Agreed, L, that three ls sound the same as two, unless sllluring. Your call on punctuation.
Bill
> On 11 Sep 2014, at 8:51 pm, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Thanks very much, Bill. I appreciate that. The lack of a final full stop is
> sloppiness. Not that - saving your idea - there is anything to do after the
> last word... Hanna Barbera silence continuing to walk after it has crossed
> the edge of a cliff.
> I'll come back to the semi-colons.
> I meant lacking will; and it now occurs to me that I would happily let it
> include having no expressed desires as to his property and work after his
> death; but at the time I was only thinking of Will.
> I didn't think too much about how to write it because I was thinking of
> keeping the two halves of the word separate so that it will be read as
> spondaic and so have a chance of life as a solo comparative as well as an
> adjectival suffix -- less than others, less than I was, less than I could
> be...just a suggestion of it; but it stresses "will", which he has not got,
> bigs it up, I hope
> Three ls is unusual, I agree; hard to read; but it was to keep the elements
> separate for stress that I did it. Just had a quick google (well it IS my
> coffee break) and found "will-less" and "will less"; your dictionary the
> dictionary you can understand (which I have never before consulted)
> recognises "willless" and offers "will-less" as an alternative; some others
> recognise but do not display it.
> I think it's probably a bad idea to line up 3 ls, especially as here if we
> pronounce it the same as 2 ls.
> The 2 semicolons are to clarify the kind of pausing I want. That's an
> unusual pausing. I suggest it jars because it is unfamiliar. I tend to
> write for reading aloud. Whatever I do to systematise it fails sooner or
> later; so I keep experimenting
> Thanks so much for your interest
>
> L
>
>
>
>> On 10 September 2014 23:39, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Like this, L. As you say, a break from rhe fragmentary. The comparison
>> with ageing pets works well and the truth/dirt bit. Should it be will-less?
>> or can you line up three ls, willless? I presume you mean without address,
>> voice or will. The surrounding semicolons jar for me.
>>
>> The final stanza is superb, needing only a concluding full stop? Or is
>> that withheld while he yet breathes?
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>>> On 10 Sep 2014, at 10:41 pm, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I am now almost without energy.
>>>
>>> Sometimes I twitch! Even walk a little.
>>>
>>> But then I'm like an ageing pet, spending
>>>
>>> much of its life resting or quite asleep.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I say I'm well, lying in my own dirt,
>>>
>>> keeping the truth hidden by camouflage.
>>>
>>> I am without address or voice; will less;
>>>
>>> no more than light upon a rock, a glint
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> without the power of a spark, flameless
>>>
>>> yet self-consuming; that which might have been -
>>>
>>> as leaves may roll themselves, fall, crumble
>>>
>>> to dust, not even knowing combustion
>
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