Thanks, Pat, Doug. Yes, might leave version two as two lines short of a sonnet. 

Bill

On 24/04/2014, at 6:12 AM, Douglas Barbour wrote:

> I see where Max is coming from, Bill. But I find the near sonnet moves more gracefully, like the snake perhaps.The sentence structure in the first one is a bit too prosy for me…
> 
> the experience is there in both, though…
> 
> Doug
> On Apr 22, 2014, at 4:38 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> Thanks, Max. Joe Blake common ryhming slang in our family for snake. Dad always reminded us when walking in bush to watch out for Joe Blakes. Thought it was common. You are right to pull me up on the final 'couplet' of Awakenings. It is still decidedly snappish. I just thought I had twelve lines down, why not go for the sonnet feel? Backless, you are right too. Might go for 'ripplebacked' instead. 
>> 
>> Bill
>> 
>>> On 23 Apr 2014, at 8:09 am, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Yikes - you evoke in both a many-sided experience that lingers, Bill.
>>> 
>>> sort of amusing to call the copperhead Joe and then Joe Blake but also for me a bit mystifying.
>>> 
>>> Zens as a verb is striking, and I think I get it.
>>> 
>>> 'Awakenings' - yes, I see the double use of the word.
>>> But the last two lines feel to me a bit clunky, and the word backless earlier on feels odd.
>>> 
>>> Over all, congratulations.
>>> 
>>> Max
>>> former surprised snake-surpriser
>>> 
>>> e up
>>>> On 23/04/2014, at 7:39 AM, Bill Wootton wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Snaky snaps: two for one
>>>> 
>>>> Afternoon Joe 
>>>> 
>>>> I was helping my neighbour 
>>>> unload concrete blocks
>>>> from the back of his
>>>> truck in autumn.
>>>> 
>>>> Ahhh, cried Colin, arms up 
>>>> as if arrested, backing 
>>>> away, eyes alert.
>>>> Prima donna,
>>>> 
>>>> I dismissed, expecting a spider
>>>> but no, a copperhead -
>>>> lithe body arching,
>>>> tongue flicking.
>>>> 
>>>> The snake further uncoiled
>>>> from one half of a hollow
>>>> cast block, prancing
>>>> on the tailgate.
>>>> 
>>>> How could so much snake,
>>>> easily three or four feet,
>>>> scrunch into such
>>>> a tiny space? 
>>>> 
>>>> And whey ho, half an hour ago,
>>>> I must have picked up Joe
>>>> and passed him in his
>>>> concrete haven
>>>> 
>>>> to Colin in confined carspace
>>>> where he had stacked him.
>>>> At any point Joe might
>>>> have awakened.
>>>> 
>>>> The present zens into crystal
>>>> focus as benign territory
>>>> transforms into a zone
>>>> of bobbing menace.
>>>> 
>>>> The rippling snake dips his head
>>>> to a tyre, pauses, folds back
>>>> then eases himself
>>>> to ground,
>>>> 
>>>> flattens out on stony clay
>>>> sashays, slithers, dis-
>>>> appears between
>>>> two low rocks.
>>>> 
>>>> Thing was it seemed we who 
>>>> were the intruders more
>>>> than Joe Blake roused 
>>>> from somnolence.
>>>> 
>>>> bw
>>>> 22.4.14
>>>> 
>>>> Awakenings
>>>> 
>>>> A snake awoke from inside a hollow concrete block 
>>>> I had minutes before passed to my neighbour squatting 
>>>> in the back of his covered ute. The snake, a copperhead
>>>> emerged at the unstacking stage. He was pissed off. 
>>>> 
>>>> Arching  into wakefulness, he tried a few movements
>>>> available only to the backless before slipping from
>>>> tailgate to stony ground and making his slithery way
>>>> to a couple of rocks between which he disappeared.
>>>> 
>>>> His dark-skinned singularity, his sinuous searching
>>>> stood in contrast to the regularity of our stacking task.
>>>> Habit runs up our arms, sets our posture, gets hum
>>>> going in our heads. A snake unsettles all that tripe.
>>>> 
>>>> We wait to waken long after rising each morning.
>>>> When the doing disappears, aliveness is available. 
>>>> 
>>>> bw
>>>> 23.4.14
>>> 
>> 
> 
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
> 
> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
> 
> Something else is out there
> godamnit
> 
> And I want to hear it
> 
> 	C.D.Wright
>