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Juliet


 
I always whined to Juliet
   that I did not have a boyfriend.
 
Flailed arms in the air like
   I was flagging down a helicopter.
 
And my voice cracked
   when I spoke of my appearance.
 
I gasped the finale, waiting
   for her to respond.
 
A look into the green of her eyes  
 
   told me everything.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Author notes

~~~~~~Juliet is the name of my cat~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No adjectives AT ALL. (well, except for the word 'my'...can't seem to figure out how to write it without)

For inspiration, read the works of Richard Brautigan.


~Just a little scribble.....in a series of scribbles....

In a list

constructive comments are much obliged!!!

    : , Your review:

    Comment Suggestion: What is your your first impression?
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Comments

1 - 41 of 41

  • Thomas Scott gold member
    September 10

    Edit | Reply
    Good one. Impossible to stay out of this after you've read the first sentence.
    The form you've chosen, spaced two-line sentences up to the end helps the reader tick off the points.
    I love the idea of flagging down a helicopter.
    This is a revealed truth. Makes me feel like I'm leafing through a young woman's diary. Sounds great read aloud.


  • hiraeth
    July 8

    Edit | Reply
    No adjectives? But green is an adjective! Well, perhaps it's technically a noun if it's "green of," like another commenter said. Still, it's remarkable how you've written something great WITHOUT the crutch of all those adjectives so many poets like to abuse. Your second stanza is especially fantastic.

    I talk to my pets and name things after Shakespeare characters, too. My computer was Ophelia; she liked to die on me. I renamed her Helena and she's worked well ever since.


    • Sailor Ptolema silver member
      July 8
      Edit | Reply
      In this case, green becomes a substitute for iris ...so, noun .

      Glad you liked it. It was fun. I recommend trying it. It's a challenge

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH That's pretty great
      Ya, Juliet is a royally pretentious cat. Likes to pout if I don't pet her when she wants. I always talk to her about stuff Generally I hold our conversations in Spanish, and I swear she understands me, unlike the rest of my family lol.

      • hiraeth
        July 8
        Edit | Reply
        Are you, like, my long-lost twin of awesomeness? I swear my dog understands me; I almost always speak Spanish to her, sometimes French or Welsh or (on rare occasions) English. My family thinks I'm mad for it.

        • Sailor Ptolema silver member
          July 8
          Edit | Reply
          AH! I think you might be . yay! I love Spanish, I love saying things like "Donde esta el bano" to my mom in a way that makes it sound like I'm cussing her out. LOL. She always gets mad and demands to know what names I'm calling her .

          My family thinks I'm crazy for speaking it, so I speak it more. And frequently blast Spanish music from my room or in the car

  • adsaige gold member
    July 6

    Edit | Reply
    ha, absolutely lovely. i would
    do the same to my two male
    cats, but they would stare
    at me like an idiot or secretly
    laugh at me in that cat way of
    theirs.

    bloody brill!

    *rocker*

  • Cannonsfire silver member
    July 5
    Edit | Reply
    This is so cute lol I loved it. Love, C


  • crimson-river
    July 5
    Edit | Reply

    hmmm...

    It's OK
    The whole boyfriend part threw me off.
    short, sweet....

  • Elvis
    July 5
    Edit | Reply
    Excellent!


  • Woodchuck4400 silver member
    July 5
    Edit | Reply
    Nice job. Simple, short, and clearly written.


  • Malabu
    July 5

    Edit | Reply
    you did an excellent job with this pt...being a friend of adjectives... I must say...I feel a bit lonely not seeing them here...and Im sure juliet told you that you are a very pretty and sweet lady....Bravo!!
    Mally


  • Keith
    July 5

    Edit | Reply
    Here's a thought to ponder. Is green an adjective in "the green of her eyes". Are colours adjectives by their very nature? Can a colour exist as a noun?

    Consider the following:

    The child would not eat her greens
    The golfer drove the green in two strokes.

    I'm only doing this to tease you. Have you read Catch22, where Yossarian censors the letters home from the military base?

    "All the officer patients in the ward were forced to censor letters written by all the enlisted-men patients, who were kept in residence in wards of their own. It was a monotonous job, and Yossarian was disappointed to learn that the lives of enlisted men were only slightly more interesting that the lives of officers. After the first day he had no curiosity at all. To break the monotony he invented games. Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective. The next day he made war on articles. He reached a much higher plane of creativity the following day when he blacked out everything in the letters but a, an and the. That erected more dynamic intralinear tensions, he felt, and in just about every case left a message far more universal. Soon he was proscribing parts of salutation and signatures and leaving the text untouched. One time he blacked out all but the salutation "Dear Mary" from a letter, and at the bottom he wrote, "I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappmann, Chaplain, U.S. Army." A.T. Tappmann was the group chaplain's name.

    "When he had exhausted all possibilities in the letters, he began attacking the names and addresses on the envelopes, obliterating whole homes and streets, annihilating entire metropolises with careless flicks of his wrist as though he were God. Catch-22 required that each censored letter bear the censoring officer's name. Most letters he didn't read at all. On those he didn't read at all, he wrote his own name. On those he did read, he wrote, "Washington Irving." When that grew monotonous he wrote, "Irving Washington." Censoring the envelopes had serious repercussions, produced a ripple of anxiety on some ethereal military echelon that floated a C.I.D. man back into the ward posing as a patient. They all knew he was a C.I.D. man because he kept inquiring about an officer named Irving or Washington and because after his first day there he wouldn't censor letters. He found them too monotonous."

    By the way, you have penned a very good poem here. Or should I say: poem doubleplus ungood?

    Best Wishes.


    • zillion
      July 5
      Edit | Reply
      "doubleplus ungood?"

      some Newspeak from 1984 going on here?


  • notorious silver member
    July 5
    Edit | Reply
    There's nothing wrong with being single. (:

    That first stanza is terribly amusing (and how cool that Juliet is your cat's name!! Much cooler as a pet's name. It sounds like a tagline for a chicklit book (in a good way).

    "I gasped my finale"
    Very nicely done Kangaroo (heh, I'll just say the whole thing when I feel like it).

    "waiting for her to respond"<--The only part that leaves me with a blah taste in my mouth (but only mildly). Not a big deal.

    Everything else is exceeelllllent (picture Mr. Burns saying that)

    Despite the poem ending with 'everything', I felt like I wanted to know another something...which is good. Intrigue is nice.


  • Polaja
    July 4

    Edit | Reply
    I wish you the best in the contest (although I'm sure by now you've realised that you don't need me wishing you well do win these things ) - I really like this, it sounds different for not having any adjectives - but you have done it amazingly and I like the contemporary raw feel that it gives the piece well done!

    Keep writing

    Polly


  • penman gold member
    July 4
    Edit | Reply

    Excellent

    What a fabulous creation. So very well done. Best of luck in the contest

  • pithyaplomb
    July 4

    Edit | Reply

    very real.

    your words, here? for me this is the everyday life all of us share, but in a more intimate and wisdomed way. very fresh, even more so real. Purely relatable in every sense of what we experience as yesterday, the today for tomorrows. take care always,
    ~pithyAplomB. !!!!!


  • Dienush Greeters member
    July 4

    Edit | Reply
    Wow I love how every-day this poem is while still using images and words wisely. Love the use of details and, having had a very dear cat, this speaks to me even more (ironically, I used to tell her about my unrequited loves and sing to her,. haha, which is pro'lly why she bit me). Anyway, I digress. I like how the title relates to the poem. The Romeo&Juliet reference is overdone and cliche, but you do something new with it - firstly, you take Romeo out of the poem.... The use of "boyfriend" really de-idealizes the concept, and that, I feel, makes this poem so raw and real, and I like how not mentioning the name "Romeo" really shows loneliness, in a creative way. The arms like a helicopter bit is a very daring, expressive simile, I wish I had thought of that. And the looks couplet... so relatable for so many, and yet so nicely penned, I love that. The second to last verse sounds like the climax of this poem and, with that idea in mind, I think you really have a lot of suspense going on in there. The green eyes that tell you everything idea is very neat with the symbolism of color green and the silence that speaks, I love it but feel the wording is a bit awkward there. Firstly, this is such a short poem and your repetition of looks & look sounds rather careless. "told me everything" is an extremely strong phrase that I love, but I find the sentence grammatically hard to follow. I also think the phrase would be even more of a punch separated from the rest of the couplet. And the break of structure too could say a lot. Just my thoughts, I hope these helped, and I really love this like I said

    ~Diana


    • Sailor Ptolema silver member
      July 4
      Edit | Reply
      wow!!
      thank you so much!!!! I'm so flattered that you liked it that much!
      and my cat's name is Juliet, I call her Jules for short . And she does have green eyes. But.....I did insert her name in the title for precisely the purpose you talk about ...So, I'm glad that you picked up on that !!!!!!!

      ....I was beginning to wonder if anyone would catch it .

      Also, I made some minor edits, I'm very grateful for you suggestions! I think that it flows better now

      one again..Thanks!!!

  • hoodoolover silver member
    July 4

    Edit | Reply
    Excellent work, although this makes me feel sad about the dialogue you had with your cat, it's written very well, as this is a difficult challenge.


    • Sailor Ptolema silver member
      July 4
      Edit | Reply
      haha thanks, although, I do talk to my cat .... I don't have conversations like this...it's based more of a friend of mine.
  • Nicole Hanna
    July 4
    Edit | Reply
    Thank you Jesus, for this. You have no idea. I was already losing hope. lol

    • Sailor Ptolema silver member
      July 4
      Edit | Reply
      hahahhaahhaah It wasn't that hard

      it was fun. I never write like this. So, thanks for putting up a cool contest
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