Re: WILL DONKEY REVIEWED #21 A PRAYER FOR KATHY

> Anonymous wrote:
> > A Prayer for Kathy.
> 
> The title is slightly misleading in that the poem itself is not a prayer.  The poet merely says that he prays in the final line.
> 
> Titles are usually the only thing the Donkey shows some talent for, but this one is decidedly subpar.  Not just because it doesn't really fit the poem (few of Will's titles do), but because it's just plain bland.
> 
> > So it is back,
> > the demon enemy.
> 
> The opening line is weak, because it opens with an adverb.  Since the poem has no fixed meter, I would suggest shortening it to the much more forceful, "It's back."
> 
> "The demon enemy" is also weak.  Calling sorrow a demon is a cliché, of course, but that's not the problem.  The problem is that a demon is, by its very nature, one's enemy.  Unfortunately, the Donkey often falls into redundancy in his works.  To call the demon anything but the obvious requires thought -- and thought is something Donkey rarely engages in.
> 
> > I will love you
> > 6 or 6000
> > we will meet again
> > on that shore.
> 
> This run-on quasi sentence is beyond awful.  The first line "I will love you" is one of the most unimaginative lines known to man.  It might work in a popular song, but in a poem, one expects a little more... a metaphor for love would have been nice.
> 
> "6 or 6000" is... meaningless.  I've no idea what the Donkey is driving at here.  It's not as unintentionally funny as Pickles' obituary for Faline, wherein he tells her that he loved her more than Godzilla... but it's just plain dumb.  In having no apparent meaning, it only serves to distract the reader's attention from the poem's actual subject.
> 
> On second thought, the poem's subject is so heavy-handedly maudlin that one could almost claim that distraction from it was a good thing.
> 
> The last two lines are basically lifted from the hymn, "In the Sweet By and By."  Could the Donkey actually be attempting an allusion?  Or is he just repeating a line he's heard on a tv show, or read in a comic book?  Who knows?
> 
> > Engine exhaust
> > from the car ahead
> > looks like ghost horses.
> 
> This passage opens with another of the Donkey's patented redundancies.  Exhaust from the car ahead would obviously be "Engine exhaust."  A visual description, especially one that would play into the vision of "ghost horses" is called for.
> 
> Unfortunately, "ghost horses" recalls "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky (A Cowboy Legend)," which is a little too uptempo (and connected with the wild west) for a pity party poem like this.
> 
> > So this is the wait
> > shopping for clothing.
> > Good friends,
> > I love you.
> 
> And... we're opening another stanza with "so."  I guess the Donkey means to imply that he's come to a realization, but it just comes across as bad writing.  Apparently, "the wait" is made up of shopping for clothes, hanging out with friends, and telling a dead woman that he loves her.
> 
> Yeah, sure... life goes on, you do mundane, everyday things (although one doubts from his photos that the Donkey has ever gone clothes shopping in his life), in a vain attempt to forget about a lost love.  But it could be better expressed.
> 
> > Bitter salty tears,
> > and a smile
> > for what we shared.
> 
> And here's one of Donkey's patented examples of thought fragments masquerading as sentences while lacking both a subject and a verb.  "Bitter salty tears" is another clichéd line from popular songs.  "A smile that we shared" is another (although it's usually expressed in plural form to imply more than one smile had been shared between them).
> 
> > Kathy,
> > golden blonde hair,
> > eyes bluer than the sky.
> 
> This is a description, not a sentence, as it lacks a verb.  Describing hair as "golden blonde" is bland and unimaginative, and saying that eyes are "bluer than the sky" is a hyperbolic cliché to end all hyperbolic clichés.
> 
> > I will gladly die
> > to be with you if I must.
> 
> The above passage is not only a treacly mixture of the maudlin with morbidity, but the pretentious pseudo-poetic inversion makes the sentence's meaning grammatically unclear.
> 
> Yeah, we know what he means, but that's not the way for him to have said it.
> 
> > Sweet memory
> > of our kiss.
> 
> Throw in another cliché from popular songs (without a subject and verb, of course).
> 
> > I cry and cry and cry and cry,
> > and pray.
> 
> And we're done.
> 
> What a profound ending: Will cries and prays.
> 
> Which is pretty much what anyone who's ever mourned for someone has done.




Lest anyone question Will Donkey's title as the World's All-Time Worst Poet... and Number One Corpse Dragger.


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