Bumping this up in case someone wants to take a crack at it??

Norm,

I'm afraid I'll have to join Eric in the boat of "out of my genre". I was with you until the 'run-on', but trying to make heads or tails out of it has me spinning still. I loved the... unable to receive absolution from the holy water from the stream of consciousness 
that runs behind the backyard of my mind. That is brilliant. My only thought would concern the name Sir Real; I am assuming you are going for "cereal" and wonder if the latinized accenting (re AL... I can't do it on my keyboard) would enhance that allusion. I may be wrong about that, but it won't be the first time.

Doug

Joseph,

Thanks for posting --- I am not at liberty yet to go into the "publishing" thing. I promise to keep y'all informed, though. ~smile~

Norm

Eric,

Just having your response on a poem of mine often is all the input I need LOL.

Norm

Thank you, Richie --- glad you enjoyed it.

Norm

Hard to tell, with a work of this nature, but 

"Everyone retired, 
but sleep alluded me."

Sure you didn't mean 'eluded'?

I'm stopping.  Truth is, this is the kind of work that eludes me...I see the clever nuances, the references of crossmatched artists at crossed purposes, and I get it...but I don't feel it.  

What's harder...I can't tell (as with allude/elude) what's intentional and what is error; I took the run on (as opposed to 'run-on') sentence to be intentional, as a run on a hot stock.

Worst of all, I recognize it...as part of the modernist trend whose popularity has nearly taken my own style out of the market for print.

Sorry, Norm, I'm the wrong critic for this sort of work.  By my own rules of crit (as shown in Critical Scripture) I'm just not qualified.

I was drawn in by the title, but I'm thrown by the work like a bronc whose moves I just can't time...and I've lost my seat.

Dean ---

I appreciate your input. You are correct about the run-on >>> that would be proper. Good catch.

The comma after poet is also a good point but I am not sure about the one after water. I think the double "from's" tends to make us think there is a pause there, but there really isn't. That one's a toss-up (note hyphen).

Yes -- this is all about the puns and gimmicks from the title right down to the stream. But there is a market out there for this and my people seem to know their stuff.  I'll keep you informed --- in about 3-months LOL.

Thanks so much for your advice,

Norm

Note: Well, this one is going out to 11 publications in two weeks so maybe some of you will offer up whatever you can. My writing service loves it but I want more input.  Thanks --- this is FIREBOX.

Sir Real

I am Sir Real and I was invited 
to a sleep-over organic cocktail party
complete with poem sandwiches, multi-grain bred and raised,
followed by just desserts and misplaced modifiers.

Together everyone ate Dolly Madison

ice cream 
and clocks were  
melting on
grand pianos;

A discussion pursued on literary subjunctives:

what if
... Flaubert had conjured up Holden Caufield.
... Shakespeare had written 32 Star Trek episodes.
... J E P and D had also written the Story of O.
... or, there never really was a sled named "Rosebud".

Everyone retired,
but sleep alluded me.
An iron-clad griffin had perched itself
above my chamber door
making anti-semantic remarks about the sin tax
another imposed on my own free verse a run on sentence 
was imposed on this poet
unable to receive absolution from the holy water
from the stream of consciousness
that runs behind the backyard of my mind.

© Norman S. Pollack  4/2003