Mike,

I often find myself coming down quite hard on your poems and I wonder if 
it's because they are so close to the kind of poetry that I like to read. 
Your work usually seems conceptually rich, and this poem is no exception. I 
like this version better and it may be that you don't want to modify it much 
more for the time-being. It's your poem and your decision of course. He who 
tries to please everybody pleases nobody as Aesop pointed out. In general 
terms,  I would be happier to have more to bite in the text of the poem. 
Isn't it the case that when we allude to an object behind the object in a 
poem the comparison has be energising (rather than just merely an 
interesting connection or interesting metaphor)? One way of testing this is 
to reverse the metaphor and then examine it for significant content. So for 
instance if you were rowing and said that the oar was creaking like a rotten 
tooth, is this energising the reception of the rowing process or might you 
as well have said that a rotten tooth creaks like an oar in its socket. The 
worst thing of course is to have a belittling metaphor. So for instance if 
you looked at a burn in spate making it's way down a steep mountain, you 
could say that it is like a slug trail, but as it seems to me I would better 
off in this case with the thing in itself, which is much more awesome and 
mysterious than the comparator. It's not easily done of course and you may 
look in vain for successful metaphors in my poems. It's just an idea and one 
that may or may not be useful for you and the kind of poetry that you want 
to write.

BW

Colin


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 6:23 PM
Subject: A trailer revised


I´m working on this one and getting a bit hot and bothered. I feel it 
slipping through my fingers. Is this any improvement of is it a mess?



A Trailer (or: The Midas Touch) ( I think I prefer Midas Touch)

This is what you´ve dragged behind you
down the whispering, transparent years.
It gave a preview of events to come.
To that time and place a sense adheres
like rowing in a fog across a lake
in endless rings and slowly dawning fears
of orientation lost, till your belief
in reaching the sunny shore all but disappears.
Looking back you see how foolish
was the careless course you steered,
no foaming spring can wash away this hindsight.
Now anger and frustration run down your face in tears,
for like a different Midas, what you touched turned to glass,
a window that shows the world your donkeys ears.



Mike