hush brush
Posted: 16 March 2012
Word Count: 96
Summary: A short poem called 'Memory Peel' will follow this one shortly. I hope you enjoy reading them. Andre
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Hush Brush
Milky coat fish belly pup
Lamping ghostly cloaked powder
Crete apparel clogging cloud
Broken journey to cover up
Two small hills become won
One Hundred bristles on parade
Meticulous attention to detail
Uniformed handled moustache
Raking in the silent venues
Between slabs of sacrifice
And tea on the carpet
Hush brush shushing pushing onwards
Infinite sweating circles
Democracizing piles styling
Sleepy stump
Peaceful dusty drawbridge
I cant see I know I am
The shadow of your trophy pit
Black tip finger teeth
frothy tiger sheep
Unlucky despite serving hand
Hissing past a missing bit
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Comments by other Members
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 wordman at 18:39 on 16 March 2012
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Hello You may like to read this work before bedtime instead of counting sheep! Andre
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 Dave Morehouse at 19:04 on 17 March 2012
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Andre - I'm confessing ignorance upfront. I am going to need a little help on this one. I like the scattered images and the widespread use of aliteration but beyond that this one eludes me. In the early going I thought there was a metaphor for a badger or perhaps a hedgehog. I don't see it carried through to the end so it's likely I have missed the mark with that call. As I searched for more clues I simply became lost, alone and in the woods if you will. Perhaps when I revisit in a couple of days I can see it with fresh eyes or glean some bits from what others throw in. Dave
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 James Graham at 21:00 on 17 March 2012
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So far, I'm lost in the woods too. There seems to be an actual brush with a handle in there somewhere, sweeping and cleaning, but most of the poem is baffling. You make up some of the lines with several words that seem to have nothing connecting them. Is the first stanza a statement about language, about things that seem to make sense but don't? Is it a code or a cryptic puzzle? That's about as much as I can say right now - but I'll keep trying to find a way in.
James.
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TessaF at 15:43 on 18 March 2012
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Hi Andre
Because you have said this is a poem to read instead of counting sheep I am wondering if you have filled the page with mellifluous, sometime soporific words like a nonsensical bedtime story. I have often thought when reading bedtime stories to my children when they were very young, that I could read out anything as long as it was in a hushed, gentle tone.
If that is what you are going for then I think you should try to connect your thoughts and images a lot more. I do love the idea of a hush brush painting children to sleep though.
T
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 V`yonne at 16:24 on 18 March 2012
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I think some of the images worked really well as a kind of fall asleep dreamland - the more visual ones especially
| Milky coat fish belly pup |
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reminded me of a seal
One Hundred bristles on parade
Meticulous attention to detail
Uniformed handled moustache |
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an idea of brushes on the march their bristles hair.
| Peaceful dusty drawbridge |
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All the more childlike images I really 'got'.
Some of the others were adult:
Raking in the silent venues
Between slabs of sacrifice |
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and
Infinite sweating circles
Democracizing piles styling |
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I think these were harder to grasp but what I got from it as a whole was a kind of everyman lullaby. It sort of reminded me of delerium too.
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wordman at 21:57 on 18 March 2012
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Hi all, this started with an imaginary sweeper with a silent brush sweeping things under the carpet if you will. The sweeper trying to glimpse the truth in the theater of war and cover the truth up at the same time. I kind of imagined this marching brush busily sweeping away in the dark, dust settling after some sort of military skirmish hurriedly covering the truth. That is the truth on the ground. Sorry if it does not make sense. Andre
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TessaF at 09:41 on 19 March 2012
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Andre please do not be disheartened. For me the idea of the hush brush conjured up images of children sleeping and I read the poem with that idea firmly in my mind - for instance One Hundred bristles on parade
Meticulous attention to detail
Uniformed handled moustache |
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I thought referred to toy soldiers.
I love your explanation and I think you should put this sweeper more concretely in your poem - the whole idea of someone sweeping up after battle is very poetic and a very strong image. If you opened with that and tried to link the images more then you have a good, strong start to your poem.
War is nonsensical and I think it would be good to keep a sense of that in your poem but I can't fit some of your images into war e.g. 'milky coat fish belly pup' - I don't really know what that refers to whereas 'broken journey to cover up' would be well placed in the open stanza - it's a simple line but conjures up a lot - broken men, the brokeness of war, broken hearts and souls.
Hope this helps
T
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gard at 14:59 on 19 March 2012
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Hi WM
I did not think of sleep or war when I read this piece. I actually thought of you painting. The last stanza made me think of rejection in love. I agree with Tessa there are some wonderful poetic images in this work and IMHO it just needs some concrete words to remove some of the mist to reveal the poetry.
Love the phrase Hush Brush...favorite line
"I can't see I know I am
the shadow of your trophy pit"
G
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wordman at 21:29 on 26 March 2012
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Hi sorry I have not been able to respond to your comments been extremely busy with work etc. Thanks for all your comments they are indeed very helpful & make me think about the Hush Brush poem. Will be uploading 'Memory Peel' shortly & look forward to your comments. Most of all looking forward hope to having a look at what you all have been writing!
Hello James when I feel a bit lost I always go into a wood I usually find something that points me in the right direction. I guess I can relate to how you feel about hush brush and its puzzling words although not sure if I intend any cryptic or coded messages.. I agree that it could be a lot more accessible but my writing is rather like my paintings what you see is what you get. However its good for me to learn from your comments and I feel as time goes on I will make more acceptable poems as a result of your comments and the groups comments too.. I am a beginner at writing and find it very exciting and at the moment enjoy the 'random' nature of some of the lines in my writing. I am finding 'my way' at the moment and enjoy being part of the poetry group. The first stanza is not a statement about language its quite simply a reference spilt guts ie when you gut a fish the bits spoiling the pure white bellie, the pup line is relating to 'young' soldiers and the rest is about sweeping in artificial light and broken journey to cover up is the idea of an accident and it being quietly hushed over. I can go on and on about my thoughts hush brush is possibly the start of a longer piece of work. Interesting thoughts though. Andre
Hello Dave I like the badger & hedgehog reference fine animals. Possible connection with burrows or tunnels. Some brushes are made from badger hair but not heard of brushes made from hedgehog bristles. Kind of reminds me of Rupert annuals. Please do not be too baffled. Andre
Hello Tessa good comments will give them some thought & put them into action. I agree with your comment about broken journey to cover up being in the opening stanza. Dead soldiers are like 'children sleeping' especially to their mothers. However they are not toys. War is serious for all concerned including the innocent. My brother in laws brother is a lieutenant colonel in the Royal Marines he is quite a guy! They are waisted in Afghanistan if you ask me. Anyway I have strong interest in soldiering but deplore the futility of war. My little poem at least made you think of some things connected to what I was trying to convey. Enjoyed your comments thanks. Andre
Hello Vyonne, not sure I intended an everyman lullaby but delirium is an interesting observation. Fall asleep dreamland a strange afterlife space perhaps.. intriguing.
Hi Gina thanks painting with words? Does concrete apparel not work for you? I will work on this poem it will be longer as Its something I feel strongly about.. you found the mist then, I was hoping for a dusty feel, the drawbridge/I cant see was meant to be the light fading out during the final moments of ones life and the trophy pit linking to the trophy aspect to war. thanks again will think about your comments. Andre
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James Graham at 15:11 on 27 March 2012
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Andre, thanks for your long reply explaining some aspects of your poem, I'll add a further comment soon. You can post your other poem meantime; so long as you don't delete 'Hush Brush' from your personal WW archive, I'll still be able to comment.
James.
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James Graham at 15:34 on 28 March 2012
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Andre, I’ve had another good think about this poem, as well as the explanations you’ve given, and I think I can see two related ideas. They’re related in curious ways which are hard to define, but odd connections are what poets deal in. Some of this has been hinted at by other members in their comments.
There are variations on the brush motif - brushing, sweeping, the appearance of brushes. That’s the first thread, and the other is war. Having said that, I can only go so far and no further; I can’t analyse the whole poem even after reading it many times.
The first stanza still defeats me. I try to see connections: ‘fish belly’ is obvious, and maybe a thread running through ‘coat’, ‘cloaked’ and ‘apparel’. But I can’t get a grip on even one of the lines; ‘broken journey’ could be an accident, or a soldier’s journey broken by death, but then I’m lost with the idea that the broken journey is ‘to cover up’. To cover up what?
The two threads seem best connected in the second stanza.
Two small hills become won
One Hundred bristles on parade
Meticulous attention to detail
Uniformed handled moustache |
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In the first line here, we have one of the conundrums of war. ‘Two small hills’ are ‘won’ after an assault; but who has won them? The troops, in a sense, even if some of them are dead. Yet the hills are territory won by them for someone else - for political leaders, perhaps corporate leaders, oil companies who want to run a pipeline through there. Also, the hills are small - a huge effort and expense of life is put into a very small territorial gain, which may be, in Hamlet’s words, ‘not room enough and continent to hide the slain’. Finally, if we think about brushes, the two small hills might be little heaps of dust brushed together into one; this would underline the insignificance of the hills taken in battle.
‘One Hundred’ reminds me of Tennyson’s ‘six hundred’ in ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’. In the same line we have a very good metaphor of soldiers on parade described as stiff bristles on a brush, and we’re reminded of their ‘meticulous attention to detail’ which is a common factor between armies and careful cleaning jobs. The stanza ends with a variation of the brush metaphor, a military officer’s moustache now being compared with a brush.
Raking in the silent venues
Between slabs of sacrifice
And tea on the carpet |
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I’ve only some tenuous clues about this: still on the war theme, the ‘two small hills’ and other locations might be ‘venues’ which are ‘raked in’ (a variation on brushing) by armies. These venues aren’t silent during battle, though maybe before and after battle. ‘Sacrifice’ is significant, but ‘slabs’ of sacrifice? Sacrificial altars? I don’t know. ‘Tea on the carpet’ might translate into ‘blood on the battlefield’, implying that leaders don’t attach any more importance to spilt blood than to spilt tea.
There’s not much else I can say. I can see what you mean by the ‘dusty drawbridge’, and the two lines which follow it, from your explanation. These are good lines. But the first four lines, the last four, and one or two little bits in between (e.g. ‘sleepy stump’ ) I still don’t get at all.
One could theorise a kind of poetry in which the reader is not expected to make connections between one word and another - in which it would be misleading to try to add words to, say, ‘Lamping ghostly cloaked powder’ in order to make them into a sentence, formulate a statement. In this hypothetical poetry, at least part of a poem would consist of a series of words which have to be taken in isolation from any other words in the same line - have to be allowed to have their separate connotations. ‘Pup’ for example can be a young dog or a young soldier. Fine. Leave it at that. However, it’s hard to resist trying to make connections between a series of words in a line, then trying to connect that line with the next. In some parts of this poem, that’s something I’ve not been able to do. I’m left with the same feeling I have when I’ve failed to complete the Times crossword!
It will be interesting to see your next poem.
James.
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