I never used to be passionate.
Then I decided to be a writer
and thought I should take it up.
Being passionate I mean.
It hasn’t been
easy.
Finding the right word
to make my heart
(and hers)
turn somersaults
took lots of training,
trolling through the vaults
of a correspondence course,
straining my eyes at the midnight oil,
toiling through tomes on temper technique -
but it paid off.
Now, I’m a fully paid up
member
Of The Passionate People and Poets Party -
the PPPP (or P- four) for short.
They gave me a license
to behave badly,
write poetry -
things of that sort.
I have manuals on
how to recognize and deal with
affairs of the heart.
Members are to be forgiven spontaneous outbursts,
minor acts of violence and marital infidelity.
We may curse.
We are excused moments of
breathlessness, restlessness,
even obscenity it seems -
our credentials differentiating
us
from less passionate beings.
I love the party bulletins
about matters of the soul
like ardour, hope and sincerity.
The complete loss of self-control
is one of my favourite disciplines
and I keep a list of every exercise
associated with it
taped behind my locker door
at the emotion-gymn,
where I work out regularly.
What’s more -
I thoroughly recommend
membership of P-Four
to anybody,
young or old,
but especially the latter.
It can become a little costly
if solicitors get involved,
but no matter -
I still think
the game is worth the candle -
Oh! -
Sorry!
I mean I know
the game is definitely worth the fucking candle.
So -
Applications (and subscriptions)
Please.
In a list
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 15 of 15
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where do i sign up
hey john this sings in the windover style. from the beginning i' liked the twist, "being passionate that is," as oppossed to writing.
and really writers should be passionate. so thanks for reiterating. or rather, fucking thanks a lot.
dave, proud 4pppp member since 1996. Rewarded 6
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Give me back my MONEY!!!!!
Hey Ochs - you signed ME up years ago - said you were Prisident-for-life as I recall. You mean you were a FRAUD?!?! Yoooouu BASTARD!!!!
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Hehe, quality concept this one. Definitely a read lout loud kinda poem. I adore the "Being passionate I mean." *grins*
Ah well, let's see...
- not sure about the offset "easy." It doesn't seem to do anything, other than break up a line where an interruption doesn't seem significant, and give undue focus to a word I'm not sure is particularly significant (might be wrong of course).
- As you're using punctuation, should there not be something at the end of "turn somersaults" as the next line doesn't run on from it.
- hehe, "toiling through tomes on temper" should win a prize. Although part of me wants it to be on "technique" just for the irony considering the heavy T-T-Ting, hehe. Not as god thematically though.
- Similar comment as above to the "member" and "behave badly". I'm not sure the latter half of the second stanza is working partiuclarly. It just doesn't sit right when i read it, ever so slightly... i dunno, unworked.
- Stanza three rocks mah socks, hehe. I'd actually considering finishing the previous stanza at "They gave me a license" as I'm not sure the bit between there and here says anything that S3 doesn;t. That's just me though.
- "We are excused moments of
breathlessness, restlessness,"
Bravo, just bravo
- I love the incongruousness of an ordered list of exercises on how to lose control. hehe, brilliant
- The grammar nazi in me is getting a bit annoyed by the stray hyphnes. Just cause you're using them like semi-colons, and that's not what hyphens are for.
- "It can get a little costly
if solicitors get involved,"
A simple thing, but I'd use a different word to "get" in the second line, as the repetition just doesn't sound nice.
- Nice end too, hehe. I almost want you to sign it at the end "A.N. Real-Customer, CA" or something, lol.
. Rewarded 8
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Thanks for the input and the insight
Hi Iorek, and thanks for the in-depth critique. I went over this again and included some of your suggestions (I especially liked the idea of 'temper-technique', - thanks!)Don't know if the grammar is all fixed but I did my best. Those isolated hyphens are a pet of mine, designed to indicate a pause more definite than a hyphen but not a full stop - like a falter maybe. I don't know how to do it better but I'm open to suggestions/information. Glad you were chuckling as that was the main thrust of this one. Your input, once again, is much appreciated. >W<
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very clever
Then I decided to be a writer
and thought I should take it up. lol! as though one could trully decide......love the verse!. Rewarded 4
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Much appreciated, my little lady! Humour was the main aim here so glad you picked up on the irony. Thanks for reading and commenting. >W<
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John, I read this one quite a while ago, and I'm very glad I finally got a chance to sit down and review it. I found this one to be enormously clever-- I like how says, indirectly, by its very tone, that to be a member of the Party, one must also BE enormously clever-- a golden-tongued devil. Why must we poets be wicked? It does seem to be a prerequisite.
Knowing you, though, this poem for me is quintessentially John, in some way that I cannot define for someone who does not know you. There's the humor, and the witticisms, but there's also, underneath it all, a current that is deadly serious:
"Members are forgiven spontaneous outbursts,
minor acts of violence and marital infidelity.
We may curse.
We are excused moments of
breathlessness, restlessness,
even obscenity it seems. . ."
It's so honest-- it looks at the reality of cultivating passion (which is almost the same as cultivating poetic skill). To be a poet we must feel things more deeply than others-- and not just feel them, EXPRESS them.
XOXO,
Lauren
. Rewarded 8
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Smile...
I thought I'd already reviewed this but can't find the comment... ANYWAY growing old disgracefully is an art we all should practice, with or without poetry but it does help to have a license, I'm self-certified and it's a bummer, you just don't get the work.
Best RA. Rewarded 4
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Belated thanks
Hi self-certified one. Recent attention to this one drew my attention to the fact you had commented and I hadn't replied. My apologies for that and my thanks for your reading. Glad you got the humour of it. >W<
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I got the distinct impression
of a bulge
in your cheek.
Cheeky stuff and like that.
I deliberately
did not read earlier comments,
not wising to contaminate
my own.
However while
nothing earth-shaking
can be done or said
from this end
maybe we can shake
a few more comments loose
if I drop enough innuendos
twitching,
like particples dangling
at ends of lines.
Time prevents more, but
computers are marvels
of verisimilitude.
. Rewarded 8
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Retrospective memberships are available
My Dee-rest Crepit One! Recent attention to this old chestnut of mine has drawn my attention to the fact that I have been neglecting my correspondence. How nice to hear from you again and how are you? My grammar has never been gooder but apparently it's still not up to much. Unable to correct my failings I decided to have them licensed instead. It works very well for me and for a reasonable subsciption I'm sure I can blag you a membership in my esteemed club/party. Please note that licenses can be issued retrospectively if no current excesses are being indulged in. Your P4 area recruitment officer. >W< -
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Greetings O Wing-ed One! I had already forgotten what I'd sent, so covered it is with moss! Tis great to hear from you too. Even be it so a membership would be nice, but reasonable? Seems to me I've heard that one before. Guess I'm SOL then.
.
But haven'y you heard?
Never ever ask an old bird
how she flies! Liable to tell ya,
and a liability it is, too.
So saying, after some twenty years of being more and more dis-ambulatory, I took a chance on experimental knee replacement surgeries, and in the process got written up in a medical journal, and now walk like other people, no wheels, no canes, absolutely no pain. I can't remember where I dropped some twenty years, but it's amazing to set off walking and not worry about getting back! Excesses galore--I guess I'm not eligible to be recruited--hard to catch these days. Not quite ready for marathons yet however. Wait or it.
Slight hyperbole but not much. Keep well, you!
Terry
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You said gymN like it rhymes with hymn that is so cool! Just shows that the money spent on the correspondence distance learning course as advertised on the back of the TLS was well worth it. I am going to propose you for the Comrade Poot Lop-ear position just as soon as it becomes free, sometime next week I think when the current incumbent is due for another session with the Emogoths. Or could be be the Egomoths.
I have to go. There is a knock at the door. I think it is the Enforcer.
This really made me smile Windhover. Most excellent.
. Rewarded 8
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Knock knock!
It's P4. Your picture portays a rather passionate person and we can find no record of a subscription to the party funds. Please refrain from all acts of demonstrativeness or emotional excess until you have rectified the matter. The manage ment would like to thank you for your correspondence and continuing support. xx P4
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But, but, but, my goodness, Windhover!
Don't you yet understand that if everyone lit just one little candle, what a bright world it would be? A pox on you and on your fecking, sly poem that says one thing but means another. We shall report you to P4's solicitor for your heretical bite against the hands that fed you passion and poetry.
We, staunch P4 members, are well aware of your penchant for irony, master that you are with sleekly skillful lines that mean just their opposite. "but it paid off" - indeed an insult against all good poets' hatred of filthy lucre. "a license to behave badly" - another dig at our longsuffering indulgence of your sordid life. And that "list" of "disciplines" regarding a "complete loss of self-control" - well! a nicely turned insult is still an insult, especially when you surreptitously keep that list at a place for highly self-controlled excercising of your flaccid muscles.
And finally, did you think we'd miss your slam against poetry's fragile candle? - a "FUCKING candle", indeed! implying that writing poetry sometimes can be a royal pain in the arse of life. How dare you besmirch us passionate ones so?
Consequently, the P4 Sales Committee has revoked your "license" not only to be passionate without paying the price of those lumpen-proletarian unpassionate ones, we've decided to remove you from our membership and from hawking our subscriptions forthwith and forever. And if that scribbler Lad should approve this poem with praise (he's such an enabler), we'll hit him upside his treacherous head and expunge his membership too!
Cordially,
PPPP
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Aye-oop! morning's minion, I love this droll one!! Must go now, P4 is at the door...
Lad. Rewarded 8
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