His Coy Mistress" by Marvell for an example of how a love poem is structured.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44688/to-his-coy-mistress
> This place has become a valley
Merriam-Webster defines a valley as "an elongate depression of the earth's surface usually between ranges of hills or mountains." People usually prefer to live in valleys than in the mountains or on hills. Are you familiar with the song "Another Pleasant Valley Sunday?" People give valleys names like "Pleasant Valley" because people think valleys are pleasant places to be.
One is tempted to suspect that you saw the word "depression" in the above-quoted definition, and decided that a valley was a depressing place. That, however, is not the case. "Depression" refers to "a place or part that is lower than the surrounding area."
If you wish to say that the speaker's world has become a bleak and barren landscape, then say it. Or use a synonym for it like "desert," or "wasteland."
Also, "This place" is vague and meaningless. What place is "this place"?
The use of vague, generic words and phrases is another earmark of bad writing. If you introduce the setting of your poem -- then name it. Tell us what it is. Example: "My world has become a barren valley...". "My world" tells us what "this place" is.
> all is lost here in the rain
I suspect that you mean to say that the broken-hearted speaker is now living in a bleak emotional landscape, wherein he feels like any chance of joy in his life has been lost, and he feels as if he is perpetually trapped within a gray, rainy day.
But that is *not* what you actually wrote.
"All here is lost in the rain" means that the rain is the cause of the loss. It could, taken less literally, mean that everything is obscured by the rain (IOW: that the speaker is unable to see beyond the rain), but this could be more clearly expressed ("all here is hidden by the rain").
> but I am older and wiser
> and understand the tricks of life
Unfortunately, we have reached an irresolvable impasse in the progression of your poem. Either the speaker remains young and relatively naive, or he cannot be addressing his lover directly in the poem.
At this point, I would split the poem in two: the first being a plea to a lover wherein the speaker argues that she should hold onto his love for a more opportune time; and the second being the lament of "a sadder and a wiser man" for his lost love.
However, as a reviewer, I don't have that option, so I'm going to remove the "Ancient Mariner" altogether. I would also change the opening line of the poem to “Should my words of love,” as “my” takes the focus off of the words of the present poem (without losing that implication, since the poem is referred to again in the closing line), thereby allowing for the somewhat tangential digression wherein the speaker whines about his emotionally desolate state.
My world has become a barren place
where all is lost behind an endless rain,
and through my sorrow I can understand
the tricks of life --
“Through my sorrow” connotes that his brokenhearted state has given him understanding. He claims that he is not wise in the fourth stanza, so his being wise in the second would contradictory -- and would therefore constitute a narrative inconsistency.
It is inconsistencies such as this that render the bulk of your poems unintelligible. Is the speaker wise or not? Is the poem set in the past or the present? Why are many words to be pressed like a single flower?
An author cannot simply allow thoughts to spew out of his head like random brain farts. He needs to *make sure* that every line, every depicted action, every word *corresponds to* every other line, action, and word in the poem.
> how sadness and soft light
I believe you mean “dim” light. Dim light and soft light are not the same thing. Once again, I can only tell you that the thesaurus is not your friend. If you don’t understand how to use it – don’t use it at all.
“Pale light,” “pallid light,” “sunless skies,” etc., make for much better substitutes than “soft.”
> are a natural form of life
They are “natural parts of life.”
First, you have listed two things: “sadness” and “soft light.” Two things “are forms” -- one thing is “a form.” This is another example of the plural/singular inconsistency that appeared in the opening stanza. When someone makes this sort of mistake once, it can easily be written off as a careless error. When one repeats this mistake, it shows that he doesn’t understand what plural/singular consistency is.
One usually becomes fluent in his/her native tongue by the age of 5 or 6, and masters the finer points of it by the age of 12. From that age on, it becomes more a point of increasing one’s vocabulary than of learning the basic elements of composition and sentence structure.
Yes, it’s embarrassing for a senior citizen to admit that he lacks the compositional ability of a 5th grader; but the only way for one to learn how to write correctly, is to own up to his educational shortcomings and to enroll in one of the many online programs in basic, intermediate, and advanced English.
This is the best advice that anyone will ever give you, as your poetry is both unreadable and embarrassingly bad in its current state. I’m performing the tasks of a Developmental Editor on this; explaining why various elements are incorrect, and suggesting corrections and improvements. A Developmental Editor makes between $50 and $150 per hour. The cost to you of having a poem of this size corrected in this manner would be about $250.
When you add up the number of poems that you’ve written, and figure that your longer poems will each cost several times that much, paying for the services of a Developmental Editor will cost you more money than you’ve ever seen.
OTOH online English courses are free.
Neither are the “forms” of life (think “lifeform”). A lifeform is a living thing: a person, an animal, an insect, a tree, a microbe. A raindrop is an inanimate object.
In fact, since you’ve already used “life” two lines above it, one of those lives has got to be snuffed out.
> as is cold rain
> in the later part of November.
“In the later part of November” is mostly filler -- stretching out “late November” for no perceptible reason other than to pad out the line.
So, let’s clean this stanza up to read as follows:
How sadness and dim light
form a natural part of life,
as chilling wind and snow
in late November.
> I feel so old yet not wise
> foolhardy as the day I was born.
“Foolhardy” does not mean “foolish.” Once again, the Thesaurus is *not* your friend.
Nor is it really fair to call a baby “foolish.” Most babies make intelligent decisions based on their limited knowledge of the world.
One therefore refers to babies as “innocent,” “helpless,” or “naïve.”
“Foolish” is also the opposite of “wise,” and as the speaker has already confessed to lacking wisdom, its use here would be repetitive.
> Put me away.
> I make a better memory.
Is the speaker asking to be squashed between the pages of a giant book? Does he wish to be stuffed, mounted and hung upon her wall? Is he suggesting that she preserve him cryogenically?
I’m reminded of the much better line, “Lock me away,” from the Lennon-McCartney song, “A World Without Love”… which, now that I’ve drawn the comparison, your poem seems to be a pallid imitation of.
And what does he think he makes a better memory than? The words of his poem? Or the whining he’s been doing in this and the preceding three stanzas?
> I will not rip it out of here.
> It is an honest poem
> so I will not edit it.
> Why would I even want to do that?
> ~Will Dockery, 1997
> from Selected Poems, 1976-2019, 2019
>
> ---
> From the PPB poetry blog:
> https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2021/11/ritual-memory-will-dockery.html
RITUAL MEMORY
Should my words of love
prove poorly timed,
hide them away
like blossoms in a book.
My world has since become a barren place
where all is lost behind an endless rain,
and through my sorrow I can understand
the tricks of life --
How sadness and dim light
form a natural part of life,
as late November's
chilling wind and snow.
I feel so old, yet not so very wise,
as helpless as a babe left in the wood.
Better to take my heart
and seal it with these words
within the pages of your memory.
W.Dockery
Jun 15, 2023, 2:50:17 PM6/15/23
to
Michael Pendragon wrote:
> "All here is lost in the rain" means that the rain is the cause of the loss.. It could, taken less literally, mean that everything is obscured by the rain (IOW: that the speaker is unable to see beyond the rain), but this could be more clearly expressed ("all here is hidden by the rain").
Well, thanks for the lengthy critique, Pendragon, which I'm reading through now, although on the road and unable to respond fully.
I'll take individual points today, and then have a more detailed look when I return to the office later today.
Thanks again and HTH and HAND.
I'll take individual points today, and then have a more detailed look when I return to the office later today.
Thanks again and HTH and HAND.
W-Dockery
Jun 15, 2023, 3:30:09 PM6/15/23
to
Michael Pendragon wrote:
> Excellent title
Thanks, Pendragon.
Thanks, Pendragon.
W-Dockery
Jun 15, 2023, 10:40:11 PM6/15/23
to
Will Dockery
Jun 16, 2023, 1:51:33 PM6/16/23
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General-Zod
Jun 27, 2023, 4:10:14 PM6/27/23
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Message has been deleted
Will Dockery
Jun 28, 2023, 12:17:44 PM6/28/23
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🙂
General-Zod
Jul 3, 2023, 4:50:11 PM7/3/23
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Message has been deleted
W.Dockery
Jul 17, 2023, 8:50:12 PM7/17/23
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🙂
W.Dockery
Jul 23, 2023, 10:45:20 PM7/23/23
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🙂
W.Dockery
Jul 27, 2023, 9:45:20 PM7/27/23
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Will Dockery
Jul 27, 2023, 9:56:11 PM7/27/23
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>>> Agreed, in fact the entire poem is a winner...
>
>> Good afternoon my friend, thanks again for the positive feedback.
>
> You are quite welcome Doc and have a merry July 4th I do hope...!
Likewise to you and Mike, old friend.
>
>> Good afternoon my friend, thanks again for the positive feedback.
>
> You are quite welcome Doc and have a merry July 4th I do hope...!
🙂
Faraway Star
Jul 28, 2023, 4:50:14 PM7/28/23
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W.Dockery
Jul 31, 2023, 8:40:19 PM7/31/23
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W.Dockery
Aug 3, 2023, 10:35:24 PM8/3/23
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Faraway Star
Aug 4, 2023, 2:59:50 PM8/4/23
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W.Dockery
Aug 6, 2023, 6:00:22 PM8/6/23
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W.Dockery
Aug 10, 2023, 11:55:25 PM8/10/23
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> the entire poem is a winner...
Hello there Zod, thanks again.
General-Zod
Aug 22, 2023, 10:19:38 AM8/22/23
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W.Dockery
Sep 3, 2023, 6:20:21 PM9/3/23
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