DesDownunder
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Posts posted by DesDownunder
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Yes I'm inclined to sit and chat awhile. But no one there yet.
I think it will take time. Even the Nifty chat-room has long periods of quiet.
Truthfully though I haven't been there for a while - been too busy reading at AwesomeDude and Codey's World.
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Phi by Camy
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To the shape of the universe itself the divine proportion sings
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Written originally as a rap.
A "song" for the ancient proportion in rap form.
Who would have thought it possible?
Ahh... the benefits of a classical education!
Really wonderful Camy. I loved it.
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Hi TR,
Thanks for your comments.
Breaking news: Spun has won!
The working title was actually "Aphrodisiac".
But I grew more attached to the indefinite, "A Scent Of Love", as you guess because it is mildly funny but also because by the time I got to the last stanza I liked the play on words of "Ascent Of Love".
Anyway I think we are stuck with the title now.
The rhythm patterns shift to stop the endless drone of constant sound patterns.
This is more musical to my ears, but then I don't like Keith Glass type repetition in music either.
They should "sound" in rhythm in any given stanza. The stress on the words when spoken should give a lyrical almost limerick lilting quality with an occasional deliberate discord for effect.
I certainly wouldn't claim 100% in achieving any of these objectives.
I also wanted different rhythm patterns to help suggest the character's frenzy of moods.
The rhymes seen to be there in each stanza to me. Which ones do you see as not matching?
I confess to only rhyming the last syllable sound at times if that is what you mean.
I meant it as a fun poem, almost a spoof in itself, but hey, if it inspires you to spoof it
please be my guest. Sounds like fun!
Your thoughts are most welcome Thank you!
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OMG Des, that's just too friggin' terrific.
One little question niggles me, the word "span" as in "In shock, I quickly stood and span around,", which I think is a typo/spelling error?
The end was hilariously touching. Well done!
I am glad you liked it Trab.
The span thing never occurred to me, so I looked it up and from WordWeb:
Verb: Spin (span, spun, spinning)
1. Revolve quickly and repeatedly around one's own axis.
On reflection I think I like your spun better than my span.
So I will edit it. Thanks for mentioning it.
I suspect span is more local than global use.
Anyway spun is more definitive to my ear.
Thanks again for your kind words.
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A Scent Of Love.?
By DesDownunder
The stranger stood up as I turned around,
And the next I knew I was on the ground,
He bent over me with his hair in his eyes,
?You smell nice,? I said with surprise.
He was shocked I could tell,
And I thought he was going to yell,
Until he reached out to give me has hand,
?You?re cute,? he said as he helped me stand.
We looked at each other flushed red in the face,
Boldly, I asked him to come home to my place,
And all night long our love did flow,
Six months later he said, ?I have to go.?
I stood at the door and waved him goodbye,
Then threw myself on to the bed and had a good cry,
I loved him and would forever I could tell,
For all over the sheets was his dizzying smell.
I could see where his head had dented the pillow,
And if it could talk it would say, ?Let me turn yellow,
Rather than be washed and hung on the line,
To then not posses this smell divine.?
No room in the house allowed me to flee,
From him or his memory,
Because I had suffered a home invasion,
By his smell from which there was no evasion.
All through the days and nights that followed,
My mind and soul felt hollowed,
Mornings came and when nights fell,
I imagined again his wonderful smell.
I looked east and west as weeks went by,
And to the north and south I did try,
But there was no sight or sign,
Of the man who smelt so fine.
Years passed and became times of lost chances,
From all the young men and their loving advances,
But I was depressed, and an empty shell,
For I loved a man with a particular smell.
It seems to me that wherever I wander,
A certain tang in the air tempts me to wonder,
If my beau is nearby with his lusty smell,
Or am I insane or just in Hell?
There?s a smell in my head from this nose of mine,
That cannot be fixed with a glass of wine,
I must get out and about to get some fresh air,
To find a way to stop this smell of despair.
The supermarket has rows of air fresheners,
With sterile and clinical odours,
And stinky children running astray,
There goes one now, straight into a display.
Bottles crash and break on the floor,
While the kid runs out the door,
Broken chunks of glass remained,
Sitting in liquid they once contained.
?Clean up in aisle seven,? came a voice from above,
As I thought I could smell the scent of my love,
I dipped my hand in the liquid but had to stop,
As the supermarket youth appeared with his mop,
My head bent forward to sniff my hand,
Pheromones and me, be both eternally damned,
I had given my love, my life, and my all,
To the scent from a bottle of ordinary hair oil.
In shock, I quickly stood and spun around,
Knocking the youth with his mop to the ground,
?I?m sorry?? I said looking into his eyes,
?You smell nice,? he replied with sudden surprise.
He helped fill my car with the bottles of hair oil,
Carefully packed so that they would not spoil,
And then I drove home, which wasn?t far,
With the youth tied to the top of the car.
We took all the oil inside my place,
Filling every nook, cranny and cupboard space,
We spread some oil on our bodies, arms, legs, and faces,
And as you might guess, other unmentionable places.
Sixty loving years later we live in contentment,
Having made the lasting arrangement,
To embalm us in the oil at our final farewell,
So even after life we will have this heavenly smell.
***************
(Edits: Spelling, Thanks to Trab see below)
more spelling. Thanks blue.
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Thought I would share an annoying occurrence in poetry.
I call it the Yoda phrasing
This is where the only way you can fit in with the rhyme is to reverse the conventional speech pattern.
Or perhaps this already be known well
And too late again am I to tell.
Not that I mind it so much in small ways
But starting to think like it, I am,
And its annoying when it happens most days,
When trying to rhyme with Siam.
Go now will I, OK?.
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...And now you know more than you ever wanted to know...
Can one ever know too much?
Thanks blue, I am overwhelmed.
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Gee Wow! Five replies overnight. I am impressed.
vwl, Thanks I usually do the google-thing but I forgot about it being focussed on this forum at the time.
I had a sneaking suspicion that it might be a UK versus USA thing but wasn't sure that there wasn't some rule as well.
Thanks TR I will hunt down Elements of style.
Graeme, yes, agonise was what I was doing. It was throwing up warning signs over confusion for me as in
"He learnt many things and became a learned man." Here of course the learned would in Aussie-land be pronounced learn-ed."
Trab, here is the missing question mark for you:
?
I love being funned with. -that doesn't look right, does it? No don't answer that, it is purely rhetorical.
Being a vegetarian, I guess I shouldn't eat a smelly smelt fish that smelled then? (OK so that line stinks.)
Blue, Yay! Intransitive verb. Yes that was what I was trying to remember. Thank you.
The sit / set on the table is interchangeable in my part of Australia.
Locally we were taught to sit on the chair but to set the table.
However we would rarely use "set it on the table", but commonly would say "sit it on the table".
I am sure this is just local usage. Same as we pat the dog, we don't pet it as I read in American stories.
I love the idea of classifying words for mature audiences.
You are all so helpful! I am very grateful for all your replies.
So I guess poetic licence would let me get away with smelled or smelt if the rhyme was needed?
Thanks to you all.
I will mention you all in my acceptance speech when I get the Nobel prize for gay literature. (Yeah right!)
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Does anyone know about the correct use if any of such words as
smell, smelt, smelled.
Lay, lie, lain, laid, laying,
Hung, hanged, hang.
It is really the *smelt / smelled* one that interests me most but I thought I would throw in the others as it would seem there might be some common factor here?
Any comments would be very much appreciated.
I?m sure I would have learned some of this stuff in class but that was fifty years ago.
(My goodness, how time flies after puberty or is that after senility?)
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Outstanding!
That's what we need more of.
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I do not think it is weak.
I hold to my original thought that the images are memory evoking even if the memories are not mine.
I do wonder however about the tense.
As written the verses are in past tense: awoke instead of awake.
"I awoke to the sound of rain
Drumming on the roof of my red convertible
I awoke and remember everything"
Whilst the remainder appears to be in present tense.
Is this deliberate? I don't mind if it is, but I think it would be stronger if:
"I awake to the sound of rain
Drumming on the roof of my red convertible
I awaken and remember everything"
Note I have taken the liberty to expand the last awake to awkaken, to emphasise the state of "remembering of everything."
Alternatively you could play with: past tense for everything except the last line or last verse.
Suddenly going to present tense like that would make the rest seem more like a dream.
But it is your work Jason, and these are but musings on what already pleases me.
As for the cigarette, I thought you conveyed a certain appreciation of boisterousness in their sex-act re the bruises, that for me allowed the almost happy yet somewhat reticent, whimper from the slumbering blond to justify him not actively responding as Camy and may I say, I would? (I did appreciate the humour of your remark Camy.)
I've read it several times now and I still find it a powerful and evocative poem.
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Wonderful, questioning images of such strong descriptive memories,
on the Edge Of Heaven.
Love the title.
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What a Hoot!
Reminds me of the old saying:
"The sword is mightier than the pen is."
Thanks for those Trab.
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I'm too busy laughing hysterically to reply.
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Just want to say that all the comments are very very helpful.
Very interesting.
Thanks guys,
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Great news Dude, all this and radio too, it must be Heaven!
Will you be transmitting in stereo?
I grew up with radio somewhat before TV so I can empathise with radio being in your blood.
May I make a suggestion that if anyone can organise it, a radio play might be featured every now and again. I think it would be interesting at least, to see if anyone could write and produce a play suitable for your radio's transmission.
Some guidelines would need to be set re sex content etc., but it should not be too hard to do.
How about 5 minute (or less) segments of reports from various parts of the world?
Sort of like "A letter from London" that Alistair Cooke did many years ago for the BBC and syndicated all around the world.
You could have "Never -Never News from Australia," for instance. (insert smiling kangaroo emoticon here.)
These would not necessarily be political or just news about GLTB items but could cover a wide variety of topics at your discretion along with your subscribers desires.
The author could record them and send to you for consideration.
I am so excited. Now all I have to do is work out how to receive your broadcasts.
All the best.
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Ditto.
The part that hit home hardest was
I've been thinking about that since I read it. The concept that I'm judged by the fiction I write is worrying - which is why I write under a pen name I guess. I don't consider myself a 'perve'. What goes on in my head is entirely my business.
Anything that goes on outside the boundaries of what we consider normal could be construed as being perverted. In fact anything that we disagree with or dislike could be considered perverted; be it politics, religion or sexuality.
Thank [insert deity of choice] there's no esp ... yet.
Ah Yes, but some people think they have ESP and act on it, especially if they don't agree with their perception of your thoughts. That's why a pen name is not a bad idea, but should it be necessary?
Camy, the obnoxious right does not want anything going on you head at all, and if something must go on in your head then it should be only what you have been told to accept without question.
(DesDownunder steps on to his soapbox.)
These people do not have an appreciation of strength through diversity.
Neither do they commonly understand that the right to dissent is a foundation of democracy.
Many people seem to act in the presumption that after the democratic vote is in they have to accept the majority vote as if it was what they voted for.
The truth is we only have to accept that the majority voted a certain way and abide by that.
It is not seditious to disagree with the majority, yet.
Just because a group of people have been elected it does not follow that we all have to think like them. Indeed, any next election will be based on two parties that apart from winning, have only one thing in common: they both have the right to disagree, to dissent.
In addition there may be any number of people who dissent with any of the parties.
That is the right of dissent in politics in any democracy.
And it must be so.
Individuals should have the right to form their own opinion on politics, religion and sexuality.
That is the assumption of freedom in a free democracy.
None of us therefore are perverts because we do not think like, "everyone else".
That is freedom of thought.
Neither are we perverts because we express a thought that differs from other's.
That is freedom of expression.
With these freedoms comes responsibilities to not infringe on the freedoms of others.
(Would all "leaders" please note this.)
It can be an act of perversion when thought becomes an action that affects another individual's freedoms or rights to think for, or express themselves.
However as Oscar Wilde wrote, "Ignorance is a delicate flower, touch it and the bloom is gone."
He also wrote:
Those who find the ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
So Camy your writings are not perverted and as Oscar might have said,
Books do not have views (perverted) views are for the reader.
(DesDownunder vacates the soapbox).
PS. I like your latest poems Camy.
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Jamessavik,
I think your post should win you the most lucid, intelligent and illuminating comment of the month award.
I can only agree.
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Lordy, what have I done?
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[...] If someone is being dishonest for bad reasons, that will show up. But if they are being truthful and simply private, that will prove itself too.
[...] So it's vitally important that we don't go too far in questioning someone's honesty or abilities.
I could not agree more.
For me it is called trust. Call me naive if you want, but life without trust in the goodness of others would be intolerable.
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[...]A bunch of strangers then use this personal info to protect us from another bunch of strangers.
Codey
I think you sum it up quite well Codey.
What worries me is, if the collected information falls into yet another bunch of stranger's hands.
Whether this is accidental or done for profit or because a law says they have to release it, the individual's privacy is potentially violated, once again.
It Isn't that predators shouldn't be feared, they should.
However I think what you are saying is that the predators who fleece the parents by exploiting fear are as bad as the predators who seek to exploit the young and vulnerable. Two wrongs don't make a right, sort of thing?
The real problem here is that parents are being encouraged through fear to abrogate their responsibility in educating their child of dangers by instead buying protection from those dangers. (Do I hear the theme from the Godfather?)
Unfortunately not all parents are good at teaching their kids about dangers.
When I was nearly thirteen, my mother with the best of intentions told me I should never get in a car with strangers as the stranger would take me away to a house where he would put lipstick on my pee-pee, (no I am not making this up), and then the stranger would get someone else to lick it off.
Adults do and say weird things to try to protect their offspring.
My reaction at every opportunity, was to wait by the side of the road for the car with a stranger who of course, never arrived.
Now if my Mother had paid someone to watch out for me by telling them I liked to stand by the roadside and that information had been allowed to fall into other hands, I might not have learned that there are other more efficient ways of applying lipstick to the lips.
The fact is nothing was going to stop me looking for that stranger in a car waving a lipstick in his hands.
(I never found him btw, and I quickly lost the desire for lipstick when I discovered that real men don't wear it).
The net can be a dangerous environment, so can the side of the road.
Yes, we should try to protect our young and accept the responsibility of teaching them about dangers ourselves, but eventually we must trust them to not endanger themselves too.
Declaration: I am 62, balding, not on the prowl, already happily have a partner, of similar vintage, who is willingly living with me and we did not meet on the net or the side of the road.
Can I prove this? Of course not, but if I am really a cute 14 year old blond, tanned, surfie with a desire for contact I don't think the above description is going to help the cause.
Neither am I beyond a bit of harmless flirting
Having revealed all this I do hope you will all still talk to me.
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Is there a card for us over 60 year olds, I don't want to be hassled by anyone over 90.
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PS. The other pages on Kalev's site are worth a look under "Gay Stuff'. See the very funny "Best of Homophobic Mail."
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... just what was happening to me in the back room???
yours truly
Concerned.
Can't really say Camy. I couldn't bring myself to look once the screaming started.
however, I was told they were screams of delight. Do you not remember?
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When to start posting?
in Writers' Workshop
Posted
I started reading Nifty stories about 4 years ago, and quickly discovered it was the completed stories posted regularly that held my interest the most. If the post is delayed by more than a week I forget who was doing what to whom and when. (yes I do take my memory pill everyday.)
After a month I have to go back and re-read some of the previous chapters to recall the plot. Yes I do like a plot. In fact I find I often skip the sex descriptions unless they are integral to the plot or very well written.
There have been some extraordinary, very long serialised stories like "Bill and Danny". (Now Completed)
If you want to get the true spirit of the 1960's then search it out at Nifty.
However the obviously completed story that is constructed along the lines of the novel is what pleases me most. I like a beginning, middle and an end.
I am in admiration of those authors who can turn out a new chapter consistently, writing on the fly.
I think the story and what the author wants to achieve is very determining in what is the suitable posting schedule.
There are some stories out there that can be fun reading and don't need to finish.
Others are like a good book - you can't put it down until you finish it.
I do have a dislike of stories that suddenly change title in a series. This may be valid in the mind of the author but it more often than not loses my interest.
My own story (novel) will be published when I finish it. Don't hold your breathe guys it won't be this year.