The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

I like to think trees across the field love me    tad awkward. Why do they love you after they've gone, not while here after you’re gone; tonight, Gemini blurs,             love Gemini. This is what you do best passing slower than other bodies—                slower than bodies sets contrasts. para...

Thanks! I'm an old farm kid of Irish blood, but raised in Kentucky. Tobacco, race horses, not so many potatoes outside my grandmother's garden.

Hi Dave,  Nice one. I read the frost, geese, footprints, dew, garden, webs, morning, mist, house, and book as all simple direct images that mark the presence and the absence. I feel like those images have done that before, none really surprised me, but they're handled adeptly here.  I enjoyed the ec...

This boy can move, like a younger me among potato drills,             .......Love the language, but distracted wondering what potato drills are cool quick fingers stooping and sorting. His bucket rattling with every deposit, razors and clams         .........here I get he's not bucketing potatoes, ...

Played around. Couldn't quite sentence today. Thus: Worlds coalesce   as he travels, first time explorer  on worn paths. Net curtains, gauze  veil or Vaseline, his lens sees through. Cheap hotel rooms in Asia Minor and operating theatres,  surgically similar in their clinical ability to get you in, ...

“hahaha, the man is alive” flying, diving, crashing -- yet he comes up and does another       dive? line of cocaine?  lining up all of the shots                  booze? drugs? bullets?  down one goes in rapturous glee “oh, what a jolly good show” popping pilots into splotches in the sky         war...

I also think the ending is strong. I like the mix of humor and concern. I have a personal bias that when I read a very narrative poem, I think it should just be a story or blog post, or that it's a great first draft for getting thoughts and images out before a total rewrite. I know it's just my pers...

Nice to meet you, Deb!

I’m sick and tired and hyper            ...2 ands doesn't serve. also, no images Love is hate and sadness is fleeting        generalities One moment there the next gone          tells and generalities Without understanding, I stare           show instead of tell Catching a glimpse of you the one   ...

But let me explain why I'm laughing. I was going to post this poem I've been wrestling for years. In its various forms it's a my "I've had it with the way men view women" poem. I posted another one instead, because this forum appears to be mostly men, and I didn't want a rabbit hole instead of feedb...