Many thanks for the feedback on this piece - I've been spending too much
time with 'specialists' and it's good to broaden the horizon.

Bob's reference to 'white space' are an astute summary of the Japanese
linked verse technique: all the frison, all the communication, lies in the
unstated relationship/s between stanzas. This is also true within the
compass of a single stanza.

In this context caesurae and line-break have an advantage over the more
extensive suite of written punctuation as the mind may construe them
several ways - another maddening instance of the oriental 'less is more'
paradox.

Of course it depends on the style of syntax the poet adopts, which in turn
depends on the nature of the semantic organisation. An elegantly crafted
Martyn Halsall or David Anthony sonnet might be ill served by stripping out
the commas.

Interesting that Caxton made do with three punctuation marks though:
period, comma and virgule. Leading me to wonder if syntax expands to fill
the punctuation marks available.

The 'avocado killer' (alleged) was a 'rambler' looking rather like the
Archbishop designate who, rather than meet my eye or otherwise engage with
any of the splendid devastation around him, appeared to be wrestling with
the problems of World Peace and/or whether the avocado he had so enjoyed at
dinner the previous evening might not be regarded as a sentient organism,
and therefore in possession of a soul.

rags of cloud   greying   into far off places

Rooley Moor Road is known as The Famine Road as it was a 'make work'
endeavour paid for by the mill owners of Rossendale and Rochdale during the
'cotton famine' of... erm, 1863 maybe, the American civil war anyway. The
road is laid over some of the most forbidding moorland in England - either
sets (square cobbles) or massive stone slabs that are rutted from the iron
banded wheels of the period. The bulk of the work though would have been in
stabilising the ground - when wet the 'moss' ripples for yards with each
footfall.

The landscape is a Wesleyan post-Apocalypse. To answer Bob's question
directly: no, I hadn't intended any specific references to 'roads' though
if pushed would admit to vaguely entertaining Faulkner (?) and Basho -
'Tobacco' and 'Narrow'.

Best wishes, John

----- Original Message -----
From: "alderoak" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 28 July 2002 20:39
Subject: Re: The Famine Road


the suspect avocado killer

transformed

into a lycra road skimmer

as usual

your words ripple the pixels

like wind over a mere

I think I almost see it

then I don't

Terri )O(

-----Original Message-----
From: The Pennine Poetry Works [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of John Carley
Sent: 25 July 2002 19:13
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: The Famine Road


Hi all, here's a renga, or a set of solo tanrenga, or something. Any and
all c&c welcome as always.

Best wishes, john e c




The Famine Road

--
                         gulls   ply the null space
here are mountains   long since ground into dust

who could own   this heritage   of home-made guns


the suspect   avocado killer
           hides   behind his map case

rags of cloud   greying   into far off places


beep for the sheep   you red Toyota
                    rattling   like a ruin

too stupid   to comply   with simple orders


                  men in lycra   pedal past
in search of something   punishing

the cotton grass   like smoke   from rheumy Rochdale


                             footfalls   straying from the road
the lumpen scab of earth   a slab

by peat black pools   a crow   attends a carcass