> Hello Colin,
              Thanks for your comments on this one. Never be backward about coming down hard on me and mine;-) I love it. This one is giving me trouble and I can´t decide whether to keep it close to what I´ve got, rewite the majority of it, start completely from scratch and try to say it in a completely different way or just sling the whole thing in the bin and have a new year´s eve party. Your thoughts on the energy of metaphors are enlightening. Thanks for that. I´ll keep you posted on progress....if there is any! Now, where´s that champagne?


Happy new year,   Mike


> 
> 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 
>