The water went for pistachios
and the firefighting kit to Ukraine.
Now the mayor had gone to Ghana
while the rest of you woke up to woke.
May the Red Hot Chili Peppers forgive me.
Oh Mark you really want to spoil a promising poem by using a pointless meaningless abstraction not only one but twice. I am disappointed. Poetically it cheapens the effect and politically it does not get beyond propaganda
Grammatically Now the mayor HAS gone would be more accurate
Don’t agree. Chronologically, the mayor had already gone to Ghana by the time everyone woke up. In the ‘has’ tense you prefer, it implies that going to Ghana was somehow related to the fires, which it wasn’t.
As to the pointless, meaningless abstraction used not only one but twice, I don’t know to what you refer, I assume the last line because the word woke appears twice. In the literal sense, it means awakening as in emerging from sleep to hear about raging fires around L.A. and in the metaphorical sense it means becoming sharply aware of the practical consequences of acting politically correctly, which spelled out, includes, inter alia, not clearing forest debris and sending some fire fighting equipment to Ukraine.
I think you are the one spoiling the poem with vapid and insouciant pronouncements. In the future, rather don’t bother as I find nothing constructive in your comments.
Thanks for the reply. Sorry it pissed you off so much. Thanks for your definition at least you did, most people don’t bother or can’t . It is abstract to me in the sense that using words like love, soul or freedom are used in poetry. I still don’ t agree with your definition but that is irrelevant. From the poem your metaphorical meaning can only be guessed at. Also still disagree tense wise but it is your poem so of course it was only my opinion. No worries. I wish it bothered me that you feel so personally strongly about my comment and somewhat unnecessarily and pointlessly about me personally. But so what it is the internet and we thousands of kilometers apart and this is a poem not LA burning down. As always and sincerely I wish you well and will vontinue to silently read your often excellent poems. But then again maybe excellent is also unhelpful. Sorry again to bug you
Ach, Dave, carry on firing your barbs, I should be used to it after more than a decade. I still don’t agree with your take but whatever - it beats the back-slapper approach. Cheers, Mark.