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THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
When one gets older, he becomes quite skilled,
but life inclines to be about to end.
This is the precious while of all one's life.
He should distil each drop of this dense sap.
I wonder how some men pass all their time
in games to shun the boredom life may bring.
Where is the flatness if time flies like bats;
the shrewdest men don't know where they will be.
A lot of guests have passed along this life,
but few can know how bats of life are trapped.
Those have got famous in the books we read.
The rest have turned to earth on which we tread.
BY JOSEPH ZENIEH
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
____________________________________
When one gets older, he becomes quite skilled,
but life inclines to be about to end.
This is the precious while of all one's life.
He should distil each drop of this dense sap.
I wonder how some men pass all their time
in games to shun the boredom life may bring.
Where is the flatness if time flies like bats;
the shrewdest men don't know where they will be.
A lot of guests have passed along this life,
but few can know how bats of life are trapped.
Those have got famous in the books we read.
The rest have turned to earth on which we tread.
BY JOSEPH ZENIEH
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
____________________________________
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
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Re. THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
9th Apr 2020 3:59pm
Joseph.
I enjoyed this poem so much.
Each verse offers something to think about.
It's true I've gained so many useful skills I wished I'd developed sooner, and that I have no clue and have given up on the big mysteries, and that unlike those who penned the masterpieces I've cherished I'll likely be forgotten.
At least that's how I interpreted the great lines you've written here.
A great piece.
I enjoyed this poem so much.
Each verse offers something to think about.
It's true I've gained so many useful skills I wished I'd developed sooner, and that I have no clue and have given up on the big mysteries, and that unlike those who penned the masterpieces I've cherished I'll likely be forgotten.
At least that's how I interpreted the great lines you've written here.
A great piece.
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Re. THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
"When one gets older, he becomes quite skilled,"
Unless you say something about what "he" gets skilled in or at, this really doesn't say much of anything.
And leaving aside the fact that "incline" means "to (make someone) feel something or want to do something" , does life incline or decline towards death?.
Then there's your claim that life is "sap", not to mention that sap is something that is or can be "distilled". Things are distilled **from** sap. But life isn't one of them.
And "bats of life"? Seriously?
This is just another of your many didactic pieces in which you present yourself as wiser than anyone and pose as someone who should be taken as an authority on life as you speak rather paternalistically about how life should be lived and how most men don't know how to do it well. Boring. And certainly nowhere poetic.
P.S. I find it entirely amusing that you append "ALL RIGHTS RESERVED" to your posts. Do you really think that anyone who wants to be regarded as a poet with some skill, especially anyone on a non vanity site, would ever want to present your "poetry" as theirs?
Unless you say something about what "he" gets skilled in or at, this really doesn't say much of anything.
And leaving aside the fact that "incline" means "to (make someone) feel something or want to do something" , does life incline or decline towards death?.
Then there's your claim that life is "sap", not to mention that sap is something that is or can be "distilled". Things are distilled **from** sap. But life isn't one of them.
And "bats of life"? Seriously?
This is just another of your many didactic pieces in which you present yourself as wiser than anyone and pose as someone who should be taken as an authority on life as you speak rather paternalistically about how life should be lived and how most men don't know how to do it well. Boring. And certainly nowhere poetic.
P.S. I find it entirely amusing that you append "ALL RIGHTS RESERVED" to your posts. Do you really think that anyone who wants to be regarded as a poet with some skill, especially anyone on a non vanity site, would ever want to present your "poetry" as theirs?
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Re. THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
As I grow old
and now approach my Moiraid end
the writing skills that I was taught,
that I acquired
and used with some elan,
throughout my life
for working up good poetry
have all become like renegades
to me.
Fair metaphors and similes
that once dripped from my pen
without a moment’s thought,
have in these dimming days
become things lost in fogs.
And oh!
no matter how much effort
I expend in search of them,
an easy apprehension of the kinds
of fine, enchanting words
that was much mine when I was young,
that had the envious and subtle power
to make a lover pliable
and eager for my touch
have set themselves beyond
my sight, beyond my grasp.
I’m fraught with an un-mused imagination
that’s been leeched and sapped and drained
by all the witherings of age.
And here, upon my desk,
lies once again accusingly
an empty page.
and now approach my Moiraid end
the writing skills that I was taught,
that I acquired
and used with some elan,
throughout my life
for working up good poetry
have all become like renegades
to me.
Fair metaphors and similes
that once dripped from my pen
without a moment’s thought,
have in these dimming days
become things lost in fogs.
And oh!
no matter how much effort
I expend in search of them,
an easy apprehension of the kinds
of fine, enchanting words
that was much mine when I was young,
that had the envious and subtle power
to make a lover pliable
and eager for my touch
have set themselves beyond
my sight, beyond my grasp.
I’m fraught with an un-mused imagination
that’s been leeched and sapped and drained
by all the witherings of age.
And here, upon my desk,
lies once again accusingly
an empty page.
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Re. THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
9th Apr 2020 6:54pm
Dear Javalini,
Thank you very much for your encouraging words. I think good poets are made by good, and encouraging readers like you. Thank you very much again for your great kindness.
Thank you very much for your encouraging words. I think good poets are made by good, and encouraging readers like you. Thank you very much again for your great kindness.
Re: Re. THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
Good poets are made by their application to the page of the elements of good poetry, just as good musicians are made by their knowledge of what makes for good music, their avoidance of making noise and discordant notes, missing notes, halting rhythms, being flat, etc. when they play their instruments, and by practicing their craft until they show that they are truly skilled in producing it, not by the flattery of others.
If you truly want to write well, I suggest that your pick up, digest, and put into practice what is said about writing poetry well and avoiding writing it poorly, in Stephen Fry's _The Ode Less Travelled_. But then again, you are convinced that you already know **all** there is to know about writing well, aren't you, so I'm wasting my electronic beat suggesting that you read it.
If you truly want to write well, I suggest that your pick up, digest, and put into practice what is said about writing poetry well and avoiding writing it poorly, in Stephen Fry's _The Ode Less Travelled_. But then again, you are convinced that you already know **all** there is to know about writing well, aren't you, so I'm wasting my electronic beat suggesting that you read it.
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Re. THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
9th Apr 2020 7:43pm
Dear Baldwin,
1- incline: According to COLLINS COBUILD YORK ENGLISH DICTIONARY, incline: v. If you incline to think or actin a particular way ...,you are likely to think or act in that way. 2- According to OXFORD DICTIONARY AND THESAURUS, incline:v. 2-be disposed. I incline to think so. TEND. Please if you don't know a certain point, don't write about it.
2-sap: needs some poetic imagination to be understood.
3-bats of life: Yes, l am serious, but with those who have imagination.
1- incline: According to COLLINS COBUILD YORK ENGLISH DICTIONARY, incline: v. If you incline to think or actin a particular way ...,you are likely to think or act in that way. 2- According to OXFORD DICTIONARY AND THESAURUS, incline:v. 2-be disposed. I incline to think so. TEND. Please if you don't know a certain point, don't write about it.
2-sap: needs some poetic imagination to be understood.
3-bats of life: Yes, l am serious, but with those who have imagination.
Re. THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
"1- incline: According to COLLINS COBUILD YORK ENGLISH DICTIONARY, incline: v. If you incline to think or actin [sic] a particular way ...,you are likely to think or act in that way. 2- According to OXFORD DICTIONARY AND THESAURUS, incline:v. 2-be disposed. I incline to think so. TEND. Please if you don't know a certain point, don't write about it."
Leaving aside how you did not deal with the first point that I raised about your piece (that, BTW, is not about a jewel), I have to say I didn't know that life **thinks** about things or that the dictionaries that you've cited were denoting what the verb means when its subject is something other than persons (selective reading, anyone?) .
But thanks for letting me know this fact. And thanks for once again besmirching my character by noting that the reason I have problems with what you write is that I am dull and lack imagination. And thanks also for noting that to understand what you are writing about, one has to do some work that a reader should not have to do, i.e., fill in some meanings that you left unstated. But isn't that a sign that you did not do the job that a poet is to do if he or she wants readers to grasp what he/she is talking about, i.e., communicate effectively?
And I wonder if you know that the syntax of your statement "3-bats of life: Yes, l am serious, but with those who have imagination" that you are serious only with people who have imagination and no one else AND that you misread what I was asking you when I said "Seriously??". What characteristic of life is denoted by "bats"?
Leaving aside how you did not deal with the first point that I raised about your piece (that, BTW, is not about a jewel), I have to say I didn't know that life **thinks** about things or that the dictionaries that you've cited were denoting what the verb means when its subject is something other than persons (selective reading, anyone?) .
But thanks for letting me know this fact. And thanks for once again besmirching my character by noting that the reason I have problems with what you write is that I am dull and lack imagination. And thanks also for noting that to understand what you are writing about, one has to do some work that a reader should not have to do, i.e., fill in some meanings that you left unstated. But isn't that a sign that you did not do the job that a poet is to do if he or she wants readers to grasp what he/she is talking about, i.e., communicate effectively?
And I wonder if you know that the syntax of your statement "3-bats of life: Yes, l am serious, but with those who have imagination" that you are serious only with people who have imagination and no one else AND that you misread what I was asking you when I said "Seriously??". What characteristic of life is denoted by "bats"?
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Re. THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
9th Apr 2020 8:40pm
Dear Baldwin,
Before telling others how to write good poetry, or compose good music, you should instruct them to do that in good prose. You have made several mistakes in the two paragraphs in which you instruct me to write good poetry. First correct your mistakes, and then l will be ready to read your instructions.
Before telling others how to write good poetry, or compose good music, you should instruct them to do that in good prose. You have made several mistakes in the two paragraphs in which you instruct me to write good poetry. First correct your mistakes, and then l will be ready to read your instructions.
Re: Re. THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
This is rich from someone whose prose is often grammar gaffed and incomprehensible. Why don't you use your imagination to to figure out what I, according to you, said incorrectly.
And why should I instruct a musician to do good music in prose or a poet to write in prose (ah your syntax!) Can music (or poetry) be set out in prose?
And why should I instruct a musician to do good music in prose or a poet to write in prose (ah your syntax!) Can music (or poetry) be set out in prose?
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Re. THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
9th Apr 2020 8:48pm
I ask you to have a look at the comment of the first poet who read my poem. I think his comment is completely different from yours because he has no grudges.
Re: Re. THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
You are once again committing the fallacy known as "poisoning the well" (an apparent favorite of yours along with the use of ad hominems).
Leaving aside the question of whether I have grudges, let alone whether they are legitimate ones if do,
I note for the umpteenth time that whether or not I have grudges has no bearing on whether or not my remarks about the way you write are untrue. Nor does not having grudges mean that a comment is accurate.
And don't you mean above "the first person who **commented** on my 'poem'"? How you know he was the first person to **read** it is beyond me. But then again, you pose yourself as omnsicient. So who am I to question your knowledge of this matter.
Leaving aside the question of whether I have grudges, let alone whether they are legitimate ones if do,
I note for the umpteenth time that whether or not I have grudges has no bearing on whether or not my remarks about the way you write are untrue. Nor does not having grudges mean that a comment is accurate.
And don't you mean above "the first person who **commented** on my 'poem'"? How you know he was the first person to **read** it is beyond me. But then again, you pose yourself as omnsicient. So who am I to question your knowledge of this matter.
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Re. THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
I’m not aware that life’s a thing
that, even in a man’s old age,
is strongly moved
to come unto the verge of death,
which is apparently the claim you make
and think is true
when you
post here the phrase
that “life inclines to be about to end”
(a slanted take).
That every living thing
eventually expires
is simply fact.
It’s hardly something
living things, or life itself,
desires to be their goal.
As Hindus note, and Genesis as well,
the aim of life
is to increase itself
to generate fecundity.
But as we know
you are the master of all poetry
and given your intensive posturing
as sole possessor of omnisciency
about the ways
the world is set to work,
who am I to give the nay
to anything you say?
P.S. If you meant to speak about how the skilled man is also (often) one who is approaching the end of **his** life, you haven't done so. Instead, you switched topics to "what it is that life **inclines** to. So once again your work is incohesive.
that, even in a man’s old age,
is strongly moved
to come unto the verge of death,
which is apparently the claim you make
and think is true
when you
post here the phrase
that “life inclines to be about to end”
(a slanted take).
That every living thing
eventually expires
is simply fact.
It’s hardly something
living things, or life itself,
desires to be their goal.
As Hindus note, and Genesis as well,
the aim of life
is to increase itself
to generate fecundity.
But as we know
you are the master of all poetry
and given your intensive posturing
as sole possessor of omnisciency
about the ways
the world is set to work,
who am I to give the nay
to anything you say?
P.S. If you meant to speak about how the skilled man is also (often) one who is approaching the end of **his** life, you haven't done so. Instead, you switched topics to "what it is that life **inclines** to. So once again your work is incohesive.
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Re. THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL
10th Apr 2020 9:19pm
He says
(and note, the deixis here)
“A lot of guests have passed along this life”.
So does this mean,
in logic’s light and that of syntax, too,
that home owners
have never traveled anywhere along
the trail
that needs to be set out as specified
if understanding of what he’s trying to say
should then prevail?
I mean he needs to say
just **which**
of all the many “lifes” there are
within the world he is referring to
for this here line to make some sense,
and not to mention written well..
And is it really true
that few **can** know
how “bats of life” are trapped,
especially when it is NOT clear
just what the referent of “bats of life”
may be
or why a trapping of this type of bat
is anything
that people ought to know,
yes, even if they have ability or need
for doing so?
(and note, the deixis here)
“A lot of guests have passed along this life”.
So does this mean,
in logic’s light and that of syntax, too,
that home owners
have never traveled anywhere along
the trail
that needs to be set out as specified
if understanding of what he’s trying to say
should then prevail?
I mean he needs to say
just **which**
of all the many “lifes” there are
within the world he is referring to
for this here line to make some sense,
and not to mention written well..
And is it really true
that few **can** know
how “bats of life” are trapped,
especially when it is NOT clear
just what the referent of “bats of life”
may be
or why a trapping of this type of bat
is anything
that people ought to know,
yes, even if they have ability or need
for doing so?
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