Re: WILL DONKEY REVIEWED #22 "IN A DREAM I SAVED YOU"

[quote="Anonymous"]
> Will-Dockery wrote:
> In A Dream I Saved You / Will Dockery (poem-vocal) and Brian Fowler & Brian
> Vaughan (music)
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGUZmzvqRP4&t=36s
> 
> 
> ***
> 
> > In A Dream I Saved You
> 
> As opposed to the more readable: "I Saved You In A Dream."
> 
> It never ceases to amaze me that so many amateur poets are laboring under the mistaken impression that unnecessary inversions are somehow poetic.  Inversions are only used in poetry when they are required to meet the demands of a particular meter and/or rhyme.  The use of inversion to sound "poetic" was how 1930s screwball comedies identified a character as pretentious.
> 
> > Scarlet scarab scorch
> > seeing a sky flutter
> > in the Summer.
> 
> Will Donkey discovers alliteration.
> 
> Unfortunately, the opening line of a poem is not the place for this alliterative example, as the reader does not yet know what the poem is about; and when dealing with a run-on non-sentence, clarity is of the utmost importance, as the reader is supposed to be drawn into the poem.
> 
> The idea is good (uncharacteristically so for the Donkey), even if the execution is flawed.
> 
> Again, I stress the importance of testing a passage's intelligibility by putting it into sentence form: "Scarlet scarab scorch seeing a sky flutter in the Summer."  This, of course, is semi-unintelligible gibberish.
> 
> Now, let's change it into an actual sentence: "Scarlet scarabs scorch a fluttering Summer sky."
> 
> Much better.
> 
> One chop:
> 
> Scarlet scarabs scorch
> a fluttering Summer sky.
> 
> And we've got a great opening line.
> 
> > Each in direction to crispy sky
> > to each the own.
> 
> And now we're going to throw it all away with a resounding WTF???
> 
> Seriously, WTF?  Is this Tarzan trying to sound "poetic"?  I'm afraid our Resident Donkey has hit an all-time low with that one.
> 
> > I can see demonstration
> > against the sky.
> 
> The scarabs are protesting?  "NO MORE DDT!"
> 
> > Reach the surface,
> > morning sky crunchy green & gold.
> 
> Nothing like a crispy, crunchy, snap-crackle-popping green and gold sky to start your morning off right!
> 
> I suppose it's "crunchy" because of the scarabs "demonstrating" in it (and we take it that the Donkey's crunched on more than his scare).  But how did these scarlet insects suddenly turn gold and green?
> 
> There's nothing like consistency in a poem, and someday the Donkey might actually offer us some.
> 
> > You tired of walking streets
> > where we waited for you.
> 
> I guess this is Tarzan speaking after he went to New York.  He utters the first line in pure, unadulterated Tarzan-speak, but catches, and corrects, himself in the second.
> 
> > Tired of walking streets
> > where we waited for you.
> 
> Tarzan ponders aloud on the difficulties of grammatically correct sentence structure.
> 
> > Cruel daybreak
> > tortures me with sound
> > And the memory
> > of your streetcorner smile.
> 
> And fails.
> 
> Somehow (this is a Donkey poem, after all), the red, gold, and green scarabs (perhaps Will was starring at a traffic light while dropping acid) have turned into a hooker.  But the hooker isn't really there; she's just a memory that tortures his sensitive soul.
> 
> > Dreams reveal
> > too much to remember.
> 
> Don't they always?
> 
> > From black, seedless midnight
> > To feverish broad daylight.
> 
> I offer the Donkey a standing ovation for attempting to incorporate metaphorical speech into his poetry.  But... Donkey... it helps if the metaphors actually make sense (or even seem as though they *might* make sense).  Perhaps it's just a misspelling of "sleepless" (Goldang Autocorrect!), in which case my ovation is rescinded.
> 
> > You never get older,
> > you never get older.
> 
> Dude, I've seen enough of your photos to know that's a lie.
> 
> > With a cling & a right to play.
> 
> This is neither intelligible, nor is it a sentence.
> 
> And, as per usual when slogging through a Donkey poem, I'm utterly lost as to what the narrative is supposed to be (or if one even exists).  Here's a recap of what's happened so far.
> 
> The Summer sky is fluttering with crispy scarlet scarabs that transform into crunchy gold and green ones.  The scarabs are demonstrating against crop spraying.  Will Donkey addresses a hooker who has been waiting on the corner for him.  But she's only a memory and not really there.  As a memory, she will never grow old... with a cling and a right to play.
> 
> > The kid swan
> > damn near all the way.
> 
> Will's non-sentence thought fragments are becoming progressively less related to one another.  If this is stream of consciousness, the stream is composed of 140 over proof rum.
> 
> > And if she was ever there for you,
> > her radiance was faulty.
> 
> Will loved that old kid swan who used to turn tricks on the streetcorner, but it turned out that her radiance was faulty.
> 
> Faulty radiance is always a relationship ender.
> 
> > And in this Tramp's fate
> > she is late.
> 
> Huh?  She's late to her fate?  Don't these lines really grate?
> 
> > You tired of walking streets
> > where we waited for you,
> > where we waited for you.
> 
> Will is rambling on, incohrently drunk, repeating himself over and over again.
> 
> > Dreams reveal
> > too much to remember.
> > Black, seedless midnight
> > To feverish broad daylight.
> > You never get older,
> > you never get older.
> 
> Once again, I'm trapped in a bar, beside a senile old man who keeps rambling on incoherently and won't stfu.
> 
> > Hickory Dickory Doc
> > smoked out,
> > Sucked to the thug she's clocked.
> > She... roll away the stone.
> 
> This is the drunkest (and most incoherent) the old man has ever been -- and he's been on an uninterrupted drunk for the past 50 years.  He's now spewing out bits and pieces of rhymes and Mott the Hoople lyrics that were cribbed from Aleister Crowley.
> 
> > Dervish spinning,
> > stardust and golden, a dervish spin.
> > Float green sick & crazy...
> > happy...paralyzed whirlwind.
> 
> And he doesn't stop.  He just keeps prattling on; spewing out one unintelligible thought fragment after another.  "Float green sick & crazy..."?  How fitting.
> 
> > You tired of waiting
> > walking streets
> 
> Now he's addressing the imaginary hooker again.
> 
> > You stand in the dark
> > The dark side of the cold...
> 
> Wow.  "The dark side of the cold" actually sounds pretty good (even if it does draw too obviously on a song title by Pink Floyd).  It doesn't make any sense in relation to the poem -- which is supposedly taking place in the "scorch" of a Summer day.
> 
> Prehaps the Donkey is contrasting the landscape of his memory (dark and cold) with that of the scarab-filled sky?
> 
> Who knows?  It's a Donkey poem.  And as the Donkey will be the first to tell you, his poetry doesn't have to mean anything -- is merely has to be.
> 
> > Spring is trapped in her crystal.
> > Spring is trapped in her crystal.
> 
> Spring is trapped in Spring's crystal?  Or in the imaginary hooker's crystal?
> 
> And how is Spring trapped if it's Summer?
> 
> And how did he save her if she's trapped?
> 
> Oh well.  I was able to turn the opening line into something moderately memorable... but the rest of this unspeakable shitpile is beyond help.




Lest anyone question Will's title as The World's All-Time Worst Poet. 


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