Homework W/E 16-11-15: Seagulls Pinched My Fish and Chips!

[David Campbell]

Shelley and I were discussing overly "cryptic" poetry in another thread, so I thought it'd be interesting to take a couple of these prompts as an incentive to dive head-first into that particular thorny briar patch. In-depth analysis welcome!

Seagulls Pinched My Fish and Chips!

Have you walked the hills of madness,
trailing stardust through your dreams
to the rocky coast of sadness
lit by moonlight’s fitful beams?

Yesterday must surely follow
on the path that you now tread,
down the gully, through the hollow,
where today must lay its head.

Have you climbed the hills of sorrow
to the cliffs of Languor Bay,
where the mermaids weep tomorrow,
spilling tears of sweet dismay?

If you hear them, crying, crying
siren songs of sombre hue,
do not fear the embers’ dying
lest, perchance, they sing for you.

While the frozen stars are nameless,
cast-off gods will hide the dawn,
pleading that they, too, are blameless…
innocent, and yet forlorn.

Linger where the slow sea wanders,
bidden by the moon’s command;
enter where King Neptune ponders
why wet towels gather sand.

Bow before his mighty trident,
headstone for the graves of ships,
and then ask him where the tide went...
and why seagulls pinched my chips!

© David 03/11/15

[Maureen K Clifford]

ROTFLMAO I love it - what a hoot. Well done David. Oh boy that's good - really funny twist in the tail

[Shelley Hansen]

Oh, David, David! Nothing cryptic about this ... it makes perfect sense to me!

It is fantastic.

Seriously ...

Shelley

[Neville Briggs]

Good one David. I suppose poetry has to have an element of mystery to be poetry. If we want to say things direct then I think we might as well just do prose, it seems to be a mark of good poetry that the writer comes at things indirectly.

Dylan Thomas has been accused of being "overly cryptic", he even invented his own words, but for all that his poetry has a wonderful rhythm and expressiveness ( I think )
The Beatles wrote, "Hey Jude, Na na nanana naaaaaaa. You can't get much more cryptic than that and everyone thought that was poetic genius.


I suppose that is the skill of the poet to strike the balance, as one commentator has said that language is for revealing things not hiding them.

[David Campbell]

Thank you. It's quite liberating when you don't have to worry too much about making sense! As nobody's taken up the "in-depth analysis" challenge I'll borrow a poetry review from the internet. (Some reviews are multi-purpose.)

"The basic method used in Seagulls Pinched My Fish and Chips! may be described as the application of the principle of complexity. The poet works in terms of surface parallelisms which in reality make ironical contrasts, and in terms of surface contrasts which in reality constitute parallelisms. (The second group sets up effects which may be described as the obverse of irony.) The two aspects taken together give the effect of chaotic experience ordered into a new whole, though the realistic surface of experience is faithfully retained. The complexity of the experience is not violated by the apparent forcing upon it of a predetermined scheme."

That should clear things up.

Cheers
David

[Neville Briggs]

wha...?

[Catherine Lee]

I love it David! I don't know where you get your ideas from, but whatever you're on I want some!

[Shelley Hansen]

O-kay!! Well, I thought I understood it ... until I read the in-depth analysis!!!!!

Very profound, Professor!!!

Cheers
Shelley

[David Campbell]

Thanks, Catherine...I don't know where they come from, either, although they do often pop up in the middle of the night!

And the review, as far as I can tell, is genuine. It's part of something written about T S Eliot's The Waste Land by a Cleanth Brooks.

Cheers
David