Many thanks for your comments.
Colin,
 I will have a think about 'none'.
Mike,
    I find most people have read this as a sort of vague apocryphal message,
but ,as I've explained, it was an attempt to express the feeling inspired in
me by recent events using the tarot imagery -but I don't think it matters if
a reader is familiar with the tarot or not. The imagery is pretty
archetypal, I feel.
 My feeling at the time was of the volatility of the situation- who really
knew where it would end, or what other countries would be involved?
   The last stanza is in haiku form, -I tried to express the feeling of
helpless I felt -that our lives are in the hands of others who deal the
cards.
Kind regards,
        grasshopper
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2003 7:53 AM
Subject: Re: [THE-WORKS] New sub: Tarocchi


Hello Grasshopper,
                  I missed this when it was first posted so here I am taking
a piggy-back - I believe that´s the right expression. Anyway, this is
excellent in my humble opiinion. I think there might be a danger for readers
in a workshop environment such as The Works being too literal in their
reading ( I´m not referring specifically to my piggy-back host here. I´ve
read other comments also). I feel that the poem functions as a complete
image and I think it works as such. The phrase `niggled at your sight´ has
drawn comment and I´m not sure about your use of `niggled´ here. I read the
phrase as meaning something like these images got into your consciousness
and you couldn´t get rid of them, rather like getting a phrase from a song
on your brain. Maybe it works, maybe I´m thinking too much about it because
I´m trying to do the workshop thing, but I´m not sure. Anyway, it´s for you
to decide, of course. The other word I´d query is `throats´ in `the
emperor´s  horses arched...´ Do horses arch their throats or their necks?
But the image is a great one that evokes the whole picture of terrified
horses, eyes bulging, nostrils flaring etc. Yes, I like the poem a lot. I´m
not sure that I quite agree with its vision of the future. Personally, I´d
go for something a bit less dramatic than comets and dragons and a bleeding
sky. Something more like the majority muddling through with varying degrees
of success while some poor blighters get seriously carved up. However, as
you know, I don´t have a problem with a poem that offers a different world
view to my own. Within reason.


Best wishes,   Mike






--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
Grassy,

An interesting poem. Not sure about "removing quick skin to be grafted". How
about "removing skin for a graft"? "None" is short for "not one" in 3/2. So
should be "was acknowledged" later in the same line. DK if you care.

I like the last stanza particularly. Very casual.

BW

Colin


----- Original Message -----
From: "grasshopper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 2:23 AM
Subject: New sub: Tarocchi


>     Tarocchi
>
> He made a tarot
> in elaborate collage,
> all the images cut out with a craftknife
> from glossy pages -
> articles, advertisements,
> announcements -
>
> precise as a surgeon
> removing quick skin to be grafted.
> None of the images were acknowledged
> but they     niggled    at your sight.
>
> Overhead a comet curled its tail
> around the world once, twice,
> growling and glowering
> like a wounded dragon.
>
> The sky bled and trumpets
> ranged on the heights
> blew war's clarion.
> The emperor's horses
> arched their throats.
>
> All this was shown on the cards:
> the crowds that shuffle through
> the streets, flat as paper,
> great cats that roam the hinterland
> and feast on nomads,
> jackals that fight over the remnants,
> snarl to snout.
>
> cut the deck
> deal me a future
> before I slip into my box
> forever
>
>                    grasshopper
>