Meditation

[Wjames]

Edit:

My roommate’s socks 
penetrate walls
and envelop rooms.
 
His morning routine
is my 6 am alarm clock;
thumping into shorts,
bumping into tables,
and blending a protein shake
on his way to the gym.
 
Our DVR is filled with banal 
sit-coms, murder mysteries, 
and reality TV. 
 
When he leaves a dirty knife in the sink, 
I smile and think.

Original:

My roommate’s socks
penetrate walls
and envelope rooms.
 
His morning jog
is a cacophonic alarm clock;
thumping into shorts,
bumping into tables,
and shouting pump-up songs
in an out of key reminder
of my own laziness.
 
Our DVR is filled with banal
sit-coms, murder mysteries,
and reality TV.
 
When he leaves a dirty knife in the sink,
I smile and think.

[rayheinrich]

__Meditation__  

01  My roommate's socks
02  penetrate walls
03  and envelope rooms.
04  
05  His morning jog
06  is a cacophonic alarm clock;
07  thumping into shorts,
08  bumping into tables,
09  and shouting pump-up songs
10  in an out of key reminder
11  of my own laziness.
12  
13  Our DVR is filled with banal
14  sit-coms, murder mysteries,
15  and reality TV.
16  
17  When he leaves a dirty knife in the sink,
18  I smile and think.


1-3 I love these lines -- the mental image they conjure is funny, surreally descriptive,
     and oh-how-true of socks gone rouge.

5-6 But you need to be more logical with these two lines. His preparations for his morning jog,
not the jog itself, are the alarm clock. But I'd hate to use a line like: "His preparations for his
morning jog". Maybe you can dream up a more succinct phrase? And I think having it be
"my alarm clock" instead "a alarm clock" would be better. The rhythm of "Cacophonic" doesn't
work for me, I think another word would serve better (not that I know what it is ).

7-9 good

10-11 Another logical problem:
Are the songs HIS out of key attempts to remind you of your laziness?
Or
Do his out of key songs remind YOU of your laziness.
You need to straighten that out.

13-15 good

17-18  ARE JUST WONDERFUL! Don't change a thing.
These two lines perfectly compliment 1-3.

These five lines project a tiny little Surrealist film in my head every time I read them.

[Wjames]

Thanks Ray,

I'll do some work on the middle section, I do think it could be clearer.

I really like the idea of playing with the "Premeditated" murder thing, I want to make this one work well.

[Mark A Becker]

You wrote:  

I really like the idea of playing with the "Premeditated" murder thing....

Wj-
Then how about titling this one "Premeditating".  It would help tie the end back to the title, and provide its own, possibly murderous, definition of "premeditating"... Just add pre- and -ing...

,,, Mark

[Wjames]

You wrote:  

I really like the idea of playing with the "Premeditated" murder thing....

Wj-
Then how about titling this one "Premeditating".  It would help tie the end back to the title, and provide its own, possibly murderous, definition of "premeditating"... Just add pre- and -ing...

,,, Mark

I like the idea of someone contemplating/envisioning a murder being a form of meditation/stress-relief. Everyone (I hope, or else I'm a violent brute) has thought at one point or another, "I want to kill him!" when particularly annoyed, or upset with someone.

That's the main thing I want to get across with this one. I think the title sort of connecting to "premeditated" is just a nice extra layer to the thing.

If I changed the title to "premeditated" I think it would make people read the poem more literally as just being about murder, and not about the stress relief (or, form of meditation) such thoughts can be.

Thanks reading and commenting Mark, more thoughts are always useful.

[rayheinrich]

Like those ideas.

I think if you want to go the "premeditated" route then "premeditation" might be a better choice.
But once you see either of the pre... ones the root meaning of meditation gets lost.
Part of what I like about the poem is the ironic twist it gives to the title, "meditation".

But, if going in that direction, if wanting to signal intent: I'd keep "meditation" and add a modifier to it
like "wicked meditation". Or, to keep the twist, a seemingly positive modifier like "hopeful meditation".

ray

[Wjames]

I've made a little edit to this poem based on your crits Ray. I think the roommate's annoyingness is a little more mundane and realistic now, which I think better compliments the surrealism of the intended murder bit.

I like the title as is, imagining murder as a form of meditation is enough of an idea for a poem (for me) even without the "pre-meditated" wordplay.

[rayheinrich]

I still get the giggles when I read these lines:

"My roommate’s socks
penetrate walls
and envelope rooms."

Maybe you should omit the word "banal".
Seems unnecessary as sit-coms and reality TV are the
very definition of banal and murder-mysteries are falsely
blamed as they're some of the most intellectually active
things we've got going.

I like how it's turned out, but:
On re-reading it, after a bit of time has past; I'm wondering if most first-time readers
(ones that ain't been in the trenches such as we), could hope to pick up on the intent?
That knife doesn't seemed linked enough to the contemplation of murder.

You already have a way to make it more obvious:

Change:
"Our DVR is filled with banal
sit-coms, murder mysteries,
and reality TV. "

to emphasize the murder mysteries:

"Our DVR is filled with
sit-coms, reality TV,
and murder mysteries... "

something like that

[samyarb]

"My roommate’s socks 
penetrate walls
and envelope rooms."   Everyone seems to like this...I like the idea, but when I read "envelope rooms" it made me think of envelope rooms literally...like a post office. 

"thumping into shorts,

bumping into tables"     I'm also not a fan of this line. I've never thumped into shorts.

I do like the last line "when he leaves a dirty knife in the sink..." I think that it really works.

[rayheinrich]

"My roommate’s socks 
penetrate walls
and envelope rooms."   Everyone seems to like this...I like the idea, but when I read "envelope rooms" it made me think of envelope rooms literally...like a post office. 

"thumping into shorts,

bumping into tables"     I'm also not a fan of this line. I've never thumped into shorts.

I do like the last line "when he leaves a dirty knife in the sink..." I think that it really works.

samyarb pointed out a typo.
"Envelope" is that paper thing you use to put snail-nail in.
"Envelop" is the correct word for "surround completely" etc.

[Wjames]

Thanks for your thoughts Samyarb, and good catch on the envelop thing. I made the same mistake with breath/breathe in another poem, I just assumed they were spelled the same way (plus, spell check didn't help because they're actual words).

[rayheinrich]

Thanks for your thoughts Samyarb, and good catch on the "envelop" thing. I made the same mistake with breath/breathe in another poem, I just assumed they were spelled the same way (plus, spell check didn't help because they're actual words).

Off-topic on contextual spell checkers:

There's a free program called "Grammarly Spell Checker... " that considers the words located
around a word when it decides if it's used correctly. It works on Chrome or Firefox browsers.
I'm sure there must be others. My Dragon Dictate (yes, I speak my writing) does it too(of course
it has the additional problem of needing to tell the difference between 'four', 'for', and 'fore'/there,
they're, their/your, you're...). Microsoft Word 7 and 10 both do this as well; I'm sure there must
be others of these as well.

My Grammarly, by the way, didn't like "good catch on the envelop thing" as you're using a verb
for a noun and suggested "envelope".

Ray

[Jacob]

I'm going to go ahead and agree with the general consensus that the significance of the knife in the sink is not at all apparent. The title is unhelpful in this regard, but I doubt switching it to "Premeditation" or something of the like would be a net gain. While all the images are effective, the narrator's hostility isn't coming through for me. 
It's possible that significantly lengthening the poem would help make it feel more like a list of annoyances and less like an homage to a friend. 
Dropping the "and"s near the ends of stanzas 2 and 3 might also help, grammar nazis be damned, it would make it seem less disjointed, like it's all supposed to be connected, like there is supposed to be a relationship between these four observations.

[rayheinrich]

I'm still for switching "reality TV" and "murder mysteries" to get "murder" closer to that knife.
An ellipsis "murder mysteries..." could help connect the two as well.
And maybe change "dirty" which goes along with washing dishes,
to "sharp" which, at the least, makes one think of cutting.

From:

Our DVR is filled with banal
sitcoms, murder mysteries,
and reality TV.

When he leaves a dirty knife in the sink,
I smile and think.

To:

Our DVR is filled with
sitcoms, reality TV,
and murder mysteries...

When he leaves a sharp knife in the sink,
I smile and think.

[REW]

Hi,

I like the humor in this.  Certain things like the smelly socks penetrating the walls are amusing.  For me I had no problems interpreting the meaning of the dirty knife in the sink.  The meditation in the title could even be a response to the dark and evil thoughts lurking in response to the knife in the sink, to calm down oneself from doing anything rash.

I looked at your original version.  I miss the singing along to the pump-up music out of key in the original.  That would be highly annoying.  I am not sure about the stanza referencing the tv shows.  Perhaps this could be substituted with something more annoying?  I know reality TV is bad and all, but you need something pretty provoking before the murderous thoughts.  Maybe you could even include both the jogging routine and obnoxiously blending the shake?  Does he have an orange tan?  Does he do any fancy flexing in front of the mirror?  Ask you to shave his back?

All in all this is enjoyable.

Edit:

My roommate’s socks 
penetrate walls
and envelop rooms.
 
His morning routine
is my 6 am alarm clock;
thumping into shorts,
bumping into tables,
and blending a protein shake
on his way to the gym.
 
Our DVR is filled with banal 
sit-coms, murder mysteries, 
and reality TV. 
 
When he leaves a dirty knife in the sink, 
I smile and think.

Original:

My roommate’s socks
penetrate walls
and envelope rooms.
 
His morning jog
is a cacophonic alarm clock;
thumping into shorts,
bumping into tables,
and shouting pump-up songs
in an out of key reminder
of my own laziness.
 
Our DVR is filled with banal
sit-coms, murder mysteries,
and reality TV.
 
When he leaves a dirty knife in the sink,
I smile and think.

[Wjames]

Thanks for your thoughts guys.

I'm definitely going to make at least one more edit on this one, I haven't thought about it in a while, and that's usually a good time to come at it with a fresh perspective.